The election night is come and gone, and while we don't (yet) know which party has control of the Senate, the Democrats, lead by Nancy Pelosi, have control of the House of Representatives. (A quick note to foreign readers who might not be up on the finer points of our government - the Bush Administration has not fallen as a result - just the Republican control of the legislature). I'm not holding out all that much hope for the Senate either, all things considered. Historically, this is par for the course for the party of a second-term president in the mid-term elections. It happened to Reagan as well, after all.

Why did it happen? Here are some reasons:

Negative perception of the war in Iraq (aided by the MSM's relentless pushing of negative news and burying of positive news). But the war in Iraq is not going as well as it could have. I'm not sure the war is going well in an absolute sense. No war ever does. And it's going to go worse for the Iraqis when we pull out, and much worse for the world in the War of Terror. We'll have to see how much worse.

Failure of the Republicans to stay true to their roots. Tax cuts alone are not enough - the Republicans didn't appear to do much to cut spending. Various compromises made (where an entitlement was passed or expanded, but a smaller entitlement than was being pushed by the opposition) just got the Republicans stuck between the Contract with America and the people who said they don't care. The failure to live up to the 1994 Contract with America I think is the biggest problem the Republicans had with their base (and I'm not alone). My wife disagrees with me, she thinks that the Republicans are being punished for being too socially conservative, but I think they're being punished for not being fiscally conservative. No doubt there are voters who are angry at them for being too socially conservative, but I think those voters are also pissed about the failure to be fiscally conservative.

Scandals. Scandals scandals scandals. (Including a sex scandal that as far as I know, has failed to produce evidence of any actual sex, but never mind that). At least 2 "safe" house seats went to Democrats because the Republican on the ballot was no longer running due to having resigned. Several other Republicans were directly associated with the miscreants, and the whole party was denigrated by association. As "doing the right thing" (resigning) didn't seem to help. This is in marked contrast to other similar scandals in recent history, including one where a Representative actually had sex with a page, did not resign, and literally (I'm not kidding or exaggerating, he really did) turned his back on the House when it censured him. Compare the actions and results of those actions between Mark Foley and Gerry Studds. See the 1983 Congressional Page Scandal. And compare Tom Delay's actions to those of William Jefferson. I'm not defending the misconduct of any of the 4, mind; I think that all 4 should not have committed their (alleged, in the case of Delay and Jefferson) crimes, and all should have resigned when they came out. But it's an interesting exercise in compare and contrast.

The Democrats may have taken control of the House, and probably the Senate, but it's by a small margin, and in many cases replacing non-ideologically "pure" Republicans with non-ideologically "pure" Democrats. Nothing close to a veto-proof majority. And, with no chance of Bush or Cheney running in 2008, the White House may be more willing to veto. This should prevent an early expiry of the Bush Tax Cuts, and keep government meddling down to a mild roar.

So now what? I'm cautiously optimistic in this regard - I'm not going to claim the Republic is going to fall because my party lost power. I hope that the geopolitical ramifications of this will not be insurmountable (and am again cautiously optimistic on that). I don't think that the two biggest geopolitical problems facing the US and the world (Iranian Bomb and North Korea), were heading for a good resolution even with the Republicans in power, and foreign relations lies mostly within the domain of the President anyway. The statements I'm seeing from Republicans seem to indicate they're willing to learn from their loss. After 12 years of dominance of the House, we will get to see how the opposition will handle being in power. (I'm going to say not well, but I can and have been pleasantly suprised before). In short, we're down, but not out, and as the military saying goes, this was "Good Training" (IE, nasty and painful - so you'll remember it).