By: John Bresnahan

Senate Democrats hope Barack Obama will lead them to a 60-seat, filibuster-proof majority in November. But it may be a case of “be careful what you wish for.”

As some Democrats are quietly acknowledging, sweeping Democratic victories in the fall would put the party under enormous pressure to make good on its promises to end the Iraq war, turn back global warming, provide universal health care, reduce the price of gas, and protect Social Security and Medicare — or to suffer the consequences of failing.

If past is prologue, Democrats have reason to worry.

No single party has held the White House, the House and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate since the mid-1970s, when Jimmy Carter and a slew of Democrats took office after Watergate. The Democrats failed to come together to move on legislation to turn the economy around. In 1980, they lost the White House to Ronald Reagan and the Senate to the Republicans.

Already, Democrats are feeling some of the pain of failed promises. They won control of the House and the Senate in 2006 in large part based on promises to end the war in Iraq. They haven’t been able to deliver, and Congress is now down to single digits in a recent public opinion poll. Democrats note that Republicans seem to be getting most of the blame, but there would be no such luxury in a Washington controlled completely by the Democratic Party.

“We have some recent experience with this,” said a top Democratic strategist. “We know what it means to fail to live up to our promises. It is a danger of a pure Democratic majority next year.”

Democratic leaders aren’t eager to talk publicly about life with a 60-vote Senate majority.

As chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Sen. Charles Schumer of New York is the man most responsible for making 60 happen. But Schumer recently waved off a reporter who asked what a 60-seat Democratic majority would mean.

Democrats who have been there before say that party unity and discipline can be harder to achieve with a super-majority, as senators who might stay in line in a one- or two-seat majority suddenly find that their votes are more in play in a large majority.

“When you do have a working majority, then a new element comes about — some person or persons within our ranks realizes that their one vote will just frustrate us,” said Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), who was first elected to the Senate in 1962 and served in the big Democratic majorities of the 1960s and 1970s.

“It’s a double-edged sword,” added Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), first elected in 1972. “One, the good thing, if you’re close to [60], it is easier in my experience to peel off two or three people to join you. The other thing, when you have a majority of just one, it is hard to keep internal discipline, because you’ve always got a couple people saying, ‘For my purposes back home, you’ve got to let me off this vote.’

“Even if you had 60, you would still have people saying, ‘I gotta be let off this vote.’ In some ways, it’s even harder.”

Although the ideological divides between moderate and liberal Democrats may not be as great as they once were, those divisions still exist. On issues such as abortion, immigration, guns, taxes and spending — even Iraq — centrist Democrats are not always comfortable with the positions espoused by their colleagues from safer East Coast and West Coast seats.

“In those earlier Democratic majorities, … they were divided among themselves between the Southern conservatives and the more progressive members from other parts of the country, especially in the ’60s,” said Senate Historian Richard Baker. “It was very difficult for party leaders to lay down a party line, and they didn’t.”

Some Democratic insiders even speculate privately that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who is up for reelection in 2010, may be better off politically if Democrats don’t reach the 60-seat threshold.

“We really don’t want 60,” said a senior Senate Democratic aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “We want 57 or 58. It would be better for Reid — better for Democrats — in some ways. Then you can turn some Republicans on certain [bills] and make it bipartisan.”

A more likely outcome, with Democrats picking up a half-dozen seats, would make GOP moderates such as Sens. Olympia Snowe of Maine and Gordon Smith of Oregon, who is up for reelection this year, even more critical to Democrats in the 111th Congress.

Despite the growing euphoria in Senate Democratic circles about the 2008 elections, the party also faces a more difficult election cycle in 2010, with a number of swing-state senators up for reelection. In addition to Reid, who says he is running again, Democratic Sens. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Ken Salazar of Colorado and Blanche L. Lincoln of Arkansas are up, as well. Democrats could also find themselves defending an Illinois seat vacated by Obama if he wins the presidency, and the potential for unexpected races is always there in a body with so many older members.

“Even if you get 60, you are still going to have Republicans to support legislation because not every Democrat will be locked in,” said Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), a moderate. “If you have a lurch to the left, that probably spells danger for the next election cycle, just as it has when the other side has had a super-majority and moves [the Senate] to the right. This is not a place that tolerates lurches.”

Reid also faces a potentially tricky situation with Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.). Lieberman caucuses with Democrats and supports Reid for majority leader. In turn, Lieberman holds the gavel at the Governmental Affairs Committee by virtue of his position within the Democratic Caucus.

Lieberman, though, has infuriated the Netroots and Democratic activists with his support for Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign. Reid has declined to countenance any discussion of removing Lieberman from his chairmanship, but a Lieberman appearance at the GOP convention in Minnesota might prove to be too much. If Reid were to take away Lieberman’s gavel, Lieberman could respond by crossing the aisle to sit with Republicans, potentially endangering a new filibuster-proof majority.

But the specter of intraparty battles doesn’t concern some Democrats, who dream of such a majority to push through their own legislative priorities after years of seeing Senate Republicans and President Bush filibuster or veto them.

“These are what we call the problems of success, which are a lot better than the problems of failure,” said Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, a conservative Democrat. “Look, there are always going to be disagreements, but I do think the chances of breaking gridlock and getting some significant things done would be substantially improved, because the differences in our caucus would not be nearly so great as the partisan gulf that separates the two” parties.

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