The election results didn’t shock anybody but the Democrats. They had gotten so used to the Republicans sticking it to them at the last minute that they were afraid to predict that the political tide had turned. After all, how much damage can one party do to a distressed and depressed nation? Distressed over the nation’s state of domestic affairs (the economy, gas prices, Republican page scandal). Depressed over a war nobody (but the Republican warhawks) wanted, and now can’t get out of. The American people felt like they were either stuck (in Iraq) or having it stuck to ‘em (on everything from their pocket to their intelligence). It wasn’t that the Republicans didn’t try to stick it to them some more. They pushed the gay marriage button, putting it on the ballot in several states. They pushed the “politics of fear” button, banging us over the head with terrorism, terrorism, terrorism until we couldn’t see straight. They got the oil lobby to drop gas prices a half a buck in the month prior to the election so the American people could drive their gluttony to the polls.

Oh, the Republicans know how to push some buttons…But there were two drums the Republicans couldn’t beat—two buttons they couldn’t press; the fabricated War in Iraq and the family values horse they rode in on in 1994. Not with America’s mounting losses in Iraq and the Christian Evangelicals mounting disappointments over constant morality scandals with their party’s faithful. In either instance, the rhetoric didn’t square with the reality and the American people got tired of being lied to. Everybody has a limit. The American people reached their's a week ago, Tuesday. For the first time in twelve years, the Democrats are a majority in both chambers of Congress.

To break the fall, the morning after—President Bush threw his number two warhawk, Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld (Vice President, Dick Cheney is still the administration’s number one warhawk), out the window. Bush said the administration needed a “fresh perspective,” then plucked someone out of his father’s administration (big surprise), former CIA Director, Robert Gates. How fresh is that?? In the meantime, party ghost from “Contract With America” past, Newt Gingrich, outted the President as having caused the party’s demise by not dumping Rumsfeld two weeks before the election. Gingrich said it would have saved the GOP the Senate and 10 to 15 House seats. The Republicans would have still lost the House, but not their shirt. A 58 seat swing ain’t exactly something that would make the party feel in lockstep with the people. The Democrats needed 15 seats to gain a majority. They picked up 29 seats. The Republicans were expected to lose a few seats in the Senate but were expected to hold its majority. They went to the polls election day holding a 55-45 majority, and woke up the next day 51-49 in the minority. The Democrats will claim leadership in both chambers, but it won’t be without its problems.

First, there's the federal deficit that’s at an all-time high of $8.5 trillion dollars. While amassing the greatest debt ever, wages have fallen and a separation of wealth has occurred that has the nation facing class conflict issues, and the government is not in position to help. Deficits can only be reduced one of two ways; budget cuts and tax increases. Republicans, who have cut every domestic program that they possibly can, are waiting for the Democrats to increase government spending and taxes, so they can start beating the “tax and spend” drum again. Then there is the environment issue that has our nation reliant on foreign oil, but no strategic plan to reduce fossil fuel usage. They left that for the Democrats to figure out, too. Then there’s the war…both of ‘em. The war on terrorism—that may be real, and the war in Iraq—that was imagined but suddenly became real. Homeland security is what the people wanted, a safer nation, only to be told that we’re not much more safer than we were in 2001. It’s now the Democrats’ problem. And the war in Iraq is as messy as ever, as President Bush talks out of both sides of his mouth, refusing to acknowledge Iraq was a mistake, while acknowledging its time for new thinking on how to get out. The Democrats now have the glorious task of working with a President with an all-time low 31% approval rating, five points lower than Clinton ever had with a Republican Congress trying to impeach him.

The Republican Congress left the nation in deep doo-doo by co-signing whatever the President wanted to do. Now, in order to do what they have been wanting to do…on prescription medicine, on education, on health care and on poverty, Democrats in Congress will have to wade through tons of elephant poop before the people can begin to see a change. Cleaning up after an elephant has never been an easy job. But the American people have made it a tolerable task by sweeping out the Republican majority in Congress. If the Democrats are lookin’ toward 2008 and the opportunity to clean house (the White House), they'd better get to shovelin’.

Anthony Asadullah Samad is a national columnist, managing director of the Urban Issues Forum and author of 50 Years After Brown: The State of Black Equality In America. He can be reached at AnthonySamad.com.

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