Clift: Democrats Win House, What Now?

Democrats have won the House, ending a 12-year drought. And Nancy Pelosi is on her way to becoming Speaker, becoming the first woman ever to hold the job. It's a time for the long-suffering party to celebrate. But keeping the party's new majority will be a test, and the tone Democrats set over the next days and weeks will create a first impression for the voters that will be hard to change if they don't get it right.

This is not a majority made from cookie-cutter liberals. These are men and women winning in districts that were drawn for Republicans. Some are pro-life, some pro-gun, some sound so Republican they might be in the other party if it weren't for President Bush and the Iraq war. It will take all of Pelosi's skills as a manager and disciplinarian to forge a coalition out of these philosophical disparities.

The voters, tired of Washington's divisive ways, want to see the two parties cooperate; it will be Pelosi's challenge to make that a reality. Pelosi might have looked across the aisle and found some soulmates among Republican moderates, but the early returns suggest they won't be back. GOP stalwarts like Nancy Johnson in Connecticut were defeated. Johnson regularly crossed party lines to work with Democrats.

Voters cited corruption and ethics along with Iraq as issues that mattered most to them. Asked whether they were voting on local issues or national concerns, 62 percent said they were casting a national vote.

Democrats will be on probation for the next two years to show they can govern. If the Democrats want to retain the majority they just won, they'll have to behave better than the GOP.

The impetus for a change of course in Iraq will almost certainly come from the Republicans, who will not want to endure another bloodletting in two years if the war is not resolved. Why should Democrats shoulder the burden of solving Bush's war when they've been left out of everything else? Republicans have run the Congress with an iron fist, excluding Democrats and bringing legislation to the floor only when it can command a "majority of the majority," meaning Republicans only. It will be tempting for Democrats to exact revenge for a decade of mistreatment, but that would just trade one set of bullies for another.

The way both parties act in the coming Congress will set the stage for the '08 presidential race. Republicans will wake up Wednesday with casualties among moderate Republicans in the Northeast. Those country-club Republicans, who once dominated the party, are a vanishing breed, along with their moderate views on social issues, their activism on the environment, and their support for Planned Parenthood. What's left is a party that's more conservative but not necessarily happy with the conservatism practiced by the Bush White House. The GOP will have to woo back fiscal hawks unhappy with Bush's big-government spending, and foreign policy realists weary of the neocons who cheered Bush's invasion of Iraq.

The Democrats by contrast have a huge opportunity to regain their standing as a national party. To seize that chance, they'll have to balance the demands of the antiwar left with the more moderate voices that helped them win control of the chamber. Pelosi has already warned her colleagues against rash moves, like trying to impeach the president, and told them they'll need to work with the White House. It won't be easy to keep everybody happy.

To make it all work, perhaps Pelosi could learn a thing or two from the GOP playbook. Dick Armey, who along with Newt Gingrich, led the revolution that brought the Republicans to power in 1994 after 40 years in the wilderness, says they were guided by big policy ideas, not parochial issues and personal gain. The policy goals over time became secondary to the exercise of power and a misplaced righteousness when it came to other people's lives. "When we advocate righteousness, we win," says Armey. "When we mandate it, we lose."

Armey was in the room when the Republicans negotiated welfare reform and a balanced budget with President Clinton. Divided government can work. It will take a change of attitude on Bush's part, which he may not be willing to make. Clinton was just two years into his presidency; Bush is two years shy of leaving office. Clinton's personality was also more amenable to compromise. He wanted everybody to like him, unlike Bush, who can't bear to admit a mistake, is unwilling to engage in intellectual give and take, and seems resigned to his status as a lonely figure backing an unpopular war.

In the end, Gingrich proved a useful foil for Clinton, who reinvigorated his presidency at Gingrich's expense. Nancy Pelosi is no Newt Gingrich. She will have problems of her own managing the newly diverse Democratic coalition, and she doesn't have the grandiose ambitions that propelled Gingrich to stride the national stage like a co-president. Her job is to put Bush on the spot, just like the voters.