The Elephants and Donkeys Shall Lie Down Together

• William Galston

  

  William Galston

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• October 20, 2010 | 12:00 am

No one really knows what the final numbers will be when the dust settles, but we already know the most important outcome of the November 2 elections: The strategy Democrats used to pass legislation during the 111^th Congress will no longer be operative. Even if Democrats retain narrow majorities in both the House and Senate (a bet I wouldn’t take), Republican gains in the Senate will be too large to allow the Democrats to get to 60 votes by uniting their party and picking off two or three Republican moderates.

So the options for the 112^th Congress reduce to two: either confrontation and gridlock, or a new discussion across party lines. The majority prediction inside the Beltway is the former, but as frequently happens I find myself in dissent.

To be sure, the majority can draw upon a lot of supporting evidence. An already polarized party system will become even more so; the new Republicans will be even more conservative, and the remaining Democrats will mostly be liberals. Lots of new Republicans in Congress will either represent Tea Party views or be beholden to its supporters, and veterans will be looking over their shoulders to see whether primary challengers are coming up behind them. In the early months of next year, anyway, conservative enthusiasms will find vociferous expression, and confrontation will predominate.