Senator Jim Jeffords left the Republican Party just as the Senate was completing action to approve President Bush's tax cut with only slight modifications. While Jeffords's switch will help the Democrats slow down Bush's juggernaut, it comes too late to block his single most revolutionary victory. Bush will now pay dearly for governing as if he had a mandate to move the country hard right. Democrats, in gaining control of Senate committees, will gain the immensely useful power to run hearings. This will enable them to set agendas and shed light on abuses that Republicans and their corporate allies would rather ignore. It will help Democrats promote liberal legislation and slow Republican alternatives. And it will make it harder for Bush to appoint wall-to-wall conservative judges. But Jeffords's shift is not without complications for the Democrats as well. Now a single Democratic senator has the power to hold the whole Democratic caucus hostage by threatening to bolt their party just...

In the last couple of weeks, Al Gore has undergone yet another makeover. Now he's a populist, bashing drug companies, oil barons, and tax cuts for the wealthy, sticking up for the ordinary working American. He gave a barn-burner of a speech to the NAACP. This past week he was rewarded by a nice bounce in the polls, putting him almost even with W. What gives? What gives is that nothing else worked. What gives is that Gore has suffered from a passion gap, and in order to express passion, you need something to be passionate about. Reinventing government may be sensible policy, but it is not the stuff that brings a crowd to its feet. What gives is that Gore and his handlers finally grasped that the affluent donors who increasingly dominate American politics may love a cautious center-right agenda, but it's the voters who ultimately elect a president. What gives is that Ralph Nader was stealing the heart of the party's most energetic wing. ...