I think so: and part of the venom of the 1981-1983 period was due precisely to the fact that Reagan controlled all three branches of govt including the house, when the Southern Democrats were tallied in. This helps explain Tip O'Neill's difficulties. It took a great enlargement of the Democratic majority (with non-southern votes) to halt the Gorsuch/Watt stuff.
The realization that Democrats are now, on the whole, leaner and meaner may be in part why the WSJ and the like are so vituperative. Perhaps they, unlike us, sense a genuine threat of social Democracy (a milktoast US version). Certainly that was the case in Gigot's editorial in the WSJ today. A democratic congress, Hillary on the supreme court: war to the knife is the only answer, for the WSJ reactionaries.
In anyt case it is distinctly possible that a democratic majority of say ten seats might actually be more progressive than, historically, the 245-180 majorities typical of the post-WWII period, in which all social issues had the Ball and Chain of the South. In essence progressive US politics stnad a better chance on an East Coast-West Coast axis: you can haver the south if we can take California. The democratic dilemma will be to keep the south from voting solidly Republican and the republicans are going to have to realize that it's damned difficult to take the White House w/o California. I was amazed that both Bush and Dole wrote it off.
-gn
-- Gregory P. Nowell Associate Professor Department of Political Science, Milne 100 State University of New York 135 Western Ave. Albany, New York 12222
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