The classic example of game theory is the prisoner's dilemma. Basically, you have two criminals that were involved in a crime and they are separated into two rooms for interrogation. Each is told, if you cooperate and your partner does not, we will give you immunity and you'll go free. If both of you cooperate, you'll both get 3 years in prison. If neither of you cooperate, you'll both go free. However, if you don't cooperate and your partner does, you will get 20 years in prison, and he will go free. The specific numbers are changeable, but you get the basic idea.
This is what we've had on the filibuster battle, its just basic game theory. If the vote went forward, there were two results.
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First, the Republicans could win, this would put in the ten or so stalled judges. Furthermore, this would serve as a blessing to nominate whoever the hell they wanted for the foreseeable future. The Democrats would be impotent in the nomination process until either the Presidency or the Senate changed hands. Even worse, it would open up the possibility to destroy the filibuster on legislative issues; we would have two Houses.
The other option is that the Democrats win the vote. The right is dealt a crushing loss, all the judges go down in flames. The Christian Right completely abandons the party and stays home during the next election, as they have been threatening to do. Yet, the question remains, how feasible is this outcome?
What happened here is that both sides wound up compromising. They got a few of their fundamentalist knuckle draggers in, we kicked a few more of them to the curb. Most importantly, we have reserved the use of the filibuster for the Supreme Court battle that will likely take place. On top of it all, Republicans urged the President to run nominations by the Democratic leadership before tossing them into the committee. This is a victory; we should be able to rid ourselves of truly nightmarish judges by this process alone.
There is a tendency among the far right, and it appears again today, to paint themselves as the victims of elitist liberals, and victims of everything that doesn't go perfectly in their lives. Today, I see that same crybaby tone among many of the liberals. Here are the facts:
1.) We have no idea whether we would have won or not. Statements such as Lindsay Graham saying that push came to shove he would have voted with the R's but felt bad about it does not breed confidence that we would have won. If you don't know, you can't risk it, not on something this important.
2.) The far left and the far right are both pissed, this leads me to think without even looking at any of the other facts that both sides actually compromised. No one won big, but no one got righteously fucked either.
3.) We are the minority, and we are the minority by a lot. Without the hard work of our Democratic leaders, interest groups and each person who called, wrote, or emailed a congressional office, we would have been bulldozed.
4.) Most importantly, we have put 3 bad judges on the bench. There are currently 1286 sitting judges. Now we know that exactly .23% of the judges are really shitty. If we would have lost the vote, that could have been much higher. We have preserved the filibuster for the Supreme Court, the really important battle, the battle for the judges that could overturn a bad decision by this .23% of shitty judges.
This is a victory. We have come from 10 seats down to salvage some victory. This is shooting par after bogeying the first 9 holes. As long as we do not have any branch of government, we are not going to win big on many issues, especially not one so high profile. We must win elections and take our message to the people. Is it a perfect victory? No. But the odds were against us and we salvaged a tie, and I for one am god damned happy about that.