Three weeks is still a long time …

I’m hoping (maybe — see below) that the Dems will take back at least one house of Congress, if not both, in the coming election. In my opinion, government works better when there’s a mix of parties in charge, each serving as a brake on the other, and forcing a degree of bipartisanship if there’s to be any hope of anyone getting anything accomplished.

The various polls certainly seem to point to this happening — Electoral-vote.com suggests a 50-50 split in the Senate, and a 227-206 (2 ties) split in the House — but a lot can happen in three weeks, in the form of a late-October surprise (planned or not) and renewed vigorous scare-mongering,
and I wouldn’t count on anything until the polls close (and the conspiracy-minded out there will no doubt worry even after that happens, not without a measure of reason).

If control of Congress slips out of the GOP majority, though, plenty of conservatives are already lining up to decide Who’s Responsible.

Tax-cutters are calling evangelicals bullies. Christian conservatives say Republicans in Congress have let them down. Hawks say President Bush is bungling the war in Iraq. And many conservatives blame Representative Mark Foley’s sexual messages to teenage pages.

With polls showing Republican control of Congress in jeopardy, conservative leaders are pointing fingers at one other in an increasingly testy circle of blame for potential Republican losses this fall.

“It is one of those rare defeats that will have many fathers,” said David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, expressing the gloomy view of many conservatives about the outcome on Election Day. “And they will all be somebody else.”

In reality, it’s likely All of the Above, and still more. Certainly it’s not because the Dems have offered any sterling, inspirational leadership; if they take one or both houses of Congress, it will be because the electorate decided to recall the GOP (or, in the case of disaffected, grumpy Republican voters who stay home, because they decided just not to support the current batch), not because they really want the Dems in charge.

The question is, if the Dems take one or both chambers, is that a Good Thing or a Bad Thing? I tend to think it good, if only for the reasons noted above. The GOP one-party rule over the last six years — restrained only by occasional, timid foot-dragging and threatened fillibusters — has led to all sorts of bad policy, blank checks to the White House and to lobbyists, and limited discussion of ideas. It’s been partisanship run mad, at a time when, if we really are under the threat we’re told,
partisanship should be taking a back seat.

The problem is, this is a mid-term election, which means any results need to be weighed with the look ahead to 2008. If the Dems get a toehold back of power, can they keep it? Will anything that goes wrong from January 2007 on be blamed on the Dems (fairly or not) for obstructing the President and preventing needed decisive actions being taken? Will the Dems themselves show any sign of having leadership ideas that can actually resolve some of the problems we face (economically, militarily, diplomatically,
socially, etc.). And, if they do, will they be able to move them forward with only a slim majority (and against a White House that might finally get around to exercising veto power)?

If the Dems are going to win largely because they’re not the ones in power, what happens in two years when they are the ones in (at least partial) power?

It’s a calculated risk, but one neither the party nor the nation can afford not to take … if they can hold things together for another three weeks.