US election: OK, here's all you need to know (in 11 articles)

1. A Hint of Possibility in the Air -- by Garrison Keillor/Chicago Tribune

So now we have thrown some rascals out and left some rascals in power and sent some new folks to Washington to learn the art of rascality, and what in the end, after all the hoopla, will really change? Or will the town drunk continue to run the municipal liquor store?

Perhaps there will be some rational debate on the war. The voters have said they don't want the 30 Years War that Vice President Dick Cheney envisions, so it's time for him and his friend to start making other arrangements. This happens all the time in the real world. If you can't accomplish the mission, then you accept it and find a graceful way out.

The health insurance crisis may be addressed, and the crippled behemoth that is Homeland Security. And surely Congress will rediscover the use of the subpoena and require public servants to account for themselves under oath. This would be a novelty. After six years of ingenious spin, we could get a history lesson while we're still young enough to profit from it.

People still care deeply about our government, despite every invitation to disillusionment. This is the astonishment. For my generation, the first big blow was the failure of Washington to get to the truth about the assassination of John F. Kennedy and then its inability to change a disastrous course in Vietnam. You stand at the majestic polished wall with the 57,000 names on it, and you look across the river to Arlington, and here, within one mile, are two enormous aching sorrows, and a mile behind you is the U.S. Supreme Court, which threw the election of 2000. Some people killed our president and got away with it; men were shipped off to die in a lousy war promulgated by Democrats afraid to be called weak on communism; and an election was stolen, no protest. And yet we still stroll down to the church and cast our ballots. We live on hope.

Forty years ago I drove to Baltimore for a friend's wedding and then, on a powerful urge, veered off toward Washington. It was night. I drove through a confusing grid of diagonals and circles, saw the great dome illuminated, drove up to it and parked and walked in. You could do that then. A few cops stood around, and you strolled past them and into the rotunda, and stood dazed and humbled in this space where great men had moved. The tragedy of secession was played out in these halls, and the New Deal was launched, and FDR was carried up here after Pearl Harbor to declare World War II, after which wise men designed the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe and the GI Bill of Rights that built an American middle class.

It has been a long time since we had reason to be proud of these people, though they are essentially the same people as those who accomplished great things. So what's wrong?

One problem with Congress is that 90 percent of it is ceremonial and so little has to do with elucidation. The Honorable meets with representatives of the American Beer Can Association, the Swizzle Stick Foundation, the League of Tutu Manufacturers, and poses for photos and listens to their pitches, and then goes to the floor and proclaims Eugene P. Fenstermaker Day, and then to a subcommittee hearing to read a two-page statement praising the arts as a triumphant manifestation of the human spirit, and then back to the office to welcome 10 fat men in beanies and the 4-Hers from Hooperville, then off to the banquet of the American Ferret Federation, and seldom during the day is the Honorable ever challenged or questioned or asked to listen to anything that wasn't vetted and paid for. The Great Personage is either regarded with servile deference or heartily abused by bloggers. This is not a good life for an inquiring mind.

You meet congressmen in private and they're perfectly thoughtful and well-spoken people, nothing like the raging idiots they impersonate in campaign ads, and you think, maybe Congress needs more privacy. Send them off on unchaperoned trips to see the world firsthand. More closed-door caucuses where they can say what they think without worrying that one stray phrase may kill them.

Or maybe Congress simply needed more Democrats. We are a civil bunch, owing to our contentious upbringings. With a smart, well-spoken woman for speaker instead of that lumbering, mumbling galoot who covered for the Current Occupant, perhaps life will get more interesting. Maybe they'll do something good. It's possible.

(Garrison Keillor is an author and host of "A Prairie Home Companion.")


2. Voter Rebuke For Bush, the War And the Right -- by Peter Baker and Jim VandeHei/Washington Post

The political pendulum in American politics swung away from the right yesterday, putting an end to the 12-year Republican Revolution on Capitol Hill and delivering a sharp rebuke of President Bush and the Iraq war.

The GOP reign in the House that began with Newt Gingrich in a burst of vision and confrontation in 1994 came crashing down amid voter disaffection with congressional corruption. The collapse of one-party rule in Washington will transform Bush's final two years in office and challenge Democrats to make the leap from angry opposition to partners in power.

How far the balance shifts to the left remains to be seen. The passion of the antiwar movement helped propel party activists in this election year, and the House leadership under the likely new speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), hails from the party's liberal wing. But the Democrats’victory was built on the back of more centrist candidates seizing Republican-leaning districts, and Pelosi emphasized that she will try to lead without becoming the ideological mirror of Gingrich.

"We have learned from watching the Republicans -- they would not allow moderates a voice in their party," Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said in an interview as he waited to see if Democrats would take control of the upper chamber as well. "We must work from the middle."

The Democrats’return to power in at least one house and gains in the other mean Bush will almost certainly face powerful pressure to reassess his Iraq policy -- not just from Democrats but from within his own party. Even many Republicans hanging on last night emerged from a bruising election restive and looking for a fresh direction.

By the end of the campaign, Republicans were airing ads distancing themselves from Bush's wartime leadership, and the president himself abandoned the phrase "stay the course." The White House is placing hope on a study group headed by former secretary of state James A. Baker III, a longtime Bush family intimate, to offer a new approach to the war. Yet Vice President Cheney laid down a marker last week, saying "it doesn't matter" if the war is unpopular and vowing to continue "full speed ahead."

During a victory speech last night, Pelosi made clear that would not suffice: "We cannot continue down this catastrophic path. And so we say to the president, 'Mr. President, we need a new direction in Iraq. Let us work together to find a solution to the war in Iraq.’"

The results represented the first defeat at the polls for Bush politics since he came to power after the 2000 presidential election ended with a recount battle. In back-to-back elections after that, he defied conventional wisdom to pull out victories, tapping into a strain of anxiety that has flavored the national electorate since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Bush and senior adviser Karl Rove tried to replicate that strategy this fall, hoping to keep the election from becoming a referendum on the president's leadership and instead make it a choice between two parties with different governing philosophies. "One thing that's true is this will have been a referendum election," said Gary Jacobson, a political science professor at the University of California at San Diego.

Overall, 59 percent of voters surveyed in a news media consortium series of exit polls yesterday expressed dissatisfaction or anger with the Bush administration; 36 percent said they cast their vote to express opposition to Bush, compared with 22 percent who were voting to support him. Fifty-six percent of voters support withdrawing some or all U.S. troops from Iraq, which will embolden Democrats pushing for a pullout.

Corruption proved to be a more potent issue than it had appeared even weeks ago. After 12 years in control, the Republicans who took power with Gingrich promising to sweep out a calcified and ethically bankrupt Democratic leadership found themselves perceived as becoming what they had tried to expunge. Exit polls found 41 percent of voters rated corruption "extremely important" to their decision.

"What you saw was the voters speak out very loudly on the way Congress conducted itself," said Rep. Eric I. Cantor (R-Va.). "We really have to take stock of where we are and we have to go about doing things different." Cantor said this includes a renewed emphasis on fiscal discipline and ethics reform.

"Republicans should have been more diligent in locating instances of individual corruption and handled those appropriately," said former representative Vin Weber (R-Minn.), an adviser to GOP leaders and the White House. "We did not need to lose all those seats."

The loss provoked the start of what could be a painful period of self-examination among Republicans eager to find answers, or place blame. With moderates in the Northeast falling, the Republican conference will grow more conservative. Some said they expect Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (Ill.) to step aside as party leader after the fallout from the page scandal and a new younger generation vowing to return to the promise and principles of the Gingrich revolution hopes to take the reins. Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), one of several younger conservatives who has lashed out at his party's veering from core fiscal and social principles, is planning to run for leadership.

"It's not an affirmation of a Democratic agenda; I think that's clear, because they didn't offer one," said John Weaver, a strategist for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). "It's about how we as Republicans set aside our principles to try to stay in power. We decided to try to spend money like Democrats, we decided not to reform or tackle big issues. And at the end of the day, the American voters said, 'Enough is enough.’"

The complexion of the Democratic presence in Congress will change as well. Party politics will be shaped by the resurgence of "Blue Dog" Democrats, who come mainly from the South and from rural districts in the Midwest and often vote like Republicans. Top Democrats such as Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) see these middle-of-the-road lawmakers as the future of the party in a nation that leans slightly right of center.

In private talks before the election, Emanuel and other top Democrats told their members they cannot allow the party's liberal wing to dominate the agenda next year. Democrats will hold 30 or 35 seats that went for Bush in the past, meaning that Democratic candidates such as Brad Ellsworth in rural Indiana are likely to face competitive races again in 2008. Still, their interests are likely to collide with those of veteran liberals such as Reps. Henry A. Waxman (Calif.) and John Conyers Jr., (Mich.), who will chair committees.

With that in mind, there is a chance the 110th Congress could begin on a bipartisan note. Democrats have vowed to move quickly to tighten ethics laws and require offsets for new spending -- two plans many Republicans will probably support in light of yesterday's results. Democrats also plan to push next year to raise the minimum wage, increase spending for cargo inspection at ports and reduce rates on student loans, all issues likely to draw some GOP support.

Partisan standoffs are likely over the war and any Democratic efforts to repeal Bush's tax cuts for upper-income America. In both cases, Democratic divisions could complicate Pelosi's plans. Democrats largely avoided detailed positions on a new Iraq strategy, but votes over spending for the military and the Iraq operation will force them to take a position.

At the center of all this will be Bush, who enters the final phase of his presidency with an opposition House and the sting of a campaign in which he was deemed to be an albatross. Bush arrived at Election Day with a lower approval rating than any other president in a midterm since Harry S. Truman in 1946. Aides took some consolation that the losses approximated the average for the sixth year of a two-term presidency.

For weeks, the White House maintained it was doing no contingency planning in case of Democratic gains. But Bush advisers are mapping out an agenda for his final two years that would include legislation that might win bipartisan support, such as extending and expanding the No Child Left Behind education program and creating a guest-worker program for illegal immigrants. Other priorities, such as adding investment accounts to Social Security, would seem virtually impossible in a Democratic House.

As the election approached, the White House said it would not trim its sails no matter who won. But as they absorbed the losses last night, Bush aides said he will return to his style of governance in Texas, when he forged a strong working relationship with a legislature led by conservative Democrats. "Obviously, we are disappointed with what happened in the House," said White House counselor Dan Bartlett. Bush, he added, will reach out to Democrats at a news conference today. "He will do his part."


3. Bush Shows He Can Turn on a Dime -- by Michael Abramowitz/Washington Post

For five years, ever since the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush has pursued the war in Iraq, his legislative agenda and his policies for fighting terrorism with a single-mindedness that inspired admiration among the Republican faithful -- and, if the election results are an accurate gauge, increasing consternation among the American public.

This afternoon, Bush showed that he could turn on a dime if necessary: Bush ousted Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld only a week after telling reporters he would stay through the end of the administration. And he voiced great willingness to work with Democrats on Capitol Hill, following an election campaign in which he regularly impugned the opposition for policies he said could weaken America and lead to the victory of terrorists.

Ever since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Bush has governed largely from the right, challenging the Democrats to support his proposals on terrorism and other matters -- or risk retribution at the polls. Until yesterday, he has thrived politically, defying predictions that the GOP would lose seats in the 2002 midterms and securing his own reelection two years later by a tremendous drive to galvanize grassroots Republican voters.

The strategy came up short for the first time yesterday, as Democrats picked up more than two dozen House seats, gaining the majority for the first time in 12 years, and seemed close to securing control of the Senate. Voters seemed to ignore the president's explicit warning that they would risk the country's safety and economic prosperity by giving power to the Democrats.

Now Bush must govern without his base in the House, which has been the driving force for much of his agenda on Medicare, energy, terrorism and taxes: GOP leaders had muscled through one Bush proposal after another, often with only a handful of votes to spare.

As former Presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan demonstrated, split government can be an opportunity for a clever president: Clinton successfully used then-GOP speaker Newt Gingrich as a foil to present himself as a centrist, while he also secured a major overhaul of the welfare system and a balanced-budget agreement that was seen as keeping the economic prosperity of the 1990s going. Reagan achieved the last major overhaul of the tax code working with a Democratic House in 1986.

And while Democrats don't necessarily like to admit it, Bush does have a pre-9/11 track record -- both as Texas governor and in his first year as president -- of reaching across the aisle for agreements on education and taxes. He has spoken of his desire to launch a new bi-partisan effort to rein in the costs of Social Security and Medicare, and he has deputized his new Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., to sound out Hill Democrats about this possibility.

But as of this morning, it remained uncertain whether Bush would fully embrace this model -- and whether he could even be successful were he to try. White House aides have been privately frank in their frustration over what they see as relentless obstructionism by congressional Democrats, who in turn see the president as not sincere in his overtures.

The mid-term election campaigns may have only exacerbated this divide. In the last days of the campaign, Bush repeatedly cast sharp aspersions on the very proposition that the opposition can govern responsibly -- suggesting at one point that terrorists would "win" if Democratic policies were put in place -- and Democrats have used their own harsh rhetoric to characterize the president. Bush may ultimately decide that the best course would be to govern aggressively from the right, as some in his party advocate, accept that little would get done legislatively -- and set up contrasts for the party's presidential nominee to exploit in 2008.

Democrats will have their own internal debates to resolve. The party's liberal base is hungry to extract retribution from a president many believe has governed lawlessly and incompetently, yet the Democrats’electoral success yesterday hinged at least partly on the ability to make some inroads with more moderate, even conservative, candidates. Many Democratic lawmakers have signed on to a vague plan for a phased withdrawal from Iraq, but the party remains divided between a base eager to get out soon and a foreign policy establishment that sees a precipitous withdrawal as potentially damaging to both the country's and the party's interests.

One thing that seems certain is that the leadership of the Democratic Party sees value in trying to present a moderate image to voters, at least for now. In their comments last night and this morning, party leaders made clear that they have studied and learned from what they see as the bitter lessons that flowed from Republican over-reaching following the GOP's smashing victories in the 1994 mid-term elections.

Virtually every comment from party leaders suggested a belief that Americans are tired of partisan bickering. "We extend our hand of friendship, fellowship and partnership to the Republicans," Senate Democratic leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) told a victory rally last night. "The only way we can accomplish anything in the Congress is by working in a bipartisan basis."

Whether he and other leading Democrats truly believe in this approach after years of partisan warfare -- and whether President Bush grasps an extended hand -- will be the story of Washington for the next several months.


4. What does it Mean for Iraq? – Juan Cole/juancole.com

The fourth popular revolution of the twenty-first century (after the Ukraine, Lebanon and Kyrgyzstan) swept America on Tuesday, as voters engaged in the moral equivalent of storming the Bastille. The United States of America has roundly repudiated the Bush Administration and Republican Party dominance of all three branches of the Federal government and its dominance of many state offices, as well. Corruption and war drove this slap in the face to the Old Regime crafted by Newt Gingrich and Traitor Rove.

The Democrats have control of the House of Representatives as I write early Wednesday morning, with a gain of perhaps as much as 30 seats. They don't appear to have lost any seats. Indeed, Democratic incumbents won in other sorts of contests, as well-- governors, state legislators, etc. The mood of the electorate was not to punish incumbents. It was to throw out the rascals.

I think the Democrats will take the Senate. CNN is calling 2 Senate races too close to call, but Webb announced that he had won in Virginia, and his margin later that night went on up to 11,000. That might be enough to forestall a recount. Montana will determine the outcome.

Bill Bennett opined that the Democrats had actually not done that well, since the party out of power often picks up 35 seats in the second midterm of a two-term president. Bennett, as usual, is being dishonest. In fact, this was not an ordinary election but rather came at the end of 14 years of low blows and dirty tricks. The Republicans had tried very hard to have a permanent majority, using ruses such as state gerrymandering (e.g. Texas) and convincing Republican House members who were thinking of retiring to serve one more term so as not to risk having the open seat go to the Dems. Tom Delay's K-Street Project even envisioned depriving the Democrats forever of big lobbying money. The impeachment of Clinton was a cynical misuse of the Republican majority aimed at permanently wounding the Democrats. The Dems did not impeach Reagan for stealing Pentagon weapons, selling them to Khomeini, and using the black money to fund death squads in Central America! The deployment of a Republican Supreme Court to gain the White House in 2000 was typical of the new end run around popular sovereignty perfected by the party hacks in Washington. Given the giant berms the Republicans had built against any Democratic rebound, and the viciousness with which raptors like Delay, Weldon, Rove and Abramoff went for the soft underbelly of the democratic system, it is an irridescent miracle that the Democrats have taken the House.

In my view the real significance of the Democratic victory is four-fold.

First, it demonstrates once again that the American public simply will not put up with a return to the age of colonialism and does not want to occupy Asian countries militarily. Do you think that Abu Ghraib and American torture-pornography, the daily grind of violence, the stupid mistakes, have passed them by so that they didn't notice? They might swallow all this reluctantly but they want light at the end of the tunnel. There is not any in Iraq. They want it over with. It isn't.

Second, Bush is not going to be able to put any more Scalia types on the Federal benches or the Supreme Court.

Third, a Bush administration war on Iran now seems highly unlikely. A major initiative of that sort would need funding, and I don't think Congress will grant it. The Democrats don't want an Iran with a nuclear weapon any more than the Republicans do. But they are more likely to recognize that there is no good evidence that Iran even has a nuclear weapons program, and have been chastened by Iraq enough to distrust purely military solutions to such crises.

Fourth, there will now finally be accountability. It is obvious to me that the Bush administration has been engaged in large-scale crimes and corruption, and has gotten away with it because the Republican heads of the relevant committees have refused to investigate these crimes. Democratic committee heads with subpoena power will finally be able to force the Pentagon and other institutions to fork over the smoking gun documents, and then will be in a position to prosecute.

Here is the sort of corruption, exemplified by Curt Weldon, that was going on in the Old Regime :

‘Weldon himself was a key promoter of Finmeccanica for the Marine One contract, which has been widely reported as a payoff for Italy's support of Bush's Iraq policy. Italy provided what have now been proved to be forged documents that ostensibly showed Saddam Hussein attempted to acquire uranium ore from Niger -- a claim that President Bush leaned upon in his 2003 State of the Union address preparing for pre-emptive war. Italian defense groups have since become partners with the United States in the sale of American warfare technology to sensitive and controversial countries such as Israel, Libya, Iran and republics of the former Eastern Bloc.

During the months leading up to Finmeccanica's surprising capture of the Marine One contract, consulting money flowed to Cecelia "Cece" Grimes, Weldon's real estate agent who calls herself "a longtime family friend." According to disclosure records, Rep. Weldon's chief of staff made a $14,400 trip to Rome, Bari, Genoa and Milan with his wife. This and an $8,200 Italian trip by another Weldon staffer were covered by Fincantieri, an Italian ship maker fully owned by Finmeccanica. ‘


Note to John Dingell: Weldon's nexus of the Niger forgeries, Italian military intelligence, a sweet contract for the Italian military-industrial complex, and sinister contacts with shadowy figures from the Iran-contra scandal with a view toward getting up a war on Iran-- this deserves investigation as much as anything Bush and his cabinet have done.

The Democratic victory has enormous implications for US domestic politics. There will likely be an increase in the minimum wage, e.g. And the creeping tyranny of the evangelical far right has been slowed; even a lot of evangelicals seem uncomfortable with where that was going, and a lot of them deserted the Republicans in this election.

What are its implications for Iraq policy? Those are fewer, just because the executive makes foreign policy. Congress can only intervene decisively by cutting off money for foreign military adventures, which the Democrats have already pledged not to do. Moreover, the Iraq morass is a hopeless case and even if the legislature had more to say about policy there, it is not as if there are any good options.

One downside is that some Democrats campaigned on a platform of dividing Iraq into three ethnic provinces under a weak federal government, an idea they got from Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. I don't think they will be in a position to follow through on this (as if the US could dictate Iraq's future!), but one wouldn't want them to implement their rash promises in this regard.

What we can say is that the electoral outcome is a bellwether for the future of American involvement in Iraq. It will now gradually come to an end, barring a dramatic disaster, such as a guerrilla push to deprive our troops of fuel and then to surround and besiege them. More likely, the steady grind of bad news and further senseless death will force Bush's successor, whoever it, is, to get out of that country. One cannot imagine us staying in Afghanistan for the long haul, either. Bush's question in 2003 was, can we go back to the early 20th century and have a sort of Philippines-like colony with a major military investment? The answer is, "no." Iraqis are too politically and socially mobilized to be easily dominated in the way the old empires dominated isolated, illiterate peasants. The outcome of the Israel-Hizbullah war this summer further signalled that the peasants now have sharper staves that even penetrate state of the art tanks. The US can still easily win any wars it needs to win. It cannot any longer win long military occupations. The man who knew this most surely in the Bush administration, Donald Rumsfeld, most egregiously gave in to the occupation route, and will end up the fall guy as the public mood turns increasingly ugly in both countries.


5. Internet Freedom Fighters to Take Command in Congress -- by Timothy Karr

The midterm election results are a great leap forward for anyone who cares about saving the free and open Internet.

Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) — both strong supporters of Net Neutrality — will most likely take command of telecommunications policy when their party reclaims majority power in the House in 2007.

According to a report today in MultiChannel News, Dingell and Markey “are poised to take control after House Republicans were trounced at the polls Tuesday night, restoring Democrats to power for the first time since 1994.”

Dingell should be seated as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, the panel that oversees phone, cable operators and Internet companies. Markey will take the helm of the key Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee. He has been an outspoken champion for Net Neutrality. New telecommunications legislation by Dingell and Markey in 2007 would likely include Net Neutrality mandates from the outset.

The victory vindicates expected majority leader Nancy Pelosi’s decision over the summer to elevate Net Neutrality in the Democratic Party platform — a risky move after many a Washington prognosticator declared it a dead issue.

In the Senate all pro-Net Neutrality Senators won decisive victories in their states. This list includes members of both parties:
Sen. Akaka won in Hawaii with 61%
Sen. Bingaman won in New Mexico with 70%
Sen. Cantwell won in Washington with 58%
Sen. Clinton won in New York with 67%
Sen. Feinstein won in California with 60%
Sen. Kennedy won in Massachussetts with 69%
Sen. Menendez won in New Jersey with 53%
Sen. Nelson won in Flordia with 60%
Sen. Nelson won in Nebraska with 64%
Sen. Snowe won in Maine with 73%

They will be joined by newcomers Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), Sherrod Brown, (D-Ohio), Jim Webb (likely - D-Virginia) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) who have also come out in support of Net Neutrality.

Over the year, more and more politicians came to realize that the public was paying attention to this issue. The blogosphere caught fire and helped shift the momentum in Washington on this issue.

Whereas before, the big telephone companies and their coin-operated lobbyists were confident that Congress would simply roll over and do their bidding, today, no member of Congress can vote with the telecom cartel without full public scrutiny.

The major telecommunications bill pending in the Senate is a massive giveaway to the phone and cable companies, and should be blocked during the lame duck Congress. It’s time to start from scratch in 2007, and begin having a genuine public debate about what the future of the media and the Internet should look like.

(Timothy Karr is the campaign director for Free Press , the national media reform group, and coordinator of the SavetheInternet.com Coalition )


6. New Democrats Pose Challenge – by CARL HULSE/NY Times

WASHINGTON — Carol Shea-Porter is a New Hampshire social worker who campaigned on the cheap and ran hard against the war in Iraq. Heath Shuler is a North Carolina football star who is pro-gun and anti- abortion . Jerry McNerney is a California alternative-energy entrepreneur with a doctorate in mathematics.

Together they are part of the new mosaic of the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives — incoming lawmakers who will make a diverse group of political officeholders even more eclectic. While much of the focus in the campaign was on the more moderate tendencies of Democratic contenders, the scope of Tuesday’s Democratic surge makes for a more complex picture and a broader mix of ideologies.

“Every type of Democrat won last night, Northeastern, Midwestern, Southern, Texan, Western, liberal, moderate, conservative and many whose ideology defies easy description and should be best described just as a Democrat,” said Simon Rosenberg, head of the New Democrat Network, an advocacy group.

The results of some close races remained in question Wednesday but Democratic officials said they thought they would be seating at least 28 new members, bringing the party’s totals to at least 230 in the 435-member House. They are still trying to get a handle on exactly who some of these people are, but it is clear they present a different tableau from the liberal lions who will be taking and retaking the chairmanships of some important House committees.

The diverse viewpoints and backgrounds they are bringing to Washington could pose problems for Representative Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the newly empowered Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, as they quickly move to line up lawmakers behind the party’s stances on national security, economic and social issues. The rank and file was eager to be unified when it meant a chance to overturn Republican rule; now Democrats must set the agenda and deliver.

“How are Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi going to forge consensus on Iraq and on a budget?” Mr. Rosenberg asked. “Where are we going to end up on these two vital things, given the extraordinary diversity of this new Democratic majority?”

Mr. McNerney is a giant killer who, with help from the party and environmental groups, knocked off Representative Richard Pombo, chairman of the Natural Resources Committee. Mr. Shuler, one of the most conservative incoming Democrats, defeated Representative Charles H. Taylor, an eight-term Republican who had served on the Appropriations Committee since 1993. Ms. Shea-Porter, with no help from the party, pulled off one of the upsets of the night in defeating Jeb Bradley.

Keith Ellison of Minnesota, a state lawmaker and the first Muslim elected to the House, sees himself as a champion of economic justice. John Hall of New York, a rock musician and writer of pop hits like “Still the One,” is a longtime critic of the nation’s energy policy. Harry Mitchell, the former mayor of Tucson, is a veteran politician with a keen interest in immigration policy who is already the subject of a statue in his hometown.

“We are the most diversified caucus in the world and we think that is the great strength of the Democratic Party,” said Representative John B. Larson of Connecticut, chairman of the Democratic caucus.

As they strode triumphantly through the Capitol on Wednesday, celebrating Democrats said that they were not worried about the party — which benefited from the support of independent voters who want to see legislative gains instead of gridlock — finding common ground.

“We have to get things done for the American people,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, who oversaw the Democratic campaign effort for the Senate. “The greatness of this country is being stalled as we are unable to move forward on education and on energy and on Iraq and so many other issues.”

The stands some new Democratic senators take could pose difficulties for their own party. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, who beat Senator Rick Santorum , is an ardent opponent of abortion; Jon Tester, the Montana farmer with a trademark flattop who claimed victory over Senator Conrad Burns, could also emerge as a maverick.

Mr. Reid played down possible divisions, saying that Senate Democrats have shown they can overcome ideological differences. “We have widely varying political philosophies within this team,” he said. “And what we’ve done is we’ve used these team members with their strengths, and we’re going to continue to do that.”

In the House, Democratic unity could also be tested in relations between the new committee chairmen — many of whom are liberal veterans who wielded power years ago, when the party last controlled the House — and new lawmakers who have no recollection of the days when chairmen ran the show and the rank and file followed along.

Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said that while there were ideological distinctions among the new Democrats entering Congress, most could fit in the centrist part of the spectrum. And all, he said, have an overriding political bond.

“They are reformers in spirit and temperament,” Mr. Emanuel said.

About half the incoming Democratic freshmen are already planning on joining the New Democrat Coalition — a generally centrist group that emphasizes economic competitiveness and national security issues. They include Ed Perlmutter of Colorado, a former state senator who had a legislative reputation for working with Republicans ; Michael A. Arcuri of upstate New York, a seasoned district attorney; and Tim Mahoney, the Florida businessman who won the seat that the Republican representative Mark Foley resigned because of the Congressional page scandal.

Other Democrats in the group intend to enlist with the Blue Dog Coalition, a more conservative group viewed as having a more rural outlook and a focus on balancing the budget.

But both groups emphasize trying to find legislative consensus.

“The message from the American people is clear,” said Representative Ellen Tauscher, a moderate from California who is chairwoman of the New Democrat Coalition. “They want leaders who will fight for pragmatic policies that improve their lives, whether the issue is Iraq, health care or anything in between.”

Ms. Shea-Porter, relishing her victory Wednesday, said she shared that view and was coming to the House eager to try to fix problems despite differences in outlook she might have with her colleagues or the opposition.

“People are so tired of the factions of party and they have been begging us to get together and work things out,” she said. “I have the soul of a Democrat, but I also come from a Republican family, and I know we have to reach out.”


7. First Muslim congressman elected
From the BBC

Keith Ellison, a Democrat, has become the first Muslim to be elected to the US Congress by winning a Minnesota seat in the House of Representatives.

He overcame personal attacks emphasizing his past association with Louis Farrakhan, leader of the radical Nation of Islam group.

The 43-year-old lawyer sought to play down the issue of his religion and ran on a populist platform.

He has called for the immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.

On the campaign trail, he also urged a greater reliance on renewable fuels and the establishment of a government-funded universal healthcare system.

"Tonight, we made history," Mr Ellison said in a victory speech to supporters. "We won a key election, but we did much more than that.

"We showed that a candidate can run a 100% positive campaign and prevail, even against tough opposition."

'Not a bigot’

Mr Ellison served two terms as a legislator in the Minnesota House of Representatives and also sat on the Minneapolis City Council.

He converted to Islam while as a student, but talked little about his religious background during the campaign.

Although he follows Islamic law in his personal life, he stresses that he is not the "Muslim candidate" for Congress.

"I'm not running as a Muslim, I'm running as an American, as a person that's trying to help our country be better," he told Voice of America in an interview earlier this year.

"But I do hope that if we win, inshallah [God Willing], in November, that it will signal to Muslims that we should engage in the American political system. It will signal to people who are not Muslims that Muslims have a lot to offer to the United States and the improvement of our country."

He later told the BBC: "I've never been involved in any kind of a bigotry. I've always been a consistent advocate for the human rights of all people. That's my entire adult life. In all the smears that they've thrown at me they've never accused me of saying anything that was bigoted. They've only tried to make guilt by association."

He says his involvement with Louis Farrakhan was limited to a period of a few months, helping to organise the 1995 Million Man March in Washington.

During the campaign, Mr Ellison was supported by the National Jewish Democratic Council as well as a prominent Minneapolis Jewish newspaper, which endorsed him over his Republican rival Alan Fine, who is Jewish.

The Reverend Jesse Jackson, a former candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, also campaigned for him.

'Symbolic’election

Mr Ellison says his main concern is the middle class.

"The middle class is in a very difficult situation and we need some real change for them," he told Voice of America.

"As we see the middle-class incomes stagnate or go down, we're seeing increasing tuition, and increasing students’debts, and a college education is becoming beyond the reach of the average middle class family.

"We also need for middle-class families to have a real alternative in terms of oil dependency. We need to be able to get around and travel without being dependent upon oil that fluctuates so wildly and unexpectedly."

He has also broken from more conservative Muslims by favouring gay rights and abortion rights, the Associated Press news agency reports.

His election has "huge symbolism", says Larry Jacobs, a professor of political science at the University of Minnesota.

"It's very interesting that Minnesota would be the first state to send a Muslim to Congress," he told Voice of America.

"I think many Americans think of Minnesota as a state that's overwhelmingly dominated by whites, but Minnesota has changed in rapid and dramatic ways. It's seen a large influx of Somalis and immigrants from Asia, particularly Cambodia...

"The other key factor is that Minnesota has a long tradition, stretching back to Hubert Humphrey and Water Mondale, in supporting civil rights and the inclusion of African-Americans and others of colour in the political process."

One of Mr Ellison's Muslim supporters - one of five million Muslims living in the US - also believe his election will make a difference.

"You don't know how much this will be a turnover for the Muslim community that live in the United States in their involvement in the political life," he told the BBC.

"I don't want to be very much optimistic, but at least I can see that my son one day might be the president of the United States."


8. What's Next?
Election Postmortem
By DAVE LINDORFF/Counterpunch

Here's the way to look at the Election Day outcome: If the U.S. were a parliamentary democracy, Bush would be history. Our self-proclaimed "war president" has lost a vote of confidence, not by the members of his party, but by the people of the United States.

Of course, we don't live in a parliamentary democracy, so we're still stuck with the same megalomaniacal leader, even though the control of the Congress appears to be passing to the opposition party. (As of this writing, the new House will be firmly in the hands of the Democrats by a bigger margin than the current House is in the hands of Republicans, and the Senate appears headed towards Democratic control also, albeit by the narrowest of margins: 1 Lieberman.)

So the question is: what next?

We're already hearing a lot from the mainstream media about how this was all about voters wanting less extremism and more civility in government.

Bull!

This was about voters who have had it with neocon imperialist militarism, had it with government lying, had it with corruption, and had it with campaign tactics that equate opposition to the president with support for terrorism.

We'll also be hearing a lot about how a change of 30 or 32 seats in the House from one party to another is no big deal.

Nonsense! Not only is it a big deal by historical standards--it is an especially big deal given the historically unprecedented extreme to which the Republicans in control of state legislatures had gerrymandered districts over the last decade to insure their candidates’re-election. It is also an unusually big turnover to occur at a time when the nation has over 160,000 troops tied down in bitter fighting in two countries--Iraq and Afghanistan. To have the public undercut the president at such a time is an extraordinary act by the voters, who normally tend towards jingoistic support of presidents when American troops are dying.

Of course it's true that some of the Democrats who will be replacing Republican office-holders are conservative (some are liberal, too). That's not the point, though. They are almost all honorable people who entered their races as underdogs earlier this year, not expecting to win, and who ended up winning because the voting public, whether liberal or conservative, wants them to clean the Stygian Stables, which have filled up with six years with of crap and bullshit.

Now the Democratic leadership in Congress doesn't see it that way. They seem to be buying into the media illusion that what the public wants is civility in government and respect for the president. That's certainly how Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the likely new House majority leader, puts it (even though her home district in San Francisco voted 61 percent for an impeachment resolution).

But civility and respect are not going to get the job done.

First of all, let's consider that there are still two possibilities: one is that the two houses of Congress both go narrowly Democratic; the other is that only the House goes Democratic, while the Senate ends up more narrowly Republican, or perhaps tied, with Dick Cheney holding the tie-breaking vote as President of the Senate. In the latter two scenarios civility would be death, since Senate Republicans would be anything but civil. The only way Democrats could have any power would be by acting as obstreperously and obstructively as possible, to prevent more damage, by using their investigative power in the House to lay out the crimes of this administration as clearly as possible. If both houses of Congress end up in Democratic hands, they will be in the position to start passing legislation. But they will not be able to undo the damage caused over the past six years to the Constitution and to the nation because Bush will be able to veto their bills. Worse yet, even if they can manage in some cases to get enough Republican support on some issues to override a veto, Bush will use his "signing statement" ploy to block them, as he has already done over 800 times to legislation passed by a Republican Congress.

Clearly, in either event, the only appropriate response is for a Democratic House to initiate serious investigations into administration abuse of power, criminality, deceit and incompetence, and ultimately, to initiate impeachment proceedings.

It is perhaps wishful thinking to believe that Bush, as richly as he deserves it, will be impeached for war crimes. We can leave that to future prosecutors, either in a better post-Bush America or in other nations, since war crimes don't have a statute of limitations, and Bush has a good 20 years left in him if he manages to stay off the bottle.

That said, there are crimes and constitutional violations that even Republicans should agree call for his impeachment (and in some cases Cheney's). Among these are:

* The signing statements, in which Bush claims that as commander in chief he does not need to accept or enforce laws passed by the Congress. This is such an egregious abuse of power and undermining of the Constitution that if it is allowed to continue, with future presidents continuing the practice and citing Bush as precedent, Congress will cease to have any real constitutional function.

* The NSA warrantless spying. Democrats need to take a leadership role and demand to know what this program is all about. Clearly it's not about spying on suspected terrorists, as Bush claims, because the secret Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Court judges would have no problem approving warrants for that. It has to be something so outrageous that Bush is afraid to present it to those famously accommodating judges. The case needs to be made that this is a flat-out felony and a breach of the Fourth Amendment, and that it has already been so ruled by a federal judge.

* The outing of CIA undercover agent Valerie Plame and the selective release of the Iraq National Intelligence Estimate in an effort to damage a critic--Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson. This was exactly the kind of abuse of government power that led to an impeachment article being voted in the House Judiciary Committee against President Richard Nixon. Moreover, Democrats need to make the case that this attack on Wilson was motivated by a darker goal: the need to discredit someone who was exposing one of the Bush administration's gravest crimes--namely faking evidence of an active Iraqi nuclear weapons program.

* Lying the country into a deadly, costly and interminable war in Iraq. It is clear now that Bush knew the uranium ore story, the aluminum tubes story, the Saddam links to Al Qaeda story and the germ weapons story, were all lies. It is clear that Bush had plans to invade Iraq from before he even assumed office in 2001, that 9/11 was just a pretext to do it, and that his claims to the American people and to Congress that he wanted a "diplomatic solution" to Iraq's alleged WMD threat was a lie and a fraud. He must be impeached for this bloody travesty.

* Obstruction and lying to the Congress and the 9-11 Commission. The president, in what is an abuse of power and possibly even an act of treason, refused to provide testimony and evidence demanded by the Senate Intelligence Committee and by the 9-11 Commission, and himself refused to testify under oath or with any record being made of his answers, and had members of his administration lie to both bodies. This willful obstruction has put the nation in jeopardy, since without knowing what went wrong or even what went on before and on 9-11, there is no way to prevent another such attack. This is a clear impeachable crime.

* Bribery. For some time it was not clear whether the stench of money scandals would reach into the White House. Bush claimed he didn't even know Jack Abramoff, even as members of Congress were falling like 10-pins. Now, however, we have learned that there are myriad pictures of Abramoff and his buddy Bush together, that Abramoff visited the White House so often it was practically a second home, and that he even managed to have his own secretary move over to work for Bush's closest confident (and "brain" by some accounts) Karl Rove, the better to facilitate the money-for-favors exchanges. This is corruption on the scale of the Warren Harding administration, and it calls for impeachment, not respect. While they"re at it, Democrats in the House should also investigate the oil industry's and Halliburton's financial tentacles in the White House and Blair House.

* The Loss of New Orleans. Bush's disastrous inaction as Katrina headed for New Orleans, and his even worse inaction after the disaster was apparent, is a classic violation of the presidential oath to "take care" that the laws are faithfully administered. The president had a duty to initiate drastic emergency action that only he could authorize, and instead he campaigned, played golf and guitar, and entertained Sen. John McCain, while over a thousand Americans were allowed to die and a major US city drowned. That is a clear impeachable offense.

American voters don't want politeness. We want our country back. We have just proved to Republicans that we will punish lying and corruption. In the next election, Democrats should be on notice that we will also punish cowardice and inaction.

A great start for newly empowered Democrats would be to revoke or rephrase the September 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, which was passed to authorize Bush to invade Afghanistan and to pursue Al Qaeda. Bush has been claiming ever since that the 2001 AUMF made him permanent "commander in chief" in an unending "War" on Terror, with the right to ignore the courts and acts of Congress. It is clearly in Congress's power to redefine that AUMF more clearly, to make it unambiguously clear that it did not authorize the president to be generalissimo, that it was referring exclusively to combat outside the U.S., that it expects him to stay within the law and the Constitution under the resolution, and that the AUMF itself in any case has an expiration date. This is a move that even some Republicans--especially after their recent drubbing--will support.

The new Congress should also promptly revoke the military commissions law, and especially the parts that revoke habeas corpus, that grant the president and his gang retroactive immunity from prosecution for authorizing torture, and that undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, making it easier for a president to declare martial law. Again, it should be possible to get significant Republican support for this effort.

Although it doesn't deserve it, the Democratic Party has by default been given a chance in this off-year election. So far, the leadership is showing every sign of preparing to blow it.

That means it's up to us voters to make sure elected Democrats in Congress get the message, first by voting them into power, and then by riding them hard to make sure they take aggressive action to put the administration in the dock and rescue the Constitution and the country. A good start would be to go to Starting an Impeachment Movement .

(Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal .His new book of CounterPunch columns titled " This Can't be Happening! " is published by Common Courage Press. Lindorff's new book is " The Case for Impeachment ", co-authored by Barbara Olshansky.
He can be reached at: dlindorff@yahoo.com)


9. Bush Doesn't Know How to Make War or Peace -- by Dominique Dhombres/Le Monde

The American night promised to be agreeable. From the outset, one knew that the Democrats were going to be a hit. But real bliss began at dawn, when the spirit of war, with its cortage of speculating Texas oilmen and maniacal fundamentalists, subsided.

It was as beautiful as Plato's unveiling of the world soul. Had your servant watched American television channels to the point that he no longer knew what he was writing, grabbed by small hours’morning panic when he had to hand in his copy, just as the long-awaited event had begun to materialize? Not at all! Reading the news is the prayer of modern man, Hegel said.

Watching the news channels through the night as a great country changes its mind was also not bad at all. The American channels had, as for every election, installed hellish stages, with commentators who gave the impression of knowing each and every representative, senator, or governor from birth to the least of their positions on Iraq, tax policy, or anything you liked. The graphics were mind-boggling. On CNN in real time, one participated in the Democrats’rise to power in the House of Representatives, which they won, and in the Senate, which was still in balance. Previous declarations on Iraq by all and sundry were recalled, dissected, analyzed in the global perspective of the great turning of opinion concerning this war.

It was all done with the admirable professionalism of American television - not forgetting the altogether equally staggering bad faith of Fox News and a few others. Once upon a time, they had misinformed the public about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. Without budging, they continued to relay the brain-stripping machine installed at the White House and the Pentagon. But they were obliged, the poor unfortunates, to release the names of those Republicans who tumbled for their compulsive bellicosity and of the Democrats who conquered, most often because they had contented themselves with proclaiming their party's official line on Iraq - limited to calling for a change in course - which is not saying much.

Early in the evening, we saw Hillary Clinton's victory in the state of New York. Bill Clinton, his face floodlit, stood behind her. Then, a decisive seat for the Senate was won in Pennsylvania. Generally, the legislative mid-term elections bore everyone. Not this time. For it was not only about foreign policy, rare in itself, but also about war and peace. American voters no longer trust George Bush to make either one or the other.


10. Confront the Democrats ... Now
What's Next for the Peace Movement?
By BRUCE K. GAGNON/Counterpunch

The Washington Post reported this morning that the Democratic Party's "foreign policy establishment sees a precipitous withdrawal [from Iraq] as potentially damaging to both the country's and the party's interests."

The battle is on.

The new speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, is saying that the Dems will govern "from the middle." Impeachment is not on the table she recently said.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), who led the effort on behalf of Democratic Party House candidates, is saying that they can't allow the party's liberal wing to dominate the agenda.

The changes in Congress are largely due to huge opposition (62%) to the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Again, quoting today's Washington Post, "The passion of the antiwar movement helped propel party activists in this election year."

How will the peace movement in America, that just turned itself nearly completely over to the Democratic Party, be rewarded for its loyalty?

"Many Democratic lawmakers have signed on to a vague plan for a phased withdrawal from Iraq, but the party remains divided between a base eager to get out soon and a foreign policy establishment that sees a precipitous withdrawal as potentially damaging to both the country's and the party's interests," the Washington Post concludes.

Pelosi is already pointing to a "Bi-partisan study group" on Iraq that is co-chaired by Texas oilman, and former Republican secretary of state, James Baker. Don,t expect any surprises here.

Most of the new Democratic Party gains in the House were conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats who do not support immediate withdrawal from Iraq. Instead these new Dems, controlled by Bill Clinton's Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), will steer the country on a basic status quo course. Their excuse will be - - hey we have a national election in two years and we want to take back the White House. So we have to go slow now so we don't alienate the public.

My translation - the corporations will control the new Democratic Party Congress and we will see no real basic change.

So what does the peace movement do now?

We must continue to call for immediate withdrawal from Iraq. We must call for a 50% cut in military spending and conversion of the military industrial complex. We must call for an end to Star Wars research and development funding which now stands at about $10 billion a year.

We must also call for investigations of Bush-Cheney for impeachable offenses. We must call for repeal of the Patriot Act and the recent Military Commissions Act - the torture bill.

We have to call out loudly and strongly for universal national health care and for new federal election laws that sets one national standard to ensure fair voting.

There are many more things that must now be advanced by the peace, justice, environmental, labor, and women's movements. And we must be impatient with the Democrats.

One last word here about liberal activists who supported the Dems fully knowing that many of them have been supporting the funding for the occupation of Iraq. I disagreed with this strategy of knee-bending loyalty to a party that does not deserve such support. But it is done now.

To these liberals peace activists I say this. Don't sell us all out now by going easy on the Dems. Don't tell us to wait, give them a chance, give them two years, let them take back the White House before we demand too much from them.

Don't sell yourself out. You have helped to create this new Democratic Party control of Congress. Get off your knees and now demand that they do something. Force the Dems to respond to you. If you don't you will have let down the long-suffering Iraqi people who are dying at the hands of U.S. military power. Don't let the GI's down who have died or suffered serious injury in Iraq for a war that was illegal in the first place. We must keep fighting, harder than ever, to bring this mad war to an end.

The battle has just begun. Where will you stand?

(Bruce K. Gagnon is Coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. He can be reached at: globalnet@mindspring.com)


11. H.R.1 for the Democrats? -- by Dissent Editorial Board

David Bromwich:
The largest contribution that the United States can make to a more just world is to stop committing injustice. We must withdraw our troops from Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died who would have lived had we not bombed, invaded, and occupied their country, and sustained a policy of ‘force protection’--a euphemism which has covered an attitude of imperial contempt and the casual slaughter of civilians. Domination will continue under another name unless we make and keep a pledge not to maintain permanent bases in Iraq.

Remedy of the environment is the greatest task of this generation, a task for more than one generation, from which the military adventures of the past four years have offered a calculated distraction. Before we can become intelligent custodians of a planet we share with other people, Americans must be persuaded to give up the fantasy of total security, and led to a fresh understanding of the value of a restrained liberty. How can we pretend to free others until we free ourselves? As a bipartisan majority showed when Congress awarded the president the power to override habeas corpus, the delusions that enthrall us are densely woven into the political discourse of more than one party.

Lu Carpenter:
The federal budget is the key to almost everything, and Congress approves the budget and can amend it. The Democrats (and any responsible Republicans) ought to draw up a counter budget. One proposal: They should increase the earned income tax credit and make it available to more moderate income workers. They could finance those improvements by taxing dividends at the same rates as income from work. If that's too strong, they could at least raise the tax rate on dividends to 20 percent, the same rate as the alternate minimum tax.

Jim Sleeper:
Somewhat to my surprise, I think that Nancy Pelosi is right to vow that in her first hundred hours as Speaker she'd repeal Big Pharma's monopoly over the Medicaid prescription drug plan. I'd like a Democratic restoration to be widely understood as a victory against the increasingly corrupt, swaggering hegemony of corporate marketing in our domestic and foreign policy.

So much of the left botched critiques of corporate capitalism (shall I count the ways? Economic determinist? Ideological? Nihilist? Faux-populist?) that criticism of "free markets" has been all but taboo. Yet the depredations of so-called "economic freedom" are deepening, and not only via Enron, Tyco, Exxon-Mobil, and corrupt "private" contractors in Iraq. You don't have to be conspiracy minded to find that corporate consumer marketing has insinuated itself subtly and intimately into Americans’ ways of thinking and feeling, undercutting democratic deliberation and republican virtue -- not least, by medicating our tensions away and by fleecing us while doing it.

True, polls now show that, after initial chaos, the Medicaid prescription drug program is popular among those registered in it. That will end when they enter the famous "doughnut hole" (the drugs are cheap at first, locking people in; then, they get socked). And as Jacob Hacker and other analysts of Republican social-welfare legerdemains have shown, this program is a metaphor and model for depredations as far-ranging as the War in Iraq itself. If we can't fight the enemy at home, no wonder we can't fight the enemy abroad.

Kevin Mattson:
I suggest that Democrats start talking to the American people more directly about the problems they face and try to find a new language about politics. This can be coupled with some suggestions for legislative reform. Here’s my start:

∑First and foremost Iraq: Admit the challenges and come clean to the American people. Stop going along with the president’s dementia about the war and convene a committee of experts (people with historical and intelligence backgrounds) who can come up with serious proposals on what to do. And then talk about those plans while challenging the idea that any criticism becomes a ‘cut and run’tactic. This would probably look like a gradual pull-out with clearer benchmarks to judge progress.

∑Make a recommitment in Afghanistan and throughout the region to fighting terrorists and rolling back al-Qaeda’s growing influence. In the process, disentangle Iraq from the war on extremist and radical Islam. Make clear to the American people that this is a war against not just al-Qaeda but a fundamentalist outlook on the world that needs to be challenged -- something only ‘liberals’can really do.

Domestically, we need to link the sacrifice of troops abroad to the sacrifice of all citizens at home:

∑Democrats should talk openly about rolling back the tax cuts on the wealthiest members of society. The language of ‘shared sacrifice’needs to become a reality today.

∑Raise the Minimum wage and improve labor law so that workers who want to join a union have an easier time of it.

∑Democrats should work on a national energy policy that emphasizes renewable energy sources, conservation, and environmental protection. We need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and even domestic oil production. This will require changed behavior on the part of all citizens -- especially in the realm of conservation. Again: ‘Sacrifice.’

∑National health care: Obviously, it’s time to get something rolling again here.

I would say in general that Democrats should focus only on a few issues and really hammer (no pun intended) at them. The Republicans had the ‘Contract with America.’Perhaps it’s time for ‘Honest Policies for the Common Good’or something like that.