With the midterm election now behind us, political reporters nationwide are searching for something to fill that big, empty hole left in our coverage (and our hearts). So in this, the first full week after the elections, expect to see plenty of campaign stories of a totally different stripe: prognostications about the 2008 presidential race and stories about leadership fights in the new Congress.
Especially important will be the fight between the old, DLC-led Democratic establishment and the newer Democrats -- like Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean -- for control of a party that suddenly finds itself in power and in need of a governing philosophy and agenda for the next two years. This week will probably be full of stories about that debate; actually, the stories started last night, with Nancy Pelosi's release of a letter supporting John Murtha's candidacy to be House majority leader. That race will itself be a test of who will dominate the Democratic Party, pitting, as it does, the liberal Pelosi and the now liberal-affiliated Murtha against the more centrist Steny Hoyer, who publicly condemned Murtha when the latter called for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. It's definitely a race worth watching.
Shares