In the US Senate yesterday Democrats got used to their new majority brought about by Senator James Jeffords's defection from the Republicans.
Contrary to some predictions, the Democrats allowed the confirmation of President Bush's nominee for Solictor General, Mr Ted Olson, to go forward, saying they did not want the defeat of Mr Olson to be their first act.
Instead, Senator Tom Daschle, the new majority leader of the Senate, began meeting colleagues to formulate legislative priorities.
Senator Bob Graham (Democrat, Florida) said the new majority will push ahead with a prescription drug measure he has co-sponsored with Senator Edward Kennedy. Mr Daschle also promised quick action on the patients' bill of rights that Mr Kennedy has cosponsored with Senators John Edwards of North Carolina and John McCain of Arizona.
Mr Kennedy, through his likely chairmanship of the Health, Education and Labour Committee, said he plans to push for swift action on raising the minimum wage.
Also likely to receive a boost from the new Senate is a measure sponsored by Mr McCain and Senator Joseph Lieberman to require background checks on sales at gun shows. Democrats will be able to promote their competing energy plan, which focuses more than President Bush's on conservation and promoting renewable resources.
However, it is unlikely that Democrats can attract a 51-vote Senate majority for many of those proposals, much less the 60 they would need to break a Republican filibuster. And all but the patients' bill of rights would face an uphill climb in the Republican-controlled House.
Nevertheless, Mr Bush will be forced to develop responses to Democratic ideas, a challenge he has never really faced before. As governor of Texas, he worked with Democrats who shared his conservative outlook and did not use the legislative debate as a way to shape public opinion.
But in Mr Daschle, Mr Bush faces a centrist Democrat hoping to frame the legislative choices in ways that turn public opinion against the administration and lead to further victories in the mid-term elections.
Liberals remain generally comfortable with the agenda the party has relied on for the last several years, centred on new spending for prescription drugs and education.
"There's no question we can win these arguments," a Democratic pollster, Mr Mark Mellman, told the Los Angeles Times. "The public overwhelmingly favours our position on each of these issues."
Reuters reports:
President Bush signalled confidence in his senior aides yesterday, despite criticism that their courtship of Republican conservatives might have caused Mr Jeffords to defect from the party.
"It's not an issue," a White House spokesman, Mr Ari Fleischer, said when asked about Mr Bush's confidence in aides, including the White House chief-of-staff, Mr Andrew Card, and the senior political and communications strategists, Mr Karl Rove and Ms Karen Hughes.
"You just have to know the President to know how far that is from being an issue," Mr Fleischer said. Mr Bush is known to demand absolute loyalty from his aides, in return for his loyalty and trust.
Vermont newspapers yesterday reported Mr Jeffords saying he had warned Mr Bush to be more open to centrists to avoid a re-election defeat. "I told him very frankly that I think he'll be a one-term President if he doesn't listen to his moderates," the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus quoted Mr Jeffords as saying.
The New York Times, in an editorial on the defection, said the White House "troika" of Mr Card, Ms Hughes and Mr Rove deserved "a major portion of the blame" for the defection and must now try to steer the administration towards the political centre.