US:Neo-conservatives were given a bloody nose in the recent US congressional elections. As the Democrats make their way to Washington, Denis Staunton examines the likely effect on American politics
'The congressional office buildings on Capitol Hill have been a melancholy sight in recent weeks, with furniture, books, documents and personal mementos piled up in corridors as the old gives way to the new and defeated congressmen prepare to leave Washington.
When the 110th United States Congress is sworn in on January 4th, Democrats will hold a majority in both houses for the first time in 12 years - since the early years of Bill Clinton's presidency. The change of party control affects everything on the Hill, from committee chairmanships right down to the most insignificant staffers, but it remains unclear what the Democratic victory will mean in policy terms.
Bob Walker, a Republican who represented a Pennsylvania district in the House of Representatives from 1977 to 1997, says that president George Bush has only two options in dealing with the new congress. "The administration can deal with the Hill by dealing with the Democratic leadership and there's certainly room to believe that certain committee chairmen on Capitol Hill will be willing to work with the administration towards solutions that would then involve deals with the overall Democratic leadership," he said.
This co-operative approach could alienate Republicans, many of whom will be reluctant to support Democratic policies, so the Democrats would need strong party discipline to deliver the votes.
"The other option is that the administration could decide that this is truly a blue dog congress, meaning that there is a substantial number of Democrats who lean toward moderate to conservative, that if you put them together with the Republicans could, in fact, become a working majority. If that happens, that will be something similar to what happened in the early days of the Reagan administration when the boll weevil Democrats combined with the Republicans to pass a number of administration initiatives," Walker said.
The new Democratic intake certainly includes many moderates from conservative states who oppose their party's liberal agenda on such issues as abortion, gun control and gay rights.
Many of these social moderates are, however, economic populists who oppose free trade agreements that fail to protect US workers and who embrace the language of class conflict.
Virginia's new senator, Jim Webb, a cultural conservative who served in the Reagan administration, even referred to Marx and Engels in his stump campaign speech.
Vic Fazio, who served as a Democratic congressman from California for 20 years until 1999, believes that the new congress could turn its back on international trade deals as the US public worries about jobs moving overseas.
"Unless you deal with the insecurity of the American working class, which doesn't have national health coverage, which is losing its pension rights and not being able to replace them very readily, unless you deal with the stagnant wages in certain parts of the country you're going to have a continued problem in this area. It's the easy place to attack. But in fact, we have to fix that problem within our own economy so that we can be more aggressive internationalists again," he said.
The Democrats have promised to use their first 100 legislative hours to increase the minimum wage, reduce the cost of student loans and cut prescription charges for seniors.
Universal healthcare remains a long way off, but Democrats will seek ways to offer health insurance to all children and to cut costs by allowing states to negotiate drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies.
Fazio believes that Democrats will seek to redefine themselves as moderates in response to the national mood that swept the Republicans from power.
"The country wants to be governed from the centre. Republicans, I think, should have learned that. I don't know whether they have but they certainly should have learned that a centrist coalition is what many independent voters really sought and did not get from this particular administration," he said.
Nobody is more conscious of the national mood than the small army of senators who nurture presidential ambitions for 2008 and who will start campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire early in the new year.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are both expected to join the race in January, leaving other candidates struggling to compete for campaign funds and media attention.
For the Republicans, John McCain remains the frontrunner, although former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani is more popular with the US public and conservatives such as former house speaker Newt Gingrich and Kansas senator Sam Brownback may be more in tune with the Republican base.
"The one thing that presidential campaigns tend to do is . . . to generate ideas. You know, candidates seeking to differentiate themselves on some of these big issues will become an idea factory and some of that will find its way into the legislative process.
"But the thing that will drive the administration to some extent is that the president now will be looking for a legacy," Walker said.
Even with a Republican-controlled congress for six years, however, Bush has achieved little in policy terms, particularly within the domestic agenda.
Fazio believes it may be too late for the president to create a new legacy in policy terms because the Iraq war has been the dominant event of his presidency.
"There are a number of my Republican friends who feel that the president's legacy has already been established. Right or wrong, it's Iraq. And we really won't know the outcome until it's all played out. And so rather than try to create some new legacy on domestic issues, whatever it may be, better to have the president's legacy be in addition that he was succeeded by another Republican. It really is a debate that I'm sure is going on right now within the White House, within the Republican circles and among the president's closest advisers," he said.
Bush is set to outline a new policy towards Iraq in the new year, following the bipartisan Iraq Study Group's call for a withdrawal of most combat troops and a new diplomatic offensive that would involve Iran and Syria in securing Iraq's future.
Most Americans now believe the war was a mistake and there is little appetite for further US casualties or for an extended commitment to keeping troops in Iraq. Democrats, who did not have a united policy on the issue until now, are rallying around the Iraq Study Group report, but Bush seems inclined to reject some of its key recommendations.
The new congress promises to exercise greater oversight over the administration and there will be investigations into the planning and conduct of the war. Democrats will not, however, withdraw funding for the military operation in Iraq, so the ball is firmly in the president's court.
If he does change course, it may be in response to pressure from Republicans who blame the war for their party's poor performance in November and fear that, if US troops do not start coming home soon, the 2008 election could be an even bigger wipe-out.
Walker points out that the only two groups with responsibility for governing from January are the administration and the Democrats in Congress and suggests that nervous Republicans could be unreliable allies for the president over the next two years.
"The Republicans on Capitol Hill at this point have no responsibility for governing whatsoever. And so what you may see play out here is that people with a responsibility for governing will take a different tack than those who have no responsibility at all. The only job of a minority is to become a majority. And I think that that's what the Republicans on Capitol Hill will probably be focused on," he said.