Democrats Find Lessons In GOP Reign

Schumer said they need to be aggressive: " 'Six for '06' is enough to establish a beachhead, but it's not enough for '08."

William Howell, a political scientist at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy and the co-author of a forthcoming book on the balance of power between Congress and the presidency, disagreed. There may be nothing in the Democrats' agenda beyond the opening salvo, he said, and there probably does not have to be. The election of 1994 brought to power a Republican leadership that campaigned on a specific platform, along with a huge freshman class of ideological conservatives. That was not the case in 2006.

"Everyone woke up Wednesday saying America wants change, but they didn't say, 'Americans want the following five legislative items,' " he said.

Howell said Democrats should pass new ethics laws to distance themselves from the scandal-ridden 109th Congress, push a few broadly popular initiatives such as a minimum wage increase and then concentrate on the business of governance -- passing spending bills on time, taking up nominations and confronting national issues as they arise.

Partisan energies should be channeled to hearings, especially on the conduct of the war in Iraq, which would be far more effective in marshalling public pressure on Bush than any legislation, he said.

Douglas MacKinnon, an aide to then-Senate Majority Leader Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.) during the 1990s, said Democrats must learn from Republican mistakes.

"Number one, you don't have a mandate," he said, addressing Democrats. "The American people were just sick of the other side, so don't turn things upside down, because they won't put up with it. . . . And guess what, the American people do want you to work with the other side. Republicans didn't. They let arrogance rule the day, and it hurt them in the end."

Staff writer Lyndsey Layton contributed to this report.