As anticipated, Democrats are the big winners in this week's elections in the United States. After 12 years, the party regained control of the House of Representatives with at least a 12-seat majority and, after a neck-and-neck race in Virginia, claimed 51 of the Senate's 100 seats.
President George W. Bush conceded that his party took a thumping at the polls. The Democrats' good fortune will not be their country's unless both parties end the rancor and bitter partisanship that has come to dominate Washington politics. The U.S. has vitally important things to do and its executive and legislative branches must work together to accomplish them.
All 435 members of the House of Representatives and one-third of Senate seats are up for election every other year. These biennial elections tend to focus on local issues if the president is not on the ballot. This year, however, the vote was a referendum on national politics. Mounting public anger over scandals, government performance, the war in Iraq and the war on terror, and rising government spending had pollsters and experts predicting a surging "Democratic wave" of voter discontent with existing policies. The results did not disappoint.