Excuse me while I check inside Pandora’s Box.

Ah, there it is. Bruised, battered, worn and torn, but there it is:

Hope.

Hello there, nice to see you again.

American progressives woke up this morning holding on to hope like a favourite pillow, perhaps dizzy with the news of a big turnaround, and just a little apprehensive of what the Democrats will do with power now that they have it again.

I went to sleep at three a.m. Central time with Montana and Virginia’s Senate races hanging by a hair. The political wise guys like Jeffrey Toobin of CNN seem to think things will hold up for the Democrats. It didn’t seem possible at 10 p.m. last night, but future Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi might soon be caucusing with future Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

The headlines around the world were almost giddy:

  • Sydney Morning Herald: Bush On Notice As Heartland Hits Back
  • The (UK) Independent: America’s Damning Verdict on Bush
  • Toronto Star: Angry Voters Punish Bush

Assuming the Democrats will control both the House and Senate, for the party in power to be so rebuked, as they would say “in a time of war,” is stunning. However, noting that many of the newly-elected Democrats come from culturally conservative stock, it could either signal a change in course in American politics and culture or a false hope for progressivism in the U.S.

Perhaps the most remarkable change in this election cycle is one that hasn’t been talked about enough: the Democrats finally seemed to learn how to play the media campaign game and hit the GOP where they live.

At about 7:45 p.m. last night, an earnest young woman working for local Democrats interrupted my election watching to make sure I had the opportunity to vote. The get-out-the-vote machinations from Democrats, especially in Iowa, have improved dramatically.

On TV, a great Democratic Congressional Committee ad showed a father tucking his son into bed, and trying to reassure the son about the war in Iraq and global warming. The son wonders who will make sure the problems will be taken care of. The father seems to pause, unsure of what to say. Then the voiceover: “What will you tell your children?”

They’re learning. Bless their little donkey hearts, they’re learning how to hit at gut level.

It’s not all roses of course.

Successful Republican Senate candidate Bob Corker of Tennessee could play the race card in a nasty TV ad that raised the old ghost of the sexuality of black men menacing white womanhood. George Allen could call a person of colour “macaca” and come within a razor’s margin of winning the Senate seat in Virginia.

Bigoted “same sex marriage” bans passed in several states (except, surprisingly in Arizona, which passed an “English as official language” measure).

And 95,351 people could still vote for accused woman batterer Donald Sherwood in Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional district race (he lost). We still have a long way to go in America, granted.

However we came a long way back Tuesday night. The American people undoubtedly sent a message, perhaps several.

For instance, 52 per cent of Rhode Island voters strongly disapproved of the war in Iraq. So did their Republican Senator Lincoln Chaffee, but it didn’t help him at all as Rhode Island voters mercilessly punished the personally popular Senator Tuesday night.

It was like that in many states among Republicans who lost, especially here in Iowa. Republican Congressman Jim Leach is personally well liked and had held the office for nearly three decades. But clearly something was moving in the country when Iowa voters ousted Leach for Dave Loebsack, whose name or face the average Iowan wouldn’t have been able to recognize a year ago.

Those Republicans who were truly despised like incumbent Senators Mike DeWine of scandal-ridden Ohio and Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania, didn’t need the war to hurt them any more than they were already harmed by supporting President George W. Bush’s domestic agenda.

An interesting polling factor, according to CNN, is how little the main GOP issue of the economy played in the minds of the electorate and how much the issue of government corruption did. Apparently enough voters are still feeling secure enough financially to care about clean government and that’s a good thing.

Incumbent Democrats held on in Congress. Six Republican state governorships were lost. The nearly total ban on abortions in South Dakota fell. Several states voted to raise their minimum wage and a few states came reasonably close to legalizing medical marijuana. A full 60 per cent of independents went Democrat — the gains of 1994 disappeared.

Put that in Karl Rove’s pipe for smoking.

Democratic political guru James Carville on CNN last night said “I see two countries,” and he’s right. The nation does seem to be more starkly split into red-blue and, correspondingly, north-south, urban-rural and more religious-more secular voting blocs. This is not a split that will go away anytime soon and the regional and cultural differences will now fester beneath the surface of the body politic until 2008.

The major issue however, was still the war in Iraq and Bush’s handling of it. And that raises the major questions arising from last night.

Now that the Democrats have at least one house of Congress under control, will they play footsie with the GOP and the White House for two years hoping that by not appearing too radical, anti-war, unpatriotic or obstructionist they’ll finish the job in 2008 with Democratic control of the Presidency?

No impeachment of President Bush is on tap, of course, but instead a middle class agenda — cheaper prescription drugs, a higher minimum wage, and a review of the conduct of the war — and that’s not bad policy.

But Bush holds the power of veto so most of what the Democrats will propose may die stillborn, as the Democrats will most likely not be able to override any of his vetoes. But putting those “kitchen table” issues in front of the electorate will undoubtedly be part of the Dems’ strategy for 2008.

More worrisome is if the Democrats back away from directly taking on the President on the war as Howard Dean and Barack Obama seemed to indicate. America still supports the troops and by extension, many support winning the war they fight, not leaving the field.

If Dems play the safety dance, I think there’s a chance that going into the primary season, they’ll again anger their activist base, appear to lack conviction, look weak and servile in front of the Republicans and put themselves in the same position John Kerry found himself in, in 2004.

I’ll worry about that tomorrow. While I’ve never been thought of as an optimist when it comes to America’s political and social future, I can still say today “Speaker Nancy Pelosi,” the first female Speaker of the House in U.S. history.

“Mister President we need a new direction in Iraq,” Pelosi said late last night. “Let us work together to find a new solution to the war in Iraq.”

And you know how the Rush Limbaugh crowd will hate that.

Emily Dickinson wrote, “Hope is the thing with feathers.” For at least today, American progressives may look like Big Bird to the world.

Keith Gottschalk

Keith Gottschalk

U.S. Keith Gottschalk has written for daily newspapers in Iowa, Illinois and Ohio. He also had a recent stint as a radio talk show host in Illinois. As a result of living in the high ground...