With James Webb celebrating a narrow victory in the Senate elections in Virginia State, the Democrats had the last laugh in the US mid-term elections. The Democratic Party has not only won back control of the House of Representatives, but won a majority in the Senate, with 51 seats to 49. This is a result the Democratic Party has dreamed of for years, and it marks a major change in the political map of the United States.

Observers of American politics are comparing this mid-term election to that held 12 years ago. In that election, the Republicans wrestled away the House from the Democrats, who had had control for more than 50 years. The right-wing faction, led by Newt Gingrich, promised a "contract with America", the beginning of a new conservative age in American political history. Later, in 2000, the Republican Party took the White House and in 2004 the two houses of Congress. It was at this point that the conservative revolution peaked.

Right across the board, Republican conservatives have introduced dramatic and revolutionary changes to the United States. The Republicans took advantage of the 9/11 attacks to win support for the Patriot Act they introduced. Under the banner of anti-terrorism, they abused human rights. The most publicized of these were abuses of prisoners in Iraq, the illegal imprisonment of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay and the torture and abuse of prisoners in secret European jails. Under a Republican government, a tax abatement policy came in to "rob the poor for the benefit the rich", allowing international energy prices to skyrocket. Religious conservatism increased and the government opposed abortion, homosexuality and gun controls.

The conservative revolution backlash has been particularly prominent in foreign policy and security. The old conservatives, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, and neo-conservatives, represented by Paul Wolfowitz and John Bolton, dominated foreign policy during Bush's first term. They introduced the United States to the so-called "Bush Doctrine" of preemptive strikes, unilateralism and global democracy. Accordingly, the US launched the war in Afghanistan and Iraq and attempted to implement the "Greater Middle East Initiative".

As the Republican Party controlled both the White House and Congress, legislative organs were in fact unable to perform their checking and balancing function. Congress became a mere rubber stamp, used whenever the White House needed its endorsement. Although this year's mid-term elections only involved the legislative organs, to a certain extent, the election was a referendum on the Republican's conservative revolution. The results of various public opinion polls show that the Iraq war was the most important issue in the election. More and more questions are being asked about the legitimacy of this war. The Bush administration has also been severely criticized for its incompetence in post-war reconstruction. Seeing Iraq become another Vietnam, more and more Americans came to realize the predicament the US was in.

Realizing the Republicans had essentially lost the election, President Bush rushed to deliver a speech, claiming that he would "take the primary responsibility for the election results." Bush also acknowledged that many Americans had used their votes to "express their dissatisfaction with the lack of progress on the situation in Iraq." The Republican Party needed to make a sacrifice to the American people to atone for their mistakes; Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld resigned even before the result in the Senate was finalized.

The tumultuous mid-term elections came to an end. Americans voted to punish hard and cold-blooded right-wing extremist conservatives. The Democratic Party's regaining the control of the Senate and House of Representatives, together with Rumsfeld's departure, might mark the end of the golden years of neo-conservatism.

(The author, Yu Wanli, is an associate professor at the School of International Relations at Peking University)

By People's Daily Online