A few hours ago, Martha Coakley, the Democratic candidate for Ted Kennedy's former Senate seat, made a concession speech to her Republican opponent, Scott Brown. Frankly, I didn't pay much attention to the race, and it would be a lie if I claimed I cared who won the election. That said, the Democrats' loss in Massachusetts may doom the pending healthcare legislation wending its way through Congress. Neither the Senate nor the House version of the bill is perfect, but the effort merits at least a passing endorsement. And it's unfortunate that Ms. Coakley's loss will deprive the Democrats the filibuster-proof majority in the Senate they may well need to pass the healthcare reform package.

But this political predicament underscores a more fundamental problem. It shouldn't be necessary for the Democrats or the Republicans to have a filibuster-proof majority in the first place in order to pass important legislation. In the first place, President Obama came into office with something of a mandate. Hence, it seems to me that the GOP should respect the public's implicit support for a healthcare reform package reflected in Mr. Obama's win. In the second place, it strikes me as absurd to even imagine that each and every Republican Senator has such strong objections to the current healthcare reform push that they cannot possibly vote for it. The situation wreaks of petty politics.

By the same token, it was equally unreasonable for the Democrats to use the filibuster (or threat of a filibuster) to block Bush-era judicial nominees. While I would have appreciated a Kerry win in 2004, or a Gore victory in 2000, the voters elected Mr. Bush and his policies. The Democrats' maneuvering was petty, and came at the expense of the government dealing with more pressing problems.

I would hardly call myself a huge fan of government. But I do believe the government has an important role. It is an institution uniquely placed to help society confront big problems. Yet, at least in my lifetime, it seems the government cannot fulfill this role. It has been corrupted by the sort of petty politics that made the outcome of this one election so unnecessarily important.