Since the election I've been pondering the similarities and differences between 2010 and 1994. I think there are more of the latter than the former. But most of them, it seems to me, are beneficial to the Democrats this time around
The basic story is the same. A large tide of Republicans swept their party into a House majority in what was perceived as a grassroots uprising against an unpopular Democratic president and his radical-left agenda.
The first difference of note is that the GOP majority is slightly larger this time out (19 seats, pending the results of unresolved seats, all of which if they went to the GOP would bring it to 25, now versus 12 then). On the one side this is a tougher hurdle to overcome in getting the majority back; on the other it is still less than we had in the last couple of Congresses.
The most important difference in the outcome, of course, is that we have held the Senate this time. This brings up a similarity between now and then that, from the GOP standpoint, can only be more aggravated by this result.
Back in 1994, Gingrich and Dole were not totally on the same page. Newt was getting all the ink (there were no pixels then) for his vision and his radical plan to change America and the way the House did business. Dole, Newt's "tax collector for the welfare state" who really just wanted to be majority leader and not a revolutionary, seemed to be just along for the ride and to slightly resent the big plans of his co-leader (This was the reverse of the situation in 1946, when Senate majority leader Bob Taft was the one with the big plans getting all the press and Speaker Joe Martin (of FDR's "..., Barton and Fish" infamy) was his sidekick).
There was thus some tension, always, between the two of them. This can only be worse today, with McConnell now keenly aware that he is Boehner's little brother, when I think he thinks it should be the other way around if there were any justice in the world. McConnell has been the one making the outrageous statements that Boehner has to at least appear to distance himself from. I'm sure there will be at least a few tense conversations with the two in the same room where Boehner will, at some point, turn to McConnell and say "Well, gee Mr. Minority Leader, I have a very different take on this ..." Or words to that effect.
The nature of the House leadership itself is also significant. In one way it works out better for Republicans this time. In 1994 there were no Republicans whatsoever who had any experience as members of the majority, much less as leaders or committee chairs. As a result they often continued to act as if they were not just the opposition party but the minority, with all the amateurishness that implies (the shutdown was but the tip of that iceberg). You only need look at other examples from the states (New York's recent Democratic Senate majority, hopefully to be sustained under better leadership than guys who were kicked upstairs without any thought to the remote possibility they might be the ones in charge if a majority ever came to be) or other countries (the Democratic Party of Japan in recent years, or the New Democrat government of the Canadian province of Ontario in the early 1990s) to see what can happen.
But not only Boehner and Cantor, but most of the Republican House aristocracy, remember being part of the majority party at least a few years back. Whether they learn from those mistakes (or learn the right things from those mistakes, to be more specific) is an open question, but the fact is those mistakes are there to be learned from now and weren't in 1994.
However ... what the electoral gods give with one hand they take with another. The 1994 freshmen were largely made up of congressmen Gingrich and Armey had been mentoring for years in anticipation of taking over (There are still good lessons which progressives haven't totally learned from that). They owed those two something, and they knew it. Even if they often followed DeLay's example and became "Beavis without Butt-head" (as the saying went at the time). I attribute the slow collapse of the GOP-led House under the Bush presidency (not that it had great shining moments under Clinton, but one does have to remember conservatives were happier with it then than under Bush) at least partly to the loss of Newt earlier than expected following the historic GOP pasting of 1998.
In 2010, Boehner, too, takes the Speakership with a huge class of eager-beaver freshmen full of conservative ideas to try out ... but who do not consider themselves to owe him, personally, anything serious or substantial for their positions. In fact, I think, some of them merely tolerate him and would love to dump him for one of their own (like, say, Bachmann) at the earliest opportunity. If he is anything like the politician one must be to be an effective Speaker, he is all too aware of this. All too aware to the point of losing sleep (if not now, wait). If he isn't, he's basically Nancy Pelosi's halftime show.
We can see these rifts already in events well-documented here: Bachmann's "insurgent" bid for the House Republican Conference chair, the forces gathering against Michael Steele, the Great Alaska Shootout, and others I may not be aware of. Most comical, and most clearly demonstrating the House Republican leadership's awareness of this, is their announcement that the freshmen will get to elect, all by their little selves, a ... "class representative". One has to wonder how they're taking this. My reaction was, which of them will get to be attendance collectors and cookie passers as well? Really, it sounds about as likely — in fact, less likely — to be taken seriously by Boehner Cantor & Co. than the class president you got to elect in third grade was by the school board. (And very shrewd of them to hold that election now, when most of these people don't know each other that well, thus making the election little more than a popularity contest rather than a contest of true legislative leadership ability. It is highly likely to pick someone B&C can easily manipulate later on).
This group of freshmen also has, down the line, the strong likelihood that they will all be grouped with the Tea Party in future Congresses (and elections) regardless of what the real circumstances of their nominations and elections were (I don't think anyone will remember in two years that, for instance, in the NY-19 race I worked on, Nan Hayworth wasn't the Tea Party candidate in the primary race; Neil di Carlo (whose supporters launched a late write-in campaign) was. But during the general election she certainly didn't disown their support. If the public really starts to go sour on the new House, "Tea Party" will be a very dirty word very quickly. It will be interesting to see some of these people deny them before the cock crows thrice (note that Joe Miller and Carly Fiorina already seemed to be distancing themselves from the teabaggers even before the election).
Obama can easily exploit another similarity resulting from this: like the Tea Party, the 1994 freshmen leaned so far to the right that Clinton didn't have to actually do anything to heed the punditariat's calls to "move to the center", because the House had swung so far right that the center became where he already was. Similarly, I expect the Village to rediscover, after some length of time, just how "reasonable" Obama is compared to the house.
Another plus that, to me, Obama has is that (honestly) compared to Clinton, Obama's election did not inspire the sort of personal revulsion that accompanied Clinton (Those of us who do remember the 1990s (which unfortunately means that yes, we were there) will probably agree that it seemed that an awful lot of conservative Republicans and Angry White Males took not only Clinton's election, but his administration and indeed his very existence as some sort of personal humiliation) Polls have shown that people retain a very high level of personal regard for Obama whatever they think of his policies or his job performance. That's a cushion he has which Clinton didn't.
The state of play at the time of takeover is also different today in ways that complicate the GOP's life. In 1994, the Republicans, who had not controlled the House within the living memory of most of the electorate, came in with a 67 percent positive rating. They had space to maneuver in, but even more promptly than most of us thought they would, crashed through the wall.
But now they have far less of that. The Republicans come in with only a 40 percent positive rating. They can also look at how many of their members, new and returning, come in having won only narrow victories and, sensibly, agree with Dick Armey that this was not a mandate (For those of you who, like myself, worked hard phonebanking and canvassing for candidates who ultimately lost but by less than 10 points, this is the small payoff we do get). There really isn't much welcome for them to wear out.
So, I bet it won't be long into 2011 before we start reading stories in the "How did it go wrong for the Republicans?" and "dispirited ex-Teabaggers" molds. It's in the cards.