Introduction

After nearly 50 years in Washington, much of it in a firm that specialized in public policy analysis for private industry, I believe I know a fair amount about a lot of issues -- and have the research skills to find out more.
With a new Congress controlled by Democrats confronting a Republican White House, the next few years is likely to prove exceptionally challenging. Although I am a registered Democrat living in a county where the real elections take place in the Democratic primary, I am firmly in the moderate camp on most issues, not only because I believe that answers acceptable to the American people are generally found somewhere between the extremes but because I also believe that Democrats can only capture the White House in 2008 if they occupy the middle of the road, perhaps slightly left of center but certainly not from the position held by a great many Democratic Party activists.
As a political scientist by training, I have been watching elections professionally for all my adult life. That includes Presidential, Senate and House elections as well as those held in my state (Maryland) and county (Montgomery). The Blue State/Red State phenomenon described the extremes -- Republicans on the Right, Democrats on the Left -- that characterized most of the 1990's up to 2006. Bipartisanship was a dirty word in Washington, and Republicans in Congress behaved as if the Democratic Party did not exist. The nastiness that has characterized political behavior during this period was the inevitable result of the evacuation of the middle of the road by both parties. Politics, as has been said many times, is the art of persuasion -- and it has not been practiced in Washington for some time. The Republicans governed unilaterally, in part because most "moderate" Republicans disappeared for one of three reasons: Some retired, others were crowded out by conservative challengers in Republican party primaries, still others found it expedient to go along with the majorities in the Republican caucus.
This was especially true in the House after Newt Gingrich took over, to be followed by Tom DeLay (and his tame speaker, Dennis Hastert). The disappearance of comity was sudden and absolute. Eventually, some of the Class of 1994 (swept in at the time of Gingrich's "Contract with America") moved over to the Senate and they took their meanness of spirit with them. Bob Dole may not have been anyone's model of an agreeable
Majority Leader but he was a pussy cat compared to those who followed him. Rick Santorum -- whose loss this past Tuesday is widely unlamented -- was characteristic of the changed Senate demeanor.
One hopes that things will change now that the Democrats have regained control of both the House and Senate. But they must themselves refrain from "pay back," tempting as that may be. Both parties need to be part of the political process, and the opposition needs to be respected as much as the majority. As Bush & Company have amply proved, the majority does not have a monopoly on political wisdom.
I may add some more personal stuff later but this will do for a beginning.