A follow-up on filibusters: McClatchy has a nice article and chart detailing the growth of filibusters as a tactic over the last couple of years.
In many ways this is a shoe-on-the-other-foot situation, but what I find interesting is that it seems to me that Republican senators considered to be moderate have been more willing to stick with the party line than Democratic senators considered to be conservative were during the 2002-2006 period. That could be a superficial impression based on my ideological perspective, and I’m not making a value judgment about whether or not party discipline is inherently good or not. But I do wonder if the cultures of the two parties means that sometimes they choose to play by different rules. And I wonder how voters will feel about that next year.