If the GOP hangs on to win all the races that are at least leaning its way at the moment — and loses all the tossups and the contests where the Democrats are maintaining an edge — they would go into the 110th Congress with 220 seats, just two more than the minimal majority. (Of course, which party has the advantage in which contests could change significantly in the next dozen weeks, either strengthening the Republicans’ hand or tipping the odds solidly in favor of a Democratic takeover.)
But the fact that the Republicans’ hold on power is so precarious right now raises the possibility that it could be just as shaky after Election Day. Republicans could find themselves in a scenario that in some ways is almost as bad as losing the House: holding on to power and the attendant responsibility but with diminished leverage for carrying it out. And Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, whose often-stated goal is to “please the majority of the majority,” would have to decide whether that would still be a viable strategy for running the House.
Sounds like GOP leadership believes the goal is to keep members of Congress happy rather than the people who elected them.
Even with the 231-seat majority Republicans have now, Hastert’s job got harder last year after the most conservative members of his caucus — members of the Republican Study Committee — became fed up with the compromises they felt they had made in behalf of Bush’s first-term agenda, such as expanding Medicare to cover prescription drugs and expanding the federal role in education with the No Child Left Behind law. Meanwhile, moderates have flexed their muscles this year by fighting cuts in social spending and forcing the leadership to embrace a minimum wage increase it opposed.
And there you have it. The Republican Study Committee, the "True Conservatives" of the party are just another faction of the party and are compared to the "moderates." While the party plays to it's base, the "moderates" are calling the shots and the conservatives are all but exiled.