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"Congress is a big institution to turn around," she said. "A new president comes in, and he or she is given every opportunity, because we At which point, Reid interjected, "Nancy, honestly, one other thing. Let's be realistic about this. The war in Iraq is dragging down people's confidence in what's going on in this country." The war also is dragging down Democrats' popularity, especially among the party's liberal base, as well as public confidence that Pelosi's promises on the election night in which she was swept to power Democrats, who once infuriated Republicans by using the extraordinary power of the Senate minority to block action, are feeling the brunt of an institutional constraint that is little understood by the public. No case was clearer than Iraq, where Democrats spent most of their first months in power confronting Bush by attaching withdrawal conditions to war funding, only to back down in the end after a veto confrontation. "The Republicans are doing what the Democrats did," said Julian Zelizer, a history and public affairs scholar at Boston University. "They're using the power of the Senate filibuster, and the power in the House when you have narrow majorities, to make a do-nothing Congress The Democrats in their years in the minority made a filibuster-proof 60-vote supermajority Republicans complained at the time, but many of them are happy now. They are wielding the filibuster weapon freely in a Senate where Democrats hold 49 seats and where their majority comes from the support of two senators who are independents. And one of the Democrats, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, has been sidelined for months by a stroke. Pelosi has more leeway in the House, with a 232-to-201 majority, but even that is vulnerable to factions splitting off on the right or left "It's becoming very concerning to many of us that we've got a 49-49 stalemate in the Senate, and we are beginning to look to the American people like we're ineffective," said one California House Democrat who did not want to speak for attribution. "No matter what we do on the House side, we can't get things through the Senate." To be sure, Democrats have passed a minimum-wage increase and a budget. But they are far short in either body of the two-thirds majorities they need to overcome a slew of Bush veto threats in looming battles over spending and taxes. House Republican leaders crowed Friday about "a string of broken promises" by Democrats. The same Republicans who had let spending earmarks for members' pet projects spin completely out of control during their reign are now making their stand on earmark reform Some Republicans, however, are not so sure that waging partisan battles while waiting for the next election is necessarily a recipe for success. Big problems such as immigration, health care and the war require bipartisanship. "To my friends on this side, if you think you can ignore Democrats, good luck," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told the Senate just before the immigration bill crashed Thursday. "They exist. There's a bunch of them over there. Raise your hand if you're a Democrat. Why don't y'all leave?" The Democrats smiled, and Graham said, "They're not going away. Now, there's a bunch of us over here. Good luck ignoring us. ... We're at 20 percent (in the polls), and we deserve it. ... I can't believe there's 20 percent of the American people that like what were doing up here, because we're doing nothing but talking about what we won't do." Even Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., a crafty former majority leader now second in the GOP command and a master of partisan Senate politics, expressed frustration. "Do we have the courage, tenacity and the ability to get anything done anymore?" Lott asked during the immigration fight. "If we cannot do this, we ought to vote to dissolve the Congress and go home and wait for the next election." Pelosi's only hope is a break in Republican unity, Boston University scholar Zelizer said. That happened, ironically, with the failed immigration bill, when Republicans abandoned Bush, even if it was to vote against Democrats. And earlier this week, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Indiana, sharply broke from the White House on the Iraq war, followed by Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio. "On immigration, Republicans couldn't all get on the same page," Zelizer said. "There were acts of defiance against the president and against the party leaders. That's a precedent for the next vote." Lugar's break from Bush on Iraq indicates "a private rebellion that's becoming public," Zelizer said. "It's another sign that the Republican discipline ... is starting to fade. What Bush wants with the war and immigration is very different from what congressional Republicans think is in their interest in 2008, so that's a big opportunity, and Pelosi can take advantage of it."
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