How many times have both Houses of Congress changed hands during a midterm to a different party than the President? Do you consider the 1994 election to be historic? I am not painting a dire picture. Howver, I am realistic enough to know that taking back the House will be very difficult.
The majority of new Democrats are "blue dog". This was not a democrat (liberal) win, this was brilliant strategery by Rohm (sp). He hand picked the most conservative candidates to play to the conservative mood in the country.
It depended on the race. The Dems who won in NY and CT were not "blue dog" Dems. Schumer and Emmanuel made some inspired choices for candidates. Webb, Sestak, Mitchell, and others were successful for a variety of reasons. I don't share your simplistic analysis that the Dems were all conservatives and this is the reason they won. In some cases like Northrup in KY, they were running in a Dem district, which had a history of close elections. This time Northrup came up short.
I predict the Dimms will split in two and a superb opportunity (whether or not taken) will open for the Republicans to regain the majority in both houses by significant margins.
Dream on. It will be a struggle to hold on to what we have. The Dems will consolidate their gains in the 110th Congress. They control the agenda and what gets voted on. They will not be selecting gun control, abortion, flag burning, etc. value issues. They will put raising the minimum wage, targetted tax credits for things like college tuition, implementation of all of the 9/11 Commission recommendations, higher taxes on the rich, resolving the AMT problem, renewable energy sources, etc. on the agenda. Their committees will be investigating waste and fraud in Iraq, and a host of other issues to make the Reps look bad. The MSM will act as their megaphone.
They will protect their more conservative Dem freshman allowing them to vote no on certain issues so that they have some cover. We do the same with the RINOs. The Dems are not going to self-destruct. We must attack them and take the power back. They are going to use the power of incumbency to have what amounts to a two year campaign until 2008. We have to come up with some first rate challengers.