This month, we begin a two-part examination of the prospects for the Congress convening on
January 4, 2007--the 110th Congress.

A great deal has been written about the "seismic" changes wrought on November 7--and we do not intend to add much to that hand-wringing and/or ebullience. But suffice it to say that a real political earthquake does not leave the winning party with a one-vote majority in the Senate and a balance of power in the House that may or may not give it a working majority.

This lack of power on many issues in the majoritarian House arises from the fact that, while the 2006 elections seemed to have spelled the death knell for the "blue-nose Republican," it resurrected the "yellow dog Democrat."

All over the Northeast, liberal Republicans like Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.), Charlie Bass (R-N.H.), and Jeb Bradley (R-N.H.) went down to defeat. These socially liberal/fiscally conservative anachronisms of an earlier era are widely thought to have succumbed to demographic trends that have left New England and the Middle Atlantic states less and less moderate--even in the suburbs and on the disappearing farms. And--whether or not this theory is correct--the GOP may have trouble reestablishing a foothold in those regions again. . . .

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