National Review Online had the first of the post-mortems up this morning, featuring input from several political writers on the cause and meaning of the midterm results. It's an interesting mix of analyses; Republican disunity, Democratic play-acting get some play. Kate O'Beirne and I tend to believe that this reflects Republican performance more than anything else, and Kate believes it started from the White House down:

During the “Iraq War Mid-terms,” Republicans were going to lose seats this year but could have limited the damage. I predict that in the future they will police their ranks and lean on the crooks and cheats in their midst to step aside. If it is true that “corruption” was a top concern for voters, Republicans could have insulated themselves some by delivering on ethics reform. Maybe they will learn that there are worse things than giving up their perks - like giving up their majority.

Democrats are the party of government — as we will now be reminded. Republicans lost the mantle of being reformers when they became so darn comfortable running things and seemed to be only concerned with keeping things that way.

Many conservatives appeared to be detached from the political troubles of President Bush that put his fellow Republicans in trouble. With conservatives also discouraged about the progress in Iraq, there wasn’t much rallying to the defense of “their guy.” That might have been different had he vetoed a few big spending bills or led the fight for border security. I hope his future explanations about his intent with respect to Iraq is more strategic than stubborn.

I think she has this about right. One has to recall the 1994 Republican "revolution", which resulted in a much more sweeping victory than the Democrats had last night (right now, they have gained 28 seats with four more still in play, while the GOP took 54 that year). Democrats had built what looked to be a permanent majority, and that led to astronomical amounts of hubris and no small amount of corruption. The GOP successfully ran on those themes in 1994 because nothing resonates like corruption and unchecked power with the American electorate.

Barring any surprises from later exit polls, I believe we saw that same dynamic again last night. The Republicans have indeed left reform in the dust, with notable and honorable exceptions like Tom Coburn and a handful of other highly active Republican officeholders. The explosion of earmarks over the last three sessions of Congress have stripped them of the mantle of fiscal responsibility -- really one of the keys to Republican identity -- and the pursuit of lobbyists has left a bad taste in the mouths of voters. It led to the Jack Abramoff scandal, an "unforced error", as Glenn Reynolds put it, but one completely predictable when politicians mix earmarks with lobbyist power.

No doubt Iraq played a significant part of the decision by Americans last night. However, one has to wonder if Americans would have lost confidence in Republican leadership in the war if they had not lost confidence in their ability to keep a clean Congress first. As I write in the NRO piece, I don't recall the last time America has switched control of Congress during wartime, and I think that's pretty significant.

Republicans have to go back to the basics -- and I don't mean the base. They need to settle on some First Principles before they calculate how to convince voters to trust them with governance again. Republicans have traditionally stood for fiscal discipline and a strong defense above all other issues. The GOP needs to return to those values first and keep them foremost when creating their strategies for 2008. They need to elect clean leadership, and Tom Coburn's phone should be ringing off the hook this morning if Republicans want to get serious about rehabilitation.

They have two years to atone for whatever mistakes led to their defeat last night. They'll need every single day to rebuild the trust lost from the 1994 revolution.

UPDATE: Joe Gandelman, who really should have been with us last night at the CNN bash, has a round-up of post-mortems that's definitely worth reading. Please note that my posting will be limited as I'm traveling today.

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