Democrats win control of Senate

Bush to Democrats: Let's do lunch
After voters delivered a sharp rebuke of his leadership, Bush made conciliatory gestures toward top Democrats on Wednesday, pledging to work with them and inviting them to lunch. Bush is scheduled to meet with the Democratic House leadership for lunch Thursday at noon, in the Oval Office.

Besides conflict over Iraq, Democrats promised new scrutiny of the Bush administration and a top-to-bottom cleaning of Congress, an institution that has been plagued by scandal and bitterness in recent years.

“We certainly have a mandate for making this place more honest, making it operate in a more civilized way,” Pelosi said Wednesday, on the morning after voters made all but certain she would become the House’s first “Madame Speaker” and hours after she and Bush pledged to work together.

A pledge from Pelosi
Setting a standard her party will be judged on in elections two years from now, Pelosi promised: “Democrats intend to lead the most honest, the most open and the most ethical Congress in history.”

Pelosi also pledged bipartisanship in a midday news conference.

“It's not about the Democrats in Congress forcing the president’s hand,” she said. “The American people have spoken.”

Pelosi has already outlined a “First Hundred Hours” agenda. The plan includes promises to reform lobbying, enact the recommendations of the bipartisan 9/11 commission, raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, cut the interest rate on student loans in half, streamline Medicare’s prescription drug program and expand federal funding for stem cell research.

She said she wants to work with Bush on a "new direction" on Iraq.

‘Full speed ahead’
“Voters said let’s go full speed ahead — to the ballot box,” Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., said on NBC's “Today” show.

Without losing any seats of their own, Democrats captured 27 GOP-held seats and were leading for two more, assuring them of control 12 years after a Republican rout brought a new generation of conservatives into office.

Democrats also defeated six Republican incumbents in the Senate — Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania, Mike DeWine in Ohio, Jim Talent in Missouri, Lincoln Chafee in Rhode Island, Burns in Montana and Allen in Virginia — who covered the spectrum from conservative to moderate.

Indiana was particularly cruel to House Republicans. Reps. John Hostettler, Chris Chocola and Mike Sodrel all lost in a state where Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels’ unpopularity compounded the dissatisfaction with Bush.

One of the biggest surprises of the night was Republican Rep. Jim Leach’s defeat in Iowa after a career that spanned 30 years, losing to Dave Loebsack, a college professor making his first run for elective office. The two parties spent lavishly on television commercials in dozens of districts deemed competitive — but not that one.

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