Many powerful Democrats who now chair key committees are hinting they'll make no big changes in pork barrel, special interest politics.
After Newt Gingrich engineered the Republican revolution of 1994, he became not only House speaker but also "effectively the leader of the entire party." Nancy Pelosi played no comparable role and commands no similar authority.
To clean up practices deeply embedded in congressional culture, Pelosi will need both authority and time—more, certainly, than one term. Everything the Democrats do, meanwhile, will be overshadowed by their need to look effective and responsible, so they can keep their majority in 2008 and, perhaps, win the presidency. Compared with the multiple agendas that Democrats now face, Gingrich's Republicans "had it easy." (E.J. Dionne, Washington Post, 12/12/06)
(Reported by: Intercessors for America)
