The numbers are just about complete. On November 7th, Democrats gained 28 seats in the House of Representatives and will run the 110th Congress with a 229 -196 majority. Two years ago, Republicans won a 232 - 203.

The Senate also will be ruled by Democrats in 2007 by a single vote, 51-49 after winning six seats from the GOP, including Virginia.

Should conservatives be jumping off bridges? No. Here's why:

(1) Democrats will control the Senate by a narrow 51-49 margin, a margin produced by the loss of Republican (for now) Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island.

Chafee, a Republican in name only (RINO), had already made himself infamous by blocking the Senate confirmation of John Bolton as Ambassador to the United Nations. Chafee defied the wishes of his Republican colleagues mere days after the Republican Senatorial Committee had invested almost one million dollars on Chafee's behalf to rescue him from defeat in Rhode Island's Republican primary.

Chafee actually demanded, in writing, that before he would vote to confirm Bolton, President Bush must support a "viable, contiguous Palestinian state" (The full text of the Chafee letter is here.

Had Chafee won, the Senate would be tied 50 to 50, with Vice President Cheney holding the tie-breaking vote. That is, unless Chafee switched from Republican to Democrat. According to National Review.com's John Miller, this is eactly what Chafee was contemplating:

I have a friend in Rhode Island—a Democrat torn between his affections for Lincoln Chafee and his desire to make Harry Reid majority leader. Over the weekend, my friend attended a Chafee event and cornered the senator. Now, my friend doesn't have a personal relationship with Chafee, but he put the question bluntly to him: Why should I stick with you in a race with so many national implications? Chafee pulled my friend aside, lowered his voice, and told him that he might not be a Republican for much longer.

(2) Every Senator is a majority of one; party labels don't matter.

Without 60 votes on its side, whichever political party "controls" the Senate is hostage to the whims of any Senator at any given moment. Under Senate rules, each Senator is entitled to make himself a majority of one.

This power comes from the fact that the Senate almost always operates on the basis of unanimous consent. One Senator willing to say, "I object" at the right moment can stop any piece of legislation or presidential nomination in its tracks.

Senate rules usually divide committees so there is only one additional seat for the majority party, again empowering every member of the majority party to derail the committee's work simply by threatening to vote with the minority.

Republicans have had to learn to live in with a Senate of which they were nominally in charge but was run in fact by Arlen Specter, John McCain and any other disgruntled liberal Republican.

Recall the "Gang of 14," a group of seven Democrats and seven Republicans who agreed that they, not the Senate Judiciary Committee, would decide whether President Bush's judicial nominations were worthy of Senate confirmation? The names of the gang's Republican members will be all too familiar: McCain of Arizona, Graham of South Carolina, Warner of Virginia, Snowe of Maine, Collins of Maine, DeWine of Ohio and the previously mentioned Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island.

DeWine and Chafee were also among the 12 Republican Senators who voted for official English on May 18th who then voted against it later that same day. The others: Brownback of Kansas, Coleman of Minnesota, Graham of South Carolina, Hagel of Nebraska, McCain of Arizona, Murkowski of Alaska, Snowe of Maine, Specter of Pennsylvania, Voinovich of Ohio and Warner of Virginia.

Notice how the Republican membership of the "Gang of 14" overlaps with what English First dubbed at the time "the Weathervane Caucus." Also note that both DeWine and Chafee were defeated on Tuesday. Only Senator Snowe won reelection in 2006. All the others are up for reelection in 2008 or 2010.

Now Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada must attempt to command a caucus with its own special problem children.

Among the Democrats Reid will attempt to lead will be Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. Six years ago, Lieberman was the Democratic nominee for Vice President. Yet in 2006, Lieberman was forced to run as an Independent after losing the Connecticut Democratic primary to a nonentity who dubbed him too conservative.

Another of Reid's "problem children" will be Jim Webb, the new Democratic Senator from Virginia. Webb, a former Secretary of the Navy under President Reagan, resigned because he believed Ronald Reagan was not spending enough on defense.

Webb is likely to give his fellow Democrats fits the same way John McCain has over the last six years to his fellow Republicans.

Webb wears combat boots in memory of his son who is serving in Iraq. Oh to be a fly on the Senate cloakroom wall when Webb and Senator John "bad students go to Iraq" Kerry of Massachusetts debate defense policy.

(3) John McCain will be on television less often.

An Arizona newspaper headline today was "Democrats pick up 2 House seats in Arizona; delegation now split 4-4," which means Arizona' house delegation now matches John McCain's politics perfectly.

Alas for McCain, a "maverick" Republican is only newsworthy when Republicans are in power. McCain could count on the news media to push his presidential candidacy in 2000 as a liberal alternative to George W. Bush.

From 2001 until now, McCain could count upon frequent flattering interviewers eager to air his displeasure with President Bush and his disagreements with the majority of Senate Republicans.

Now that the news media can interview real liberals like likely presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy and Patrick Leahy, McCain will be a mighty small potato. If I were McCain's press secretary, I would be updating my resume, stat.

Worse for McCain, as National Review Online noted today, the loss of Republican control of the Senate has cost him the chance to run the Senate Armed Services Committee: "By Republican Senate rule, Senator Warner would (have had to) step down as Chairman of the Armed Services Committee in January when the new congress sits, making Senator McCain the chairman."

McCain hated Donald Rumsfeld and was no doubt eager to rake the man over the coals on national television day after day. Now there is no more Rumsfeld to bully and McCain will have more free time to visit Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

(4) Speaker Pelosi sits upon a throne of bayonets

Past House Republican leaders like Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay were regarded as firmly in the mainstream of their party. Not so the new Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi is literally a San Francisco Democrat. Her district is well to left of districts held by many Democrats and all Republicans. The newly-elected Democrats Pelosi will attempt to lead reside in another political galaxy altogether.

Right after the 2006 election, Newsweek's Eleanor Clift warned Pelosi: "This is not a majority made from cookie-cutter liberals. These are men and women winning in districts that were drawn for Republicans."

Eight or nine freshman Democrats, like Heath Shuler of North Carolina's 11th District, felt compelled to announce their uncertainty as to whether or not they would even so much as vote for Pelosi for Speaker.

This demonstrates that Pelosi has what her consultants might term a "marketing issue" in most places in America. Campaign literature calling voter's attention to the connection between voting for the local Democratic candidate for Congress and making Pelosi Speaker of the House was printed by Republicans, not Democrats.

(5) Beware the "Blue Dogs"

Just 15 Democrats defecting to a unified House Republican caucus on any vote is all that is needed to transform the House Democratic majority into a minority. There were 37 members of the fiscally conservative "Blue Dog" coalition in the 109th Congress, and there are more on the way for 2007. Prior to Election Day, the Washington Post noted:

The Blue Dogs could hold the balance of power in a Democratic House. With 37 members, the group already has clout; 16 Democratic candidates have the Blue Dogs' endorsement, and a dozen of them could win. That would give them numbers surpassing the Congressional Black Caucus's 43 members.

The Blue Dogs may choose to further enhance their influence in the House Democratic caucus by allowing themselves to be periodically recruited on a host of spending and budget issues by the now numerically smaller but more conservative House Republican caucus.

Pelosi's leadership group also faces some challenges from its left flank. Her likely Majority Leader, Stenny Hoyer faces a potential challenge from John Murtha for the crime of being too conservative on defense and fiscal issues.

(6) Democratic pre-election cross-dressing on immigration issues will make for a complicated 2007.

George Allen was attacked, according to Jacob Weisberg of Slate, for voting to allow more "foreign guest workers" into the Virginia. Allen was a moderate on the immigration issue, compared to Webb's new Democratic colleagues in the Senate, who were demanding flat out amnesty for illegal aliens.

Similarly, Congressman J.D. Hayworth of Arizona was defeated by a Democrat who claimed that Hayworth had failed to build a fence between Mexico and Arizona. A Georgia incumbent Congressman was attacked for supporting ballots in Spanish. He won by a mere handful of votes and there is a recount pending. What are the chances he will want to vote for amnesty in 2007?

Yet the Democrat's leader on immigration issues in the House will be Sheila Jackson-Lee, who has termed amnesty for illegal aliens the civil rights issue of this century. In 2003, she also complained that the current hurricane names were too Caucasian sounding ("lily white") and that hurricane names should "have better representation for names reflecting African-Americans and other ethnic groups."

Many Democrats, especially blue dog Democrats, will have to choose between their campaign promises on immigration and their party leaderhip's "you all come" immigration proposals.

(7) This too shall pass.

When it comes to politics, neither victory nor defeat is ever final.

Republicans thought all was lost with the 1976 election of Jimmy Carter, a House ruled by Democrats since 1955 and a filibuster-proof 61-vote margin in the Senate. The comic strip Doonesbury joked of a Republican opponent to Lacey Davenport, "doesn't she know her party is dying?"

Similarly, 1980 was not a pleasant night for Democrats. Ronald Reagan AND a Republican-controlled Senate? The end of the world was at hand.

Circumstances change. Could a governor with no foreign policy experience be elected president in the wake of 9/11? Probably not.

But prior to that awful day in 2001, two such governors, Bill Clinton and George Bush were chosen to occupy the Oval Office. (Remember George H.W. Bush's 1992 complaint that "my dog Millie knows more about foreign policy than those two bozos [Clinton and Gore]"? His attack fell on deaf ears then. In today's climate, it might be devastating.

Right now, it looks like Hillary Clinton will be running the country in two years. Two years is a long time in politics. Mickey Kaus even believes that any Pelosi mistakes will rebound to harm Hillary's candidacy.

(8) A rebirth of conservative Republicanism?

House and Senate conservative Republicans will feel freer to disagree with the White House, simply because their are fewer RINOs in their number. In addition one third of the Senate (mostly Republicans) and all the Republicans in the House must run for reelection in 2008. President Bush's name won't be on the ballot but theirs will be.

A fear of political extinction concentrates the mind wonderfully.

The House, even with Tom DeLay, is less likely to go along with unpopular Bush Administration proposals. The relatively conservative members of the House Republican Study Committee are expected to comprise a majority of the House Republican minority.

Unfortunately, as of this writing, the contestants for House Minority Leader are John Boenher of Ohio and Mike Pence of Indiana. Neither has been a friend on official English matters. Pence, who chairs the House Republican Study Committee, earned a grade of F from English First for his 2005-2006 record, while Boehner's record earned him a D minus.

The willingness of rank-and-file Republicans in both the House and the Senate to feel freer to disagree with the White House will be critical to the anti-amnesty effort, a cause which will need all the help it can get.

(9) Amnesty, Bush and the Democratic Party

Notes the El Paso Times, "Bush's proposed immigration reform, which includes a guest-worker program, has always received more support from Democrats. ... When asked about it at a news conference Wednesday, Bush said, "I think we have a good chance. There's an issue where I believe we can find some common ground with the Democrats."

As governor of Texas, Bush prided himself upon occupying a middle ground between Republicans and Democrats. One of his first acts as president was naming the Justice Department's headquarters after Robert Kennedy, a man beloved by Democrats

By contrast, Bush's relationship with House Republicans has always been a bit on the arms-length side. As a candidate in 1999, Bush publicly criticized a Republican controlled House of Representatives for "trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor." The man doing that balancing was Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

DeLay's power was not derived from the favor of the Bush White House but the product of DeLay's own hard work and conservative convictions. Team Bush has never liked "people that we never heard of" let alone independent power centers. Loyalty to the Bush family was a paramount qualification for service in both Bush Administrations. Harriet Miers nearly parlayed years of obsequious loyalty into a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court

Given a choice between a trusted family retainer like Jim Baker or a younger outsider with new ideas, they will opt for the retainer every single time. Thus, just hours after Tuesday's election, former members of Bush I are practically parading through the White House door for the last act of Bush II.

The problem with this loyalty uber alles approach to personnel is that the Bush Administration desperately needs some new ideas -- such as cleaning up the mess of Executive Orders Bill Clinton left behind, like E.O. 13166, ending bilingual education and making American citizenship something precious again.

If President Bush and the Democrats collude to produce a massive amnesty for up to 20 million illegal aliens, President Bush will be as welcome at future Republican conventions as Herbert Hoover was after the Great Depression occurred on his watch. The difference between the two men is that Hoover did not cause the Great Depression, but President Bush is the only reason an unpopular amnesty proposal is getting the time of day in Congress.

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