Here’s the NY Times editorial yesterday: The Democratic House – New York Times
There was only one explanation for the crazy-quilt combination of victories around the country that gave the Democrats control of the House of Representatives last night: an angry shout of repudiation of the Bush White House and the abysmal way the Republican majority has run Congress.
It was a satisfying expression of the basic democratic principle of accountability. A government that performs badly is supposed to be punished by the electorate. And this government has performed badly on so many counts.
The Washington Post The Voters’ Message – washingtonpost.com
Less clear is that Democrats deserved to win — or that they would have done so absent Republican missteps. The Democrats won the House, and, as of this writing, at least narrowed the GOP majority in the Senate, but not because voters necessarily agreed with their program. How many voters, we wonder, could name even one of the Democrats’ vaunted "Six for ’06" legislative proposals? As they prepare to wield power, Democrats don’t have capital from voters; at most, they enjoy a line of credit.
The right way to draw on that will be to resist the partisan temptation to act as the other side did, highhandedly and unilaterally. Instead, Democrats need to reach out to congressional Republicans as well as to Mr. Bush; the increased presence of conservatives in the Democratic ranks ought to help presumptive-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) forge bipartisan majorities. The Democrats should swiftly enact promised ethics and lobbying reforms that Republicans slighted. They should conduct vigorous oversight but not incessant, backward-looking investigations; subpoena power should be used sparingly. It was easy for Democrats to offer campaign promises of fiscal discipline; it will be harder — given the raft of new spending they have proposed — to live up to promises of pay-as-you-go budget constraints.
And the Wall Street Journal this morning – an editorial: Speaker Pelosi OpinionJournal – Featured Article
Tuesday’s Democratic election victory was by any measure decisive, yet in the perspective of history also unsurprising. In the sixth year of a two-term Presidency, Americans rebuked Republicans on Capitol Hill who had forgotten their principles and a President who hasn’t won the Iraq war he started. While a thumping defeat for the GOP, the vote was about competence, not ideological change.
This is not to minimize the Democrats’ victory, which they deserve to savor after several frustrating election nights. Credit in particular goes to Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Schumer, who led the House and Senate efforts to pick candidates who could win in GOP-leaning states. Their leaders, notably Speaker-in-waiting Nancy Pelosi, also kept in check their ideological ambitions to make Tuesday a referendum on Republican governance. It was a shrewd strategy.
All the more so because the GOP gave them so much ammunition. By our count, at least eight GOP House seats fell largely due to scandal; campaign-finance ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff probably cost Conrad Burns his Senate seat in Montana. These columns have spent several years warning Republicans that their overspending, corrupt "earmarks" and policy drift would undermine their claim as the party of reform. On Tuesday they did.
And an excellent op ed by Dick Armey on what the Republicans need to do to get back in the game: End of the Revolution OpinionJournal – Extra
All enterprises have a life-cycle. The Republican takeover in 1994 was the culmination of years of agitation by a relatively small group of political entrepreneurs in the House. Before we could beat the Democrats and their "culture of corruption," we had to beat the old bulls of our own party. They too were driven by a parochial vision, and had grown complacent with the crumbs offered them by the majority. It is often said that Newt Gingrich and I "nationalized" the election in 1994, but what the Contract with America really did was establish a national (as opposed to a parochial) vision for the Republican Party. When we took control, that positive Reagan vision of limited government and individual responsibility provided a great deal of discipline and allowed us to govern accordingly. Our primary question in those early years was: How do we reform government and return money and power back to the American people?
Eventually, the policy innovators and the "Spirit of ’94" were largely replaced by political bureaucrats driven by a narrow vision. Their question became: How do we hold onto political power? The aberrant behavior and scandals that ended up defining the Republican majority in 2006 were a direct consequence of this shift in choice criteria from policy to political power. …
We need to remember Ronald Reagan’s legacy and again stand for positive, big ideas that get power and money out of politics and government bureaucracy and back into the hands of individuals. We also need again to demonstrate an ability to be good stewards of the taxpayers’ hard-earned money. If Republicans do these things, they will also restore the public’s faith in our standards of personal conduct. Personal responsibility in public life follows naturally if your goal is good public policy.
Besides the obvious impact on the House and Senate, Tuesday’s elections will no doubt redefine the Republican field going into early presidential primary states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. It will be up to grassroots activists in those battlegrounds to establish a constituency of expectations that anyone aspiring to be the next president of the United States must satisfy. To voters I say: Demand substance and you will get it. To Republican candidates for office I say: Offer good policy and you will create a winning constituency for lower taxes, less government and more freedom.
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