When it comes to elections, t's not about how many people in the United States consider themselves as Democrats or Republicans. It's about how enthusiastic they are. Polls show that Republicans are much more enthusiastic about the upcoming midterm elections right now. If people of a certain political party are more enthusiastic about elections, they are more likely to show up to vote. That is not a good sign. And, the enthusiasm gap between the Democrats and the Republicans is huge according to Gallup.

I like DA User's optimism, but it is not good to be so detached from reality.

It will really depend on these moderate and/or retiring Republicans. If the Democrats are able to convince them, they might be able to vote for the DREAM Act or the Defense Authorization bill. But, I'm not sure whether they will suddenly change their positions on the Defense Authorization or the DREAM Act. The Democrats will have to satisfy them by allowing the moderate/retiring Republicans to introduce certain amendments. As you saw, the Republicans strongly opposed to Senator Reid's way of dealing with the defense bill. There are two problems to this. One is that there is not enough time. There are many other important bills to consider after the elections. Of course, the defense bill is one of them. We know that Senator Reid tried to attach the DREAM Act to the bill. The Republicans are arguing that the Defense Authorization Bill should not include the DREAM Act. If the Democrats are not that willing to pass the DREAM Act, they might just give up attaching it to the defense bill to avoid the Republican opposition.

So, passing the DREAM Act as a standalone bill might be a better option. But, the other problem is that the Republicans might oppose to do anything other than critical bills like the defense bill. They might say, "Oh. You saw the election results. American people showed their will against your agenda. We won't do anything until next year." In that case, the Democratic leaders might not be willing to introduce it as a standalone bill. Especially, Senator Reid might not be willing to do that if he loses his re-election bid and wants to avoid any large fight with the Republicans.

So, my conclusion is that we should convince Senator Reid and Senator Durbin to strongly convince their moderate/retiring Republican colleagues to vote for the cloture of the defense bill and the attachment of the DREAM Act to it or to vote for the DREAM Act as a standalone bill.