That pretty much nails it. My Congressman is doing exactly what his constituents elected him to do: Pull as much of the pie to this district as possible. It's all the frikkin' Congressmen from other districts (who are doing the same) that are the problem. ;)

The remarkable transmogrification of the Republicans, once in power, shows that this immutable law of self-interest knows no party loyalties.

As an example, imagine a 70 to 30 split (not so hard to do, the democrats peaked at 76 about 70 years ago and had 68 seats 40 years ago). Now you have 10 votes to give to get the bill to a vote and 20 votes to give to get the bill passed (assuming Cheney isn't in a secret location). This would seem to give a lot more room to finding a path without the party extremists.

Sorry. At best a divided congress is good for neither party getting to go their way. We have to many important issues, domestically and internationally, facing the country for me to by the argument that gridlock is the solution.

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway takes note, and summarizes the series nicely in his post "Conservatives Call for Republican Ouster". While he has some interesting critiques and comments on each column, he confuses the notion of divided government...

Or we may get a president who finally has the cojones to insist on cuts and veto some spending bills.

Bush's only veto has been on stem cell research. He has been completely unable to resist spending by his own party.

I'm not very fond of the idea of subjecting this theory to a real test. I see a few data points, but can we really draw the conclusion that a few data points constitutes proof?

The American politics is not a closed system. There is only one constant and that is the framework of the government. All the other factors are variables that interact both domestically and internationally. Would anyone accept the Democrats and Republicans of the 1950s as the same parties today? Does the inclination of the electorate of the 1960s replicate the inclination of the electorate today?

Those who argue the case for divided govenrnment, here, today, in 2006, make a bold assumption that past performance guarantees future results.

What evidence do we have that the President, the big spending big government Republican, would change his behavior? The primary reason we have large budgets today is because the President and Congress have compromised. They get what they want, more or less. He gets what he wants, more or less. Sure the libertarians and the economic conservatives get the short end of the deal, but so does the far left. Bush, for all practial purposes, has assembled a bi-partisan majority for more spending. One more data point supporting George Will's thesis, "the American public is philosophically conservative and operationally liberal."

If November gives us a Democratic majority in the House, we will not only get divided government, we will get a weakened President who is more likely to compromise with Democratic spending plans.

I don't think that's necessarily true of Dems; it sounds more true of the Repubs, who at least *have* "core principles." Dems are much less organized, and their primaries probably reflect that.

I liked Djerejian's quote of David Cameron, UK Tory:

I am a liberal conservative, rather than a neo-conservative. Liberal - because I support the aim of spreading freedom and democracy, and support humanitarian intervention. Conservative - because I recognise the complexities of human nature, and am sceptical of grand schemes to remake the world. A liberal conservative approach to foreign policy today is based on five propositions. First, that we should understand fully the threat we face. Second, that democracy cannot quickly be imposed from outside. Third, that our strategy needs to go far beyond military action. Fourth, that we need a new multilateralism to tackle the new global challenges we face. And fifth, that we must strive to act with moral authority.

Frankly, while the actual content of these words is ragingly debatable, I can sign up for that. The Dems could use some UK speechwriters, I think.

Somehow, the Dems have managed to avoid this, despite plenty of opportunities.