<p>"You gotta do what you gotta do," a victorious Bill Clinton told Bob Dole when he complained about the demagogic Medicare ads that helped defeat him. By now this seems to have become the mantra of Mr. Clinton's party.</p>
<p>To put the current midterm election in perspective, consider how the Democrats won their one-vote Senate majority. After losing the House and the White House, they won the Senate by persuading Vermont's Jim Jeffords to abandon the party in which he'd just been elected. For voting with the other side in organizing the Senate, he was rewarded with a committee chairmanship and an eventual expansion of his beloved Northeast dairy subsidy, a piece of pork notorious even in cynical Washington.</p>