Below The Beltway

The Washington Post reports today that the incoming Senate is likely to be much easier on Barack Obama than Republicans would like:

Democrats said much of their disappointment about falling short of 60 Senate seats dissipated when Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich (D) was declared the winner of the Senate race in Alaska, giving Democrats 56 seats, plus independents Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) and Bernard Sanders (Vt.), who caucus with them. Senate races in Minnesota and Georgia have not been decided.

Democrats are counting on moderate Republicans such as Maine Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, who have tilted leftward on issues such as Medicare spending and the Iraq war, to provide the votes to block a filibuster.

“You’re just one state away — you’re just Maine away — in terms of who you need to work with,” Klobuchar said.

Other potential swing votes are Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), whose socially liberal views make him a prospective Democratic recruit on spending matters and Obama’s judicial nominations, and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). McCain has supported some Democratic initiatives that are likely to see early legislative action next year, including federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

At the same time, though, we are likely to see significant differences between the incoming Democratic Senators and other members:

Senate Democrats, however, must watch their right flank as they craft more sweeping initiatives. Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) has supported the Bush White House on many tax and budget issues this decade, and a quartet of Democrats elected in 2006 and 2008 — Begich, Robert P. Casey Jr. (Pa.), Jon Tester (Mont.), and Mark R. Warner (Va.) — all ran as centrists.

Republicans also expect that Democratic gains in the House and the Senate will showcase divisions among the party’s wings, which largely put aside their differences in the past year in their pursuit of the White House.

Many of the Democratic pick-ups in the last two years have come in Midwestern and Southern districts considered Republican-leaning territory, and the House’s Blue Dog Coalition of fiscally conservative Democrats — at 49 members and growing — may clash on major issues with a largely liberal leadership.

“There are going to be a lot of differences among Democrats in the House and the Senate: Those who kind of share my view that you ought to govern in the middle; and those who have a sense of frustration that they’ve been out of power so long and want to go down and check the box and satisfy every left-wing group,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters last week.

Those differences are likely to make themselves apparent on a number of issues ranging from health care to the economy, and the winners are likely to be whoever President Obama allies himself with.

My guess is that he’s going to be a lot closer to the center than many think, and that’s going to be a problem for Republicans in 2010 and beyond.