Nancy, you may now order the drapes

The Democrats can now order their new drapes. And carpet. And furniture. How about new windows?

Right now CNN shows a net pickup of 27 House seats for the Dems with 16 undecided. The final Democratic gain will probably be 30-40 House seats. By any measure that is an historic shift. See the above plot of net change in House elections, showing that there has not been anything like this size of shift since 1994. In the Senate things may become ironic. Each party now has 49 seats with 2 undecided but both leaning ever so slightly to the Democrats. Seems like the Dems will form a majority of 51 seats with their margin of control in the Senate assured by none other than the fellow the Dems all dumped on 2 just months ago – Senator Joe Lieberman, who won re-election as an “independent Democrat”. Don’t use redundant terms to describe yourself, Joe.

First let’s get the bitterness out:

Hellofa job, W!

Hellofa job, Hastert!

Hellofa job, Frist!

That makes us all feel better, doesn’t it? Now let’s look forward

The next 2 years will be interesting times in Washington. Bush is now the lamest of lame ducks. He will have far more issues managing his own damaged party, let alone his own programs. Frist, too, is damaged goods, and the loss of the Senate will show his presidential aspirations for the pure vanity that they are. Go back to practicing medicine, sire. The focus for Republicans will shift to 2008, and to McCain and Romney. The outcome of this election favors Romney, due to his cross-party appeal, as well as his more abundant natural gifts as a politician I don’t think McCain will beat him.

On the Democratic side Hilary is the inevitable nominee, though John Kerry and a few others are certain to provide comic relief during the primaries. Just imagine Kerry campaigning based on his “electability”! That would appeal, but too Republicans rather than Democrats.

Hillary is the inevitable nominee in 2008. Don’t think so? Read this passage from a recent Atlantic Monthly article on Hillary by Joshua Green.

Bill Clinton’s long tenure as president and the fact that no figure has risen to replace him have given birth to a professional class of Washington Democrats who both reflect the thinking of and feel intensely loyal to the former president—and, by extension, his wife. Al Gore might have been another claimant to such a heritage, but he rejected it, and never engendered anything like the visceral loyalty so many Democrats still feel for Clinton. At least in Washington, it’s Hillary Clinton’s party now.

What this means in practical terms is that she commands almost all the top talent. With rare exceptions, she can lay claim to the best fund-raisers, political operatives, pollsters, and media consultants—often several of each. Clinton’s ascendancy over the party is such that one prominent adviser to her told me that his biggest concern in the near term was “a Noah’s Ark problem”: there are more people loyal to her than her campaign could reasonably employ. Though Clinton faces no serious challenger in her Senate race, she has already raised almost $50 million; should she run for president, insiders say that she could raise $400 million—over $100 million more than George W. Bush raised for his reelection.

This show of strength highlights a disparity between the Democratic Party as it exists in Washington, with Clinton the regnant power, and in the rest of the country, where the party has yet to decide who that power should be. And, oddly, it does not necessarily reflect any confidence, even in Washington, that Clinton can win the presidency. A number of mid-level Democratic operatives—the kind who could expect a good job in any Democratic administration—told me they didn’t believe she could win a general election, especially against a popular Republican like McCain. But at the same time, they did not entertain the possibility of working for another Democratic candidate. “It’s simple, really,” one of them explained to me. “Bill Clinton made my career—I wouldn’t be who I am, in the job I’m in, if he hadn’t made me. There’s no way I could ever work against Hillary.” He was conflicted about this, as are many others. It sounded as though he and his colleagues would rather cede the race than work against Bill Clinton’s wife.

If there is one thing the Clintons can do it is to suck all the oxygen from the room. And the prospect of Bill Clinton campaigning for the job of First Lady means that we are living in interesting times.