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I'm not so sure it is such an automatic thing that Pelosi's election is an automatic winner for us. I like it better when the Democrat's are in more of a "me too" mode. It will all depend on Ms. Pelosi's political skills, which may turn out to be considerable, I don't know.

Clinton hit us with several body blows that effectively moved the political spectrum considerably to the left, and we are still struggling to recover. After leading off with gays in the military, every other leftist encroachment on the political center seemed tame by comparison, and we were so happy to be on the twenty yard line that we didn't notice what crappy field position we had. Since the Dems won the "government shutdown" debate of 1995, the Republicans have striven to go nowhere near anything that might be construed as a "cut", and spending has gone unabatedly nuts. When we lost the impeachment battle, what constituted the political "mainstream" in the area of public integrity became thoroughly muddled, and we ended up with another known criminal winning passage of "campaign finance reform".

What is a little scary about Pelosi is that she and her group will be able to argue from a purist perspective on things like Hillarycare. No one will be able to say they are flip-flopping or waffling, and, depending on particular economic or political circumstances, might be able to popularize some initiative that comes right out of Mao's little red book.

On the other hand, if Bush can take the initiative and play very rough with party "moderates" on issues such as social security reform, capital gains tax cuts, some seriously conservative SC justices, etc., we might be able to make some headway, but it won't be automatic. As they said about Iraq, he will have to "make the case".