BROOKS KRAFT/GAMMA FOR TIME MOVING QUICKLY: Lott and Hastert vowed to pass homeland security and tax-cut bills

The Battle Hymn of the Republicans
	It's hallelujah time in the White House as the Democrats discover (again) what a mistake it is to underestimate George W. Bush. Here's how far he plans to go with his new mandate
	By Romesh Ratnesar

Posted Sunday, Nov. 10, 2002; 10:31 a.m. EST
"No gloating," read the e-mail that greeted euphoric Republican leaders as they sleeplessly stumbled into work last Wednesday. The command came directly from the White House, which hours earlier had pulled off the biggest presidential triumph in a midterm election in nearly a century. George W. Bush and his strategists were worried that excessive celebration by congressional Republicans could infuriate Democrats, polarize the electorate and poison the slim, precious mandate the President had at last won. And so on Wednesday, White House aides fanned out across Washington holding strategy sessions and conference calls with congressional leaders and top G.O.P. operatives. Even as they discussed what to do with their new power, Administration officials conveyed the directive Bush had handed down that morning: Don't overreact. Stay calm. No gloating.

But in private some Republicans just couldn't resist. At 2 a.m. on election night, shortly after incumbent Missouri Democrat Jean Carnahan conceded defeat, an aide to Trent Lott sneaked into his empty Capitol office and placed a bronze plaque engraved with the words majority leader on Lott's desk. The plaque had been stowed in the bottom drawer of the desk since the Republicans lost control of the Senate 18 months ago, when Vermont's Jim Jeffords abandoned the G.O.P., but Lott never threw it away, just in case he returned to the Senate's top job. "I just feel exhilarated about having another opportunity," he told Time. Even at a White House determined not to appear self-congratulatory, the sense of elation was inescapable. In the Oval Office early Wednesday, Bush surprised his senior staff by bounding in on five hours' sleep for a 7 a.m. meeting and laying out his postelection strategy. "Right off the bat he said we're going to focus on the economy and unfinished business," says an official. Bush instructed the aides—Karen Hughes, Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, chief of staff Andrew Card, communications director Dan Bartlett and strategist Karl Rove—to "tone it down. Let it speak for itself." But the President was smiling. "This," he said, "is a great day."

Until last week, the presidency of George W. Bush was not so much historic as shaped by history, created out of the mold of an extraordinary election and given form by the terrorist attacks of September 2001. Despite broad support for his campaign against al-Qaeda, Bush, in the eyes of his detractors, has never fully shaken his image as a fortunate son whose approval ratings would eventually collapse under the weight of a sagging economy. Democrats figured that would be enough to at least hold their ground, but last week Bush's appeal blindsided them. After securing control of both houses of Congress and then winning unanimous approval for a new Security Council resolution against Iraq, Bush has the potential to become the most powerful American politician since Ronald Reagan.

The Republican takeover of the Senate was close to two years in the making, the strategy hammered out by Rove and various high-ranking G.O.P. activists in secret meetings held everywhere from Capitol Hill brasseries to West Virginia golf courses. By the eve of the election, G.O.P. polls projected a big turnout by Republican voters energized by Bush's full-court press: he visited 15 states in the past five days. Democratic strategists, meanwhile, underestimated his pull. "Bush's coattails were far more effective than anybody on our side thought," says a top Democratic operative. "We thought his popularity numbers were soft."

They weren't. Twenty-one out of the 23 House members and 12 of the 16 Senate candidates Bush campaigned for won their races. The results were momentous. Only three other times in the past century has a President's party gained seats in the House in an off-year election, and not since the Civil War has the President's party won back a Senate majority in a midterm contest. Bush will be the first Republican President since Dwight Eisenhower to enjoy outright majorities in the House and Senate.

Democrats could do little more than insist on their relevance. "We're not going away," Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle said. "We're going to be fighting for the things we believe in." The loss of control may actually give Daschle more flexibility: sources tell Time that as majority leader he often held his fire to guard against the defection of Georgia Democrat Zell Miller, who threatened to leave the party if Daschle came down too hard on the President. But Daschle and the rest of the party leadership have yet to lay out a compelling alternative to the President's agenda, in part because party members can't decide whether or not to fight it. Democrats in the Senate are divided over whether to support the White House's push to make its tax cuts permanent, and all but the most liberal members have gone silent on the Administration's hawkish foreign policy.

In the House, the resignation of minority leader Richard Gephardt set off a fight for the soul of the party. His probable replacement, Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, is an unapologetic member of the party's liberal wing—most recently she led the fight against the President's drive for congressional authorization to strike Iraq—and a scion of a minor Democratic dynasty: her father served in Congress and as mayor of Baltimore, a job her brother also held. (Her daughter Alexandra became friendly with Bush while making Journeys with George, a documentary about his presidential campaign.) The apparent anointment of Pelosi, a dynamic fund raiser who would be the first female party leader in Congress, cheered Republican strategists, who expect her to try to revive the party by picking fights with the White House. Pelosi says she's ready for combat: "We cannot allow Republicans to pretend they share our values and then legislate against those values without consequence."

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