Massachusetts’ election of a Republican know-nothing back-bench State Senator and nude male model as its next US Senator has is a blessing in disguise…and not just to comedy writers looking for material once the NBC late-night fiasco ends.

President Obama and the Democrats lost one Senate seat out of 60 and still have a huge majority.  As I’ve said before, the 60 vote majority has always been a fiction.  As long as Joe Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landieu and Ben Nelson were there, the Democrats had 56 votes against a filibuster of any contested legislation on a good day.  So although it’s a shame to see a liberal replaced by a Palinesque goof, the real-world legislative implications of this election are minimal. 

The real significance is the lesson Democrats must draw from the election if they are to avoid large scale repeats of this little snafu in 2010 and 2012.  Progressives, liberals and new voters who put Obama in the White House in 2008 and drove some Democratic victories in 2006 expect to see Democrats do what they were elected to do.  If the Democratic Party fails to fight for a public health care option, real Wall Street reform, The Employee Free Choice Act, and other measures with teeth, the party’s newly expanded base will sit home.

Many pundits will explain Massachusetts by arguing that Democrats moved “too far left” and must pull back toward the center to win in 2010 and 2012.  But how is passing a big subsidy for insurance companies with no public option “left”?  Was continuing to support TARP  too far left?

How was it leftist to appoint Wall Streeters to the top posts it the administration’s economic team?  And I’m sure those who supported the prosecution of Bush officials who committed war crimes are not thinking Obama is a leftist now that it is apparent Cheney & Co will get off without the slightest Justice Department scrutiny.

Gitmo is still open, Afghanistan is ramping up, and there is no clear end-date on Iraq.  The Assault Weapons Ban is still expired, Wall Street remains unregulated over a year after the collapse, and Obama presented such weak climate change proposals in Copenhagen that the Europeans were appalled.

A leftist agenda this is not.

But its better to lose one Senate seat and draw the correct lesson from it than it is to lose Congress and then the presidency before you figure out hit you.  President Obama and Democrats in Congress have to learn that voters don’t care about bipartisanship or the Senate filibuster.

They care if you do what you said you’d do.  They care if you fight for what you believe in and will even give you credit when they disagree with you if they know you are sincere.   Watering down legislation in order to satisfy the one voter out of 100,000 who cares more that members of both parties supported it than about whether it works alienates the base and does nothing to prevent opponents from attacking you when the watered down legislation fails to do what you intended it to do.

Here’s my advice for Democrats:

Pass legislation that works, not legislation that is watered.

Abolish the filibuster. 

Work around the filibuster if you can’t abolish it. 

And most importantly, do what we elected you to do on the economy, unions, health care, and foreign policy….unless you enjoyed tonight.  In that case, keep the whole Republican-lite thing going.  Otherwise, fight.