The 2010 midterm election's dust is finally beginning to settle. So far, I have avoided writing directly about it, mostly because there are so many other "what it all means" opinions out there available for public consumption right now -- which leaves little to be said that someone else hasn't likely already remarked upon. Also, elections are exhausting for political wonks, and I'm just now getting back up to regular speed on things. I must admit, I still don't have an overarching snapshot of the election, or of the future consequences on the next two years. You'll have to forgive me, but my thoughts are still a bit disjointed and less-than-cohesive. Today's column will reflect this, as I weave around the edges of the midterm election's impact.

To prove this point, perhaps, I'd like to open with a song lyric that's been running through my head from the British rock giants The Who. Now, this song has been a rock anthem and a staple on the radio pretty much since the day it was released, but it has recently been introduced to a younger generation for a new reason. I've always maintained that the song contains the absolute best maniacal scream in all of rock history (Rockdom?), bar none. This was duly noticed by the folks putting together a television show a few years ago, so a lot of people now know the song best through the clip played at the beginning of CSI: Miami. But the television theme, while making full use of this wonderful rock scream, mostly avoids the rest of the lyrics. This is no accident, as the song -- "Won't Get Fooled Again" -- is not only revolutionary in nature, but it's one of the most interesting revolutionary songs of the 1960s era. Instead of a "call to arms" or other revolutionary fervor, The Who decided to answer the question: "What happens the day after the revolution?" Which makes it fairly unique, lyrically (I should mention that it's also a great song, but that's really immaterial here for our purposes).

Although the song was quite obviously written during a period of possible Lefty revolution, it is so well written that only one line in the entire song rings false when you apply it to a Righty revolution. "The beards have all grown longer overnight" certainly brings Lefty imagery (and not Righty imagery) to mind (think: Castro, for instance). The entire rest of the song is fairly "generic" in nature, in terms of being applicable to any political "revolution." Of course, the rhetoric gets a bit radical at times, as evidenced by the very first verse:

We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgment of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

But, whether a metaphorical "shotgun" or a real-life join-or-die post-revolutionary tribunal, the lesson remains the same, which is spelled out in the chorus:

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

The full lyrics to "Won't Get Fooled Again" are worth reading, especially if you've gotten used to just hearing the snippet of the song they play as a television theme. They are a fairly well-thought out look at the chaos and uncertainty which immediately follow any political upheaval -- although, admittedly, from the point of view of someone who has just survived a real "revolution," and not a mere orderly shift in power due to an election. What can be seen metaphorically in application to today's situation was likely written much more literally, in other words.

But the lines which have been running through my head are towards the end of the song (I've omitted the "beard" line which closes this verse, since as I said it really doesn't apply here):

There's nothing in the streets
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now parting on the right

We now find ourselves in such a "day after the revolution" situation, to some degree or another, in American politics. The question of whether or not folks will be fooled again is going to grow larger throughout the next two years, over on the Right. The question is inherently impossible to answer at this point, but it hasn't stopped the song from running through my head as we survey the post-revolutionary political scene. And, so far, this "parting on the right" is already causing some headaches for the Republicans in Washington. I speak, of course, of the Tea Partiers.

The last two years in American congressional history can be summed up as the "Blue Dog years" for the Democrats. Republicans took great pleasure in pointing out, every time they were being called obstructionists, that the real problem in Washington wasn't that they were blocking things, but was actually that the Democrats couldn't agree among themselves exactly what to do about anything. Democrats had large majorities in both houses of Congress, but the core "base" Democrats (to say nothing of the Progressives) were constantly squabbling with the "Blue Dog" Democrats, who were much more (take your pick) "conservative," "centrist," or "corporate." This schism caused no end of problems, and the Blue Dogs were able to get the rest of the party to accede to its demands on a wide range of issues when the final bills were drafted. They were strong enough that, without their support (especially in the Senate), they could block bills from passing by voting with Republicans.

This dynamic has changed. The big change is, of course, that the balance of power has shifted in the House and the Democrats' majority in the Senate is now much smaller, but I'll get to that in a bit. The dynamic I'm thinking of first is the one within the Democratic Party. Because, proportionally, the Democratic Party in the House is now a lot more cohesive and the Blue Dogs are a lot smaller faction within the party when compared to Progressives. Consider the numbers, if you will. The Progressive Caucus in the House had 80 members before the election. It lost three, or just under four percent of their total. The Blue Dog Caucus in the House used to have 54 members. It now has 26 -- a loss of almost 52 percent. This means the Democrats, for the next two years, are going to be a lot "smaller tent" of a political party, but it also means they may be a lot more willing to stand together on the issues.

Not that it's going to matter much. The House is the ultimate in "majority rules" in American government, and the minority's sole purpose is to whine and complain about how they're being shut out of the process. The Republicans, quite obviously, played that role quite well the last two years. Democrats will not have any power whatsoever in the House for the next two, so we'll see how they adapt to this reduced role.

The irony, of course, is that the House Democrats are largely being punished for the inactivity in the Senate. Nancy Pelosi's House passed quite a number of popular bills that died an unheralded death in the glacial pace of the upper chamber. Even more ironic, the man mostly responsible for not adequately fighting this gridlock is likely to return as Senate Majority Leader, unless Harry Reid decides to voluntarily step down from his leadership role (a long shot, at best).

Over in the Senate, the Democratic situation isn't as radically changed as in the House. Most prominently, Democrats will remain in the majority. But also, due to only a third of the seats being up for grabs in this election, there will be a lot of Democrats who haven't recently faced the voters. Including quite a few Blue Dogs. The problem with this is that it may be a whole lot easier for Republicans to convince Blue Dogs to vote with them than it will be for Democrats to convince Republicans to allow them to pass just about anything. Democrats will have, at a minimum, to peel off seven Republicans to their side to pass anything. That's a mighty tall order, to put it mildly.

But the real political spotlight for the next year or two is going to be on the Republicans, and not the Democrats. Republicans, by dint of winning the House, now cannot merely say "No" to everything, they're going to instead finally have to put their cards on the table. No longer will bumpersticker slogans be enough for them to earn the praise of their voting base. They're going to have to actually come up with a budget, and a plan for moving America forward. And -- most importantly -- they're going to have to send their bills to the Congressional Budget Office for "scoring," or putting actual budget numbers to their bills and plans. Doing this and pleasing all of their voters is going to prove very difficult, if not downright impossible. Republicans can either (1.) pass tax cuts for all and watch the deficit projections explode even if they rein in spending slightly, (2.) forego tax cuts and rein in spending slightly, or (3.) make deep and radical cuts to spending, including sacred cows like the military or farm subsidies, which are not going to be very popular. One way or another, this is not going to satisfy large portions of the people who just voted for them -- especially the Tea Party folks.

The big question on a lot of people's minds (as evidenced by the media, at any rate) is: "Has the Tea Party been good or bad for the Republican Party?" Well, the answer is a bit nuanced. Yes, it helped with turnout and enthusiasm. But, when you look at the candidates and the outcomes, not so much. The Tea Party was extremely successful in getting its candidates on the ballot in the primaries, you've got to give them that. But, in the general election, they weren't nearly as victorious as some had predicted. So far, news organizations have been reporting that only about one-third of Tea Party candidates won their general elections this week. That's not all that great a percentage, unless you are a baseball player. Over in the Senate, three or four Tea Party candidates won, but three prominent ones lost -- meaning three states which Republicans could have flipped this election if they had gone with a more conventional Republican candidate.

In the win column in the Senate were Rand Paul of Kentucky, Marco Rubio in Florida, Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, and a guy in Utah who basically won the election by winning the Republican nomination (it being Utah, and all). Of course, not everyone even accepts that these are all Tea Party candidates, due to the mercurial definition of exactly what does (and what does not) constitute a member of the "Tea Party." Pat Toomey has long been part of a "proto-Tea Party" group known as the Club For Growth. Marco Rubio is rejected by some Tea Partiers as a true believer, but you have to give him credit for being one of the first mainstream Republican candidates to realize the power of the Tea Party's groundswell, and to latch on to the movement very early in the campaign. His win was even more impressive due to the fact that the Republican he beat in the primary ran as a third-party candidate, and Rubio still beat him and the Democrat in the race. Rand Paul hails from the more libertarian faction of the Tea Party conglomeration, and will be one of the more interesting new senators because he comes armed with his own unique philosophical outlook which (at a guess) is going to be very hard for the Republican leadership to co-opt.

But we've also got to look at the Tea Party losses, to show the full picture here. The most satisfying loss to Democrats was Christine O'Donnell's quite predictable drubbing in Delaware. This was a state Republicans could easily have picked up, if the primary voters had gone for "electability" over "purity." O'Donnell certainly caused a media sensation -- even though all the national news folks covering her would sheepishly admit at some point during their stories that "she is not given much chance of winning." O'Donnell continues to do so even after the election, with her claims that the Republican Party could have helped her win if they had only fully gotten behind her. This is patent nonsense, of course, since she reaped a fortune in campaign donations (for a Delaware race) from Tea Partiers nationwide, meaning she really couldn't complain about a lack of money or support. But complain she did, recently calling what happened to her a "symptom of Republican cannibalism." To the end, at the very least, O'Donnell has proved to be the most quotable Tea Party candidate around, you've got to at least give her that.

But the real cannibalism may be happening not from the Republicans eating Tea Partiers (to take the metaphor and run with it), but from Tea Partiers devouring establishment Republicans. Tea Partiers do not have any compunctions about "electability," they are all about their own litmus tests, first and foremost. The message the Republican Party has gotten -- loud and clear -- from the Tea Partiers this year has been: "We don't care if we lose the general election, we will STILL take you down in the primaries if we deem you not sufficiently pure." And the Republicans now live in fear of this, for good reason. Which is going to cause them all sorts of problems for the next two years (that's my guess, anyway), and even beyond.

In other Republican cannibalistic news (boy, there's a phrase you don't get to write every day), it is looking more and more like Lisa Murkowski is going to defy all the odds up in Alaska and win as a write-in candidate over Tea Partier (and Sarah Palin anointee) Joe Miller. Murkowski is, in case it got lost in the shuffle, the incumbent Republican senator. She lost her primary to Miller, and then went on to beat him in the general election (which Charlie Crist must surely be envious of at this point). Call it a "Lieberman moment" for Republicans. Unlike Lieberman, however, Murkowski will easily be welcomed back into the Republican fold in Washington.

The other two Tea Party candidates to lose their Senate races were Ken Buck in Colorado and Sharron Angle in Nevada. Both of these races were eminently winnable for Republicans, it bears pointing out. Angle's five-point loss is especially painful for Republicans to bear, since taking down Harry Reid would have been the delicious icing on the cake of the midterms for the GOP. Alas for them, this cake must remain unfrosted.

Nevada, and California as well, revealed (once again) an ominous lesson for the Republican Party as a whole -- scapegoat Latinos at your peril. Republicans have been using immigration as a wedge issue for years now, but the Latino vote (in the meantime) has been growing more and more powerful -- and it will continue to do so. Latino voters have also been demonstrating a much longer memory and attention span than other American demographics, as well. To put it more bluntly, when Latinos are insulted or made to seem evil by Republicans, they remember. In the voting booth. Meg Whitman's campaign absolutely self-destructed after the revelations about how she treated a servant whom she found out was an illegal immigrant. The condescension and disdain for Latinos Meg showed in the midst of this scandal absolutely killed her chances of being California's next governor (this showed up quite dramatically in the polling, before and after Nannygate). In Nevada, some bizarre comments about "looking Asian" likewise may have sealed Angle's fate. Long-term, this could grow into an enormous problem for the Republicans, but they don't seem to even recognize the magnitude of what faces them in the future, much less do they seem willing to do anything constructive about it. Latinos, I should point out, are not only the fastest-growing demographic group in America, they are also the fastest-growing group in the electorate as a whole (the folks who actually vote, in other words). And not just in "border states" any more, either. The more elections Republicans use Latinos as convenient rhetorical punching bags, the stronger and stronger the association of most Latino voters to the Democratic Party is going to become. This has been seen mostly as a long-term problem for the Republican Party, but as California and Nevada clearly show, it can also prove to be quite an immediate problem as well.

Moving on from the electoral dynamics themselves to taking a peek at the future, watching the Republican Party (especially in the House) in the next few months is going to be very interesting, no matter what your personal politics happens to be. Some on the Left are suggesting (rather wistfully) that there's going to be open warfare between the Tea Partiers and the Republican Party establishment. I'm not so sure of this -- or, at the very least, I'm not so sure it'll play out very publicly. Republicans have always been much better at keeping these sort of ideological battles behind closed doors, preferring to have their family fights in private around the Thanksgiving table, rather than (as Democrats seem to love to do) screaming at each other out on the front lawn. [Sorry -- is it too early for Turkey Day metaphors?]

Tea Party voters are almost, by definition, going to be dissatisfied with whatever results the Republican House is going to produce. Tea Party folks strike me as very close to absolutists on their pet issues. This is why the dynamic of the Republicans and the Tea Partiers is going to be very different than the dynamic between the Blue Dogs and the Democrats. The Blue Dogs were the ones pushing Democrats to the middle, and towards compromise. The Tea Partiers, on the other hand, are going to be doing exactly the opposite -- pushing Republicans away from anything that smells of compromise, and pushing the party towards the fringe Right. How the Republican leadership reacts to these demands is going to be fascinating to watch.

But the interesting thing in all of this is that the Republican Party may be able to thwart the Tea Party demands -- if it chooses to. To be honest, Republicans probably won't have this sort of showdown in public, but it could indeed happen. And who prevails may come down to the final House numbers (which have yet to be determined). Predicting this mini-balance-of-power is hard to do at this point, but if the number of House members who join the Tea Party Caucus turns out to be smaller than the total majority spread of Republicans in the House, then the Republicans will be able to ignore the Tea Partiers at will (if the Tea Party Caucus is only 35 members, for instance, and the final House number is 256 Republicans, then even without the Tea Partiers, Republicans will still be able to manage a 218-vote majority). If the Tea Partiers are more numerous than the outright majority spread, then this may not even be possible for the other House Republicans, though.

The first real showdown on this front is likely to be what happens in early spring -- the United States is going to hit the "limit" on its "credit card." We're going to be maxed out, in other words. What this normally means is that Congress sheepishly passes a hike in the overall debt limit, usually in the dead of night (in the hopes nobody will notice). But the Tea Partiers are in no mood to do so. Which may lead to a showdown not between Democrats and Republicans, but between Republicans and Tea Partiers. If the debt ceiling isn't raised, financial calamity could soon follow. The federal government would shut down, but that would be the least of America's problems. The real problem is that we would be telling the rest of the world that we are an unstable borrower, which could cause a panic by countries that currently hold our debt. And if they all try to collectively dump the debt which they do hold, America's economy (if not the entire world's economy) would collapse as a direct result.

Responsible Republicans know this. Or, at least, they used to. Which is why the showdown is going to be important. If what is left of the responsible wing of the Republican Party is forced to, they may break with the absolutists in their own party, and vote with the Democrats to avoid financial catastrophe. This is not going to endear them to the angrier of the Republican voters, though.

Throughout the next year, we will see if the newly-elected Republicans try to "fool" their public once again. And whether the public is fooled or not, for that matter. The last time they tried this, remember, they turned a huge surplus into a huge deficit. President Barack Obama has spent the past two years figuring out that it is a lot harder to actually govern than it is to talk about governing out on the campaign trail. Republicans and Tea Partiers are about to learn this same lesson. This may indeed lead to (as the Tea Party hopes) radical changes in the way our federal government does business. But changing the status quo in Washington isn't always an easy thing to do (just ask Obama). In a very short time, the "parting on the Right" may wind up singing the final refrain from The Who after all:

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

[Program Note: As I said, the subject matter of "the election" is really too big to fit into one column. This was but the first crack I will be taking at it in the next week, so I apologized for the unfinished nature of this column. There are several other aspects of the new political landscape I'll be examining later -- not least of which what President Obama is going to do -- so you'll have to just keep reading to get my "full take" on what just happened, and what it all means for the future. But this one was running pretty long, so I had to wrap it up for today.]

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant