Right Makes Might

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By week's end Democratic resumes clogged printshops on Capitol Hill, where real estate agents predicted a buyers' market in brick town houses. Some Democrats, however, were slow to accept the news. An incumbent committee chairman, informed by a Democratic party elder that the House was falling to the Republicans, began to prattle on about how he would adjust his agenda to accommodate the newcomers. "Don't you understand?" the party elder interrupted. "You're not the chairman anymore."

For both parties, observed Representative Toby Roth, a Wisconsin Republican, "this was more than an election. It was a revolution." Already wheezing before last Tuesday, the New Deal coalition that had kept Democrats in power for most of the past six decades collapsed and will have to be replaced. Meanwhile, Republicans have achieved a pregnant moment when their 25-year realignment of party power seems on the verge of success. They have managed to discredit the Democrats, root and branch. What they have not done, however -- and must accomplish over the next two years -- is convince voters that Republicans in Congress can move beyond heckling and obstructing to meet the public demand for leaner, more effective, more accountable government; that they can emulate pragmatic Republican success stories in the statehouses and mayors' offices. If not, the 1994 election will be remembered as just another blip, like the 1946 vote that won them only fleeting control of Congress. To paraphrase Victor Hugo: A great army can capture an enemy city, but to rule it requires a great idea.

The G.O.P.'s attempt to consolidate its hold on Congress and win the White House in 1996 will be determined in the struggle between the party's bomb- throwing congressional wing and its governing faction in the statehouses and mayor's offices -- both of which showed remarkable success in Tuesday's voting. To be sure, Republican conservatives will also clash with Republican moderates in Congress, like Senator John Chafee of Rhode Island and Representative Jim Leach of Iowa. But there the conservatives will win, because the moderates' numbers in both parties in Congress have been decimated by retirements and by last Tuesday's election. But if one faith unites and encourages both wings of the G.O.P., it is the evidence from the election -- and from Clinton's reaction to it -- that they have the President and his party on the ropes.

In the White House, no one was ready to hear that message. Last Tuesday afternoon, chief of staff Leon Panetta gathered his downcast political team to plot how to put spin control on various election outcomes: a modest loss, a big loss and what he called "a blowout scenario." At one point, aide George Stephanopoulos pushed himself back from the mahogany table in Panetta's office and left. When he returned -- stone-faced, exit-poll results in hand -- he told the group, "We're in deep trouble."