How will President Obama react? Considering Clinton's 1994 model...

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As a reference point, here's the transcript from Bill Clinton's November 9, 1994 press conference, with the rubble of the old Democratic Congress--and, some thought, his presidency--freshly smoldering around him. It's an interesting read--Clinton struck a hard note of conciliation, admitting that Democrats had not done enough to change the culture of Washington (sound familiar?) and urged Republicans to "join me in the center of the public debate where the best ideas for the next generation of American progress must come." But he also warned against "jeopardizing this economic recovery by taking us back to the policies that failed us before." (Sound familiar?)

The American people sent us here to rebuild the American dream, to change the way Washington does business, to make our country work for ordinary citizens again. We've made a good start by cutting the deficit, by reducing the size of the Federal Government, by reinventing much of our Government to do more with less. We have increased our investment in education and expanded trade, and our economy has created more than 5 million jobs. We've also made a serious start in the fight against the terrible plague of crime and violence in this country. I remain committed to completing the work we have done.

Still, in the course of this work, there has been too much politics-as-usual in Washington, too much partisan conflict, too little reform of Congress and the political process. And though we have made progress, not enough people have felt more prosperous and more secure or believe we were meeting their desires for fundamental change in the role of Government in their lives....

To those who believe we must keep moving forward, I want to say again, I will do everything in my power to reach out to the leaders and the Members of this new Congress. It must be possible to make it a more effective, more functioning institution. It must be possible for us to give our people a Government that is smaller, that is more effective, that reflects both our interests and our values.

But to those who would use this election to turn us back, let me say this: I will do all in my power to keep anyone from jeopardizing this economic recovery by taking us back to the policies that failed us before. I will still work for those things that make America strong: strong families, better education, safer streets, more high-paying jobs, a more prosperous and peaceful world. There is too much at stake for our children and our future to do anything else.

I suspect Obama will take as much care as Clinton to show humility in the wake of Tuesday's results. But I would expect less talk of the political "center"--a place Bill Clinton has always been more comfortable openly celebrating.

P.S. And contrary to my memory, it wasn't until April 1995 that Clinton was reduced to his famous assertion that "the President is still relevant here."

Update: Greg Sargent adds useful thoughts about why Obama is less likely than Clinton to embrace centrism. ("Obama has always preferred to cast himself as a uniter more in terms of temperament than ideology.") Also see Ron Brownstein.

http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/11/02/how-will-obama-react-to-tuesday-the-clinton-94-example/#ixzz14DQBLXTi

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The election results produced a change dramatic enough that many analysts saw them as indicative of a broad Republican realignment. The GOP gained 55 House seats and 12 Senate seats, enough to give them control of both houses of Congress for the first time since the elections of 1928. Furthermore, liberals bore the brunt of the losses. Democrats outside the South lost in excess of 40 percent of their seats, while Southern Democrats suffered no losses. In the states, Republicans gained three governorships, not a large number but enough to give them a majority of governorships. Richard Nixon was first elected to the House, and Thomas Dewey won a handsome reelection as Governor of New York, giving an additional boost to his presidential ambitions. Truman was so thoroughly damaged by the election results that Democratic Senator William Fulbright of Arkansas suggested that the President was a spent force. According to Fulbright, Truman should appoint a Republican Secretary of State and then resign his office, an act which, by the succession law of the time, would have made the new Secretary of State the next president.

Instead, of course, Truman made a legendary comeback. Subsequently, the Republican 80th Congress has become famous as the foil against which Truman ran his successful reelection campaign of 1948, a campaign that also brought renewed Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. Indeed, Truman made much hay criticizing what he called the "do-nothing 80th Congress," and it is tempting to view the Congress elected in the 1946 midterm as a fundamentally irrelevant blip in American history.

However, in reality, the 80th Congress was highly accomplished, bearing legislative responsibility for the following:

Congressional approval of the 22nd Amendment limiting the president to two terms;
Passage of the Taft-Hartley Act that allowed states to adopt "right-to-work" rules, drove communists out of the labor movement, and generally established balance between labor and business in labor law;
Passage of a major tax cut;
Pressuring Truman into ending wartime economic regimentation;
Enactment of the National Security Act of 1947, which established the U.S. Air Force, the Department of Defense, the National Security Council and National Security Advisor, and the Central Intelligence Agency;
Approval of the Marshall Plan and aid to Greece and Turkey, the starting point of the policy of containment;
Most of these innovations have endured more-or-less intact to this day.

Consequently, the elections of 1946 helped reelect Harry Truman in two ways. Most obviously, Truman was able to force a number of confrontations with the 80th Congress that strengthened his image as a "fighter for the people." Less obviously, but at least as important, Truman was saved by the 80th Congress from being dragged down by public fears of high taxation, overly-strong unions, and over-centralization of power. The Republican Congress might be said to have cleared the road for Truman’s reelection by forcefully removing the issues that most endangered it.

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http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/oped/busch/06/1946.html