Victory finds a thousand fathers in the White House, but in this election it has to be said that there have been millions of fathers and mothers of victory. The voters. The voters and the public has, for the last two years, carried on a conversation about that other country, America, which is far from the world of Mediasylvania and Beltwaystan, which are what cable news covers.

The voters wanted change on Iraq. They are getting it - already Rumsfeld has resigned as SecDef - the administration that, two days ago, was vowing to act as if nothing was different, has found out that everything has changed. The Democrats have not even officially taken power - and have not even been certified as the winners in Virginia - and the crumbling of the great wall around the White House has started. However, the nomination of Robert Gates, former CIA chief for Reagan, shows what is to come from Bush - an infantile attempt to evade the results of an election that he could not beg, borrow, or steal.

There have been spots of bickering inside the Democratic caucus, particulary as the conservatives in the country get on their hands and knees and wail that they won the election. The reality is that they are just protecting their own tax breaks, which are doomed to go as soon as any round of budget balancing happens. But Rumsfelds' splash into the dead pool has changed all of that. Two years ago I pushed for Rumsfeld's resignation as part of a "Rumsfeld Must Resign" campaign. We lost that election, but the sentiment metastasized and now has become a reality. Rahm Immanuel's drive to take credit for winning is going to be drowned out by the obvious signs of Bush losing.

The reality is that out there in the country, America, the vote was not for ideology. It was agains corruption and stupidity, and it for change. The Democratic party does not have a big enough majority that any one wing can act without the others. Everyone wins, or all of those conservative seats that Bruce Reed is so happy about will be back in Republican hands in two years time. Everyone wins, or Nancy Pelosi will find her majority melt on key votes, and lead to her being as imperilled as an old NFL quarterback who punts with his hands.

America has shifted to the left economically dramatically, but only a small amount socially. This is usual, social revolutions take more time - I remember getting free lectures in the south about how "we shouldn't marry them." My wife at that time was one of "them" meaning, "not white". This was in 1991. There was a resounding rejection of current budget policy, and current trade policy. Free trade, as the peculiar institution of Thatcherism came to be called - is dead.

But more concretely, the politics people have known for a very long time is dead. The Republicans do not stand for small business, small government, lower taxes and less regulation. They are not the party of the free market. The Democrats are not the party of government programs and regulation. They are the party of balanced budgets. The old lines of conflict, and many of the old lines are no longer operative.

It is going to take time to fill this political space. If Congress were to ask a Private Equity firm what to do, the answer would be to first get control of the balance sheet - restate all the old numbers, particularly past budget deficits, and spin in the declaring of recessions. Put all spending on budget. Use this as leverage to get control of the accounting process, and take responsiblity away from OMB and give it to the CBO. Change the way the CBO runs to eliminate rightward bias to numbers, and adopt liability accounting for Medicare and Social Security. Then, get control of the management hiearchy, which, as Rumsfeld's resignation shows, will be easier than it might appear. There is plenty to investigate, and most would rather head to K Street than head to jail.

It also means that while the donks are going to talk bipartisanship, the question is whether they pursue their agenda with Republican votes, or provide their votes to a Republican agenda. The answer is almost certainly the former, because they will lose twice over helping the Republicans. If the Democrats are prudent, they will take a hint from Bush's "Democrat Party" - that is, his defiant and insulting tone - and hedge bets about how cooperative he is going to be. This means putting investigations on the table that could go someplace if allowed to run.

Likely we are going to see an executive petulantly try and end run the Congress. The solution to this takes guts, but it works historically - set up a showdown with the President over Presidential power. Congresses seldom lose such contests, if held in the abstract. In the specific the record favors the side with the best story, but in theory Americans want a weak President with dictatorial powers when they approve of what he is doing.

The road to doing this is to adopt, and pass, a bill that makes it illegal for a President to add a signing statement which denies the intent of the legislation, expresses the intent not to faithfully execute the laws, or which expands the discretionary authority of the President beyond the delimited bounds. Make it specific that violating this law is an impeachable offense. Since the Unitary Executive has no constituency, there is no risk and a great deal of gain, provoking a veto over protecting and defending the constitution.

With the Democrats claiming 30 House seats, and 6 Senate seats in the election, there is no reason to be shy about asserting the perogatives of Congress, even as the party begins cleaning up corruption in how Congress is run. This is not an ideological issue, but one of basic civil governance, which every Democrat should want in place, since it commits them to nothing other than restoring the pre-2002 status quo.

Finally it means that there are now a host of Democrats in play for being progressives. Many of them have gone from upset winners, to being on the target list for 2008. The need a box full of medals to make sure that they have something to show the voters. That means making progress. Since the conservatives want to do nothing other than put the country on the wrong track with better traction, there is little to nothing in it for the new Democratic member of Congress to cross over and join the Republicans in a game of "kick the base". Instead, there is going to be every incentive for progressives to propose legislation, and give every new member a chance to contribute to it, so that they can go back and campaign on their amendment to the transportation, accounting or foreign policy bill.

Dozens of commentators - including David Gergen - have admitted that the generation of conservatism is over in America. What replaces it will be determined by which individuals and groups present the most effective solutions to the problems that people have.

For the last 6 years, the world of Fox News and the world of that other country, America, have diverged more and more. Last night reality snapped back into place, and produced a Congress far closer to what Americans want and think and feel. It also changed who was in charge of a number of states. The long nightmare of a party state is over, which means that the even longer day's journey of turning America back on the right path has started.