above is not new, polls have indicated public opinion most often favoring divided gov't for several decades, of course, potential for divided gov't stems from presidential selection independent of legislature...
divided party control (dpc) of gov't has been more common than unified party control (upc) since mid-20th century, 32 years of the former (including when one party controlled both presidency and one congressional chamber - reagan & senate republicans), 24 years of the latter...26 years od dpc & 12 years of upc since nixon elected prez in 1968...
mainstream poli sci folks like to maintain that voters appear to use different criteria when choosing president than they do when choosing congressional represenatives, the former ostensibly evaluated according to views on national issues and competence in dealing with national problems, the latter evaluated on personal character, experience, constituency service...
poli sci people are themselves divided as to the impact of divided government, david mayhew has gotten a lot of mileage from a study purporting to show that just as much significant legislation gets passed and signed into law when there is dpc as when there is upc...using different approaches, however, several others have found the dpc is less productive than upc (note that such studies, by and large, do *not* directly address policies and policy outcomes, you know, that pesky normative stuff)...
above differences aside, political scientists have uniformly disagreed with those who claim that dpc produces *gridlock* whereby gov't is unable to act on important policy issues, that circumstance may be changing/may have already changed in that the tradition of congressional bi-partisan policymaking has weakened...
there has already been some speculation about how bush/democratic congressional majority will fare compared to clinton/republican majority...
gingrich-led house republicans initially rebuffed clinton's willingness to work with them, less conservative dole-led senate republican majority combined with Rule 22 (3/5ths majority rather than simple majority) and the *vaunted* gentility of that chamber to temper gingrich's *contract on america*, even refusing to take up certain measures passed by the house...
negative public opinion blaming the republicans for a couple of government shutdown offered clintin an opportunity to pursue *triangulation* (strangulation?), portraying himself as the *voice of reason* he presided over a center-right government the policies of which indicated just how far to the right the center had shifted over several decades...clinton's overtures to the republicans continued even as they were carrying out impeachment proceedings against him...
in contrast, the current republican president has shown little interest in working with congressional democrats, i guess some observers might point to the *no child left standing* school legislation forged in concert with ted kennedy, they might also point to certain similarities that this president and democrats have with respect to immigration policy... mh