Will the Dems take advantage of their wins? Plus, Speaker Pelosi

One of the best things that can come out of this exchange of power in Congress is that the rules former Majority Leader Tom "The Hammer" DeLay (now indicted on a slew of well-deserved charges) set up making the House majority party so much more powerful could be used to the Democrat's advantage — and possibly the advantage of the nation. I, however, am not too optimistic that the Dems will take full advantage of the majority power and the ability to investigate the White House by using Executive subpoena.

As I talked about in this post outlining various election and post-election scenarios, there will be party change — for better or for worse — almost certainly in the Republican and Democratic parties. One can only hope that the Dems will take this chance, grab it by its horns, and make the best of their around 30 seat advantage in the House of Representatives. One problem, the House is still moderately conservative since many moderate Republicans were beaten by Democrats and there are relatively few liberal Democrats (especially compared to the fact that there are 435 seats in that body of Congress).

It will be interesting to see what the first woman Speaker of the House will bring, Nancy Pelosi is third in line for the Presidency (on the very off and unrealistic occasion that both President Bush and Vice President Chaney were to pass away in the next two years). Pelosi and Boxer are two of the few liberal House members; Feingold, Feinstein, and Kennedy are two of the few liberal Senate members (all are Democrats).

I will be panning through the post-election dirt of commentary, sifting for a few pieces of gold today.

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