But despite Bush’s ouster of Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, we still don’t know if the power shift in Washington will be truly dramatic, or merely significant. Republicans no longer have a lock on Washington. That’s a big deal. But it will be a far bigger deal if the Democrats ultimately win the Senate. They might: the Virginia race looks to be heading into the dreaded land of the recount. In other words, What It All Means is going to take a while to sort out. But while we’re waiting, we can still divine What Some Of It Means, and that’s no small thing. Here are a few things to keep an eye on, and keep in mind.
Republicans Still Walk The Earth
Democrats won big, but in a way, it’s a wonder they didn’t do better. The Republicans gave them a lot to work with: an unpopular war, scandals galore and an economy that looks good on paper but still leaves a lot of people nervous. Yet they came away with only a 27-seat turnover, about half as many seats as the GOP claimed when the House went Republican in 1994. That year, Republicans also decisively took over the Senate, which may or may not happen this time. That’s hardly a rout, or a wholesale repudiation of Republican ideas, as the Dems will have you believe.
In many places, it was certainly a vote against the war, but in several states—including Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, California, North Carolina—voters fired the Republican because he was scandal plagued, not necessarily because citizens were fed up with Republican policies in Iraq or at home.
In fact, in some places Democrats won in part by running away from themselves, shunning candidates from what might be called the party’s old left—and acting more like Republicans. In the House, Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the Illinois Democratic in charge of the effort to take back the House, actively recruited moderate to right-leaning candidates who could put up a fight in Republican districts. Among Democrats, left-leaning candidates are out of fashion in many parts of the country. In Connecticut, Joe Lieberman—forced to run as an independent—crushed anti-war liberal Ned Lamont, even though Lamont beat Lieberman in the primary and slammed him as Bush’s pet. In Pennsylvania, Bob Casey was able to beat Sen. Rick Santorum in part because Casey is pro-life. Former pro quarterback Heath Shuler won in North Carolina by seeming more like a Republican than his GOP opponent. The Heisman trophy winner is pro-gun, pro-life, anti gay marriage and tough on immigration.
There was plenty of chatter last night about how the election marked the end of the Rove strategy of tapping the power of evangelicals and other “Values voters.” Don’t count on it. Take a look at the anti-gay marriage ballot initiatives that several states put up for a vote. Late last week, Virginia Republicans believed their ban on gay unions would pass only by a narrow margin. Nationwide, the GOP feared the Foley and Haggard sex scandals would suppress evangelical turnout. But now, it looks as though the Virginia measure passed with about 58 percent of the vote. The early exit polling showed that evangelicals made up a sizeable portion of that. The same is true in other states. Bans on same sex unions of one kind or another in South Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Idaho, Colorado and Wisconsin.
It’s All About Putting Bush On The Spot
Assume for a moment that the Dems don’t ultimately win the Senate. What real power would they have? Not much, at least in the way of pushing through legislation. The Senate can always snub their offerings and even if the Democrats manage to patch together a compromise, the president could also slap them down with a veto. Unless, of course, the Dems push issues that are popular with Americans but unpopular with most Republicans. Which is precisely what you can expect them to do. During the campaign, now-incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi talked up the Dems’ agenda, a thin document she titled Six For ‘06. It outlined, in the broadest, vaguest strokes possible, what the Democrats intended to do—make healthcare better, make education better, make the war in Iraq better. One of the things she vowed to pass in her first few hours, though, was fairly concrete: A minimum wage hike. The Republicans have always opposed it, saying it strains small business. But polls show Americans want one. Watch for House Democrats to pass it quickly once they take over in January. Senate Democrats—assuming they’re still in the minority—will then try to pick up just enough moderate Republicans to go along, and then essentially dare Bush to veto it. You can expect to see the same sort of plan with student loans and prescription drug reform. Of course, if the Senate swings Democrat, it will be easier for them to force Bush’s hand.
No, It’s All About Putting Bush In The Dock
The real power the Dems now have—and the one many of them covet most—is the power to investigate. With control of the House they also get control of all the committees, and that means they set the agenda not only on legislation, but on what gets looked into. And the Democrats have been waiting six long years to do that. The party may have moved to the center to gain new seats, but many of the incoming committee chairmen are from the older, more liberal wing. Old timers like John Conyers, Henry Waxman, John Dingell, and Charlie Rangel know what it’s like to wield a gavel. They all occupied powerful committee posts before the Republicans took over in 1994 and banished them to clout Siberia. Ever since, they’ve had little more than the power to complain. They’re planning to make up for lost time. Pelosi has tried to keep a firm hand on investigation mania, telling members that she’s in charge and doesn’t want the party to go too far with subpoenas. She was especially tough with Conyers, who was whispering a little too loudly about the possibility of calling impeachment hearings against Bush.
Pelosi put that to rest, but look for plenty of investigations, and plenty of congressional hearings with Republicans sweating under the hot lights—this time under oath. Waxman, an always-outraged Californian in line to head the Government Reform Committee, plans to look at Halliburton and contract abuses in Iraq. Camera loving Rangel of New York will likely take over Ways and Means, and will go after the Bush tax cuts. Conyers of Michigan will call hearings on the Patriot Act and domestic wiretapping. “When the Clinton administration was in office, there was no accusation too small for the Republicans to rush out the subpoenas,” Waxman told NEWSWEEK a few weeks before the election. “When Bush became president, there wasn’t a scandal big enough for them to ignore.”
No, No, No. It’s All About 2008
Of course, there’s a danger if the investigations run amuck, or if the Democrats go too far in trying to embarrass the president. Their ultimate goal is to position the party for the 2008 presidential campaign. The last thing they want is to come off as hearings-crazy or to spend too much time slamming Bush and the Republicans. They have to look like poised leaders, not petty backbenchers. And since they ran as moderates—and conservatives in some places—Pelosi will have to keep her committee chairmen from dragging the party too far afield.
Especially when it comes to Iraq. In that way, Democrats had it easy when Republicans ran the show. All they had to do was blame them. The Dems managed to run the entire campaign—and win—simply by shaking their heads at Bush’s handling of the war, without offering any alternative of their own. The party’s opaque talking point on Iraq, repeated by nearly every candidate, was that the Dems would “do it better,” and insist on “redeployment.” In other words, they’re clueless. But now that they’ve got control of at least one half of the Capitol, they’ll be under pressure to explain just what they’ll do to make the situation “better,” and what “deployment” means. If they win the Senate too, that pressure will be even greater. Just continuing to blame the Republicans isn’t going to cut it.
Help may be on the way. Both parties are hoping and praying that answers are coming soon from James Baker and Lee Hamilton, the heads of the Iraq Study Group. They’re set to release their findings in the coming weeks. They may not agree on much, but Democratic and Republican are counting on the commission’s conclusions to help chart the way out of Iraq with the least bloodshed, national embarrassment and career damage. In the rest of the world, they call that covering your tail. In Washington, they call it bipartisanship.
