Divided they stand
Blue Dog Democrats are out; Tea Party Republicans are in. The days of a unified Democratic majority in Washington are gone, to be replaced by a GOP-controlled House, weakened Democratic control of the Senate, and, undoubtedly, two years of headaches for President Obama. In the wake of this month’s midterm elections, several of Harvard’s political observers said, the capital is gearing up for showdowns on fiscal reform, economic growth, and a host of other issues, with a distant eye toward Obama’s likely re-election bid in 2012. “We’ll have between 95 and 97 new members of Congress, and that’s a very high turnover,” said David King, a lecturer in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School who has run the Institute of Politics’ (IOP) Program for Newly Elected Members of Congress since 1996. “A third of the Republican caucus will be new. It’s a big change, and it’ll be a very big challenge...