These days the chattering classes often converse about how the Democrats can get their base charged up and working for the fall elections. For example, Greg Sargent at the Plum Line blog says:

”As you know, over the weekend Robert Gibbs dropped a political bomb, saying that Republicans just may take back the House. His comments are being widely interpreted as an urgent warning designed to get rank and file Dems to grasp the stakes of the midterms once and for all.

”But here’s the question: Will rank and file Democrats care? The thinking among Dem strategists appears to be that once Dems realize the midterms are a “choice” election, rather than merely a referendum on Dems, they’ll go out and vote. But what if Dems do see this as a referendum on their party’s rule, and base their enthusiasm solely on whether they are energized by the Dem performance?”

Almost 9 months ago I wrote my first post calling for an end to the filibuster. Since then I’ve written many that have advocated ending it, all linked from this page. As the months have gone by, and apparently due to the obvious damage the institution of the filibuster has done to pending health care reform, legislation, more and more people have added their voices to the call to end it, Chris Bowers, Jon Walker, and Ezra Klein among them. I’m glad to have the company, and having it persuades me that there’s a reason to update my original post on the public, and to present the case I made there once again. So, here goes.