So this is

the week that the U.S.S. Washington will list dramatically to the left.

You can almost hear the ship's furniture as it shifts slowly at first,

but comes crashing in the end to a big political heap to be sorted and

righted by Sen. Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota), the new Senate majority

leader, and his deck hands.

What are these

winds of change, and what is the system they foretell? It all depends

on the undercurrents and the temperature of the water. Are we building

to a political El Niño, or is this just a nominal wind shift at

sea? It has all the makings of a political epic, but there's not nearly

enough guts and glory in all of Washington to make it so.

My bet is "business

as usual." The average American won't even realize a ripple of difference

anyway when the Democrats take over the Senate. But the shift does give

up a few secrets in the shifting.

First, the

Republican defector, Sen. Jeffords of Vermont, has voted like a Democrat

all along. It is what caused him to be squeezed in the Republican Party

vice in the first place. It was allegedly the squeezing from the White

House that set him off on his political tantrum. Fundamentally he wants

to vote his conscience, which may or may not adhere to any party line.

That I can

respect if he has conveyed his predisposition to those who put him in

office and his conscience tends to reflect theirs. Ethically, though,

a good man would have come to terms with himself and his constituents

at election time, not mid-season, and not at a time when party representation

in the Senate was a 50-50 split. What could have been a stand on principle

becomes instead a stand on politics. Business as usual, don't you think?

The second

secret is that for years Republicans just couldn't seem to play the game

as tightly as Democrats did. Democrats stuck together come hell or high

water, and their payoff was power. This year Republicans started playing

it like Democrats, calling errant senators in for pointed meetings on

party-line voting, and what did they get for their efforts? A loss of

power. So what does that tell us?

It tells me

that most Democrats who register themselves as Democrats really believe

their party line. They tend to be more purist and idealistic in their

political views. When they veer from the party platform, as our own Sen.

Zell Miller regularly does, they are hailed as bipartisan and public policy

trailblazers. They are reaching across the aisles to serve the principle

of compromise for the sake of getting something accomplished for the American

people.

This is not

true for Republicans. Why? The answer is twofold.

I think some

people register as Republicans to get elected in their largely conservative

districts, but really don't have a sense of loyalty to the principles

of the party. These people know they are not Republicans, and their deception

is deliberate. I think Fayette County has a pretty big problem in this

regard.

Those of you

who are doing it know who you are. And those of us who lean towards a

truly conservative view of governance know who you are, too. So when these

"RhINOs," Republicans in name only, vote Democratic they're

seen as traitors, but they are more like masqueraders liars, if you will.

The second

half of the answer reveals the biggest problem for the Republican party.

In the years since Reagan left office, as the Democratic Party has become

more and more socialist in nature, the Republican Party has become the

dumping ground for any political mindset that is not Democratic. The range

of beliefs represented is so divergent, there can't really be a "party

line."

These people

are Republicans because the two-party system is all that we have at present,

and since the Democratic Party does not represent them, they have no other

choice. When they vote against the party line, they are not really traitors

either, they are really just people without a party. The Republicans "accepted"

them for their numerical value. They counted towards the now-defunct majority

which gave the real Republicans the coveted committee chairs.

When the real

Republicans got bossy and dogmatic, and tried to get these "accepted"

Republicans to vote like true Republicans, they threw down a gauntlet

that caused the Washington ship to roll off keel.

And that brings

me