Whether they can pass any of these measures, which include funding the government and extending Bush-era tax cuts, is an open question. If they can’t, the bills will die or be punted over to the new Congress

At this point, congressional Democrats, who are still licking their wounds and assessing the fallout from Election Day, are split on key policies, and they’re not ready to begin negotiations with Republicans.

“We have a whole bunch of people who want to talk about what happened,” said a top Senate Democratic leadership aide who said those discussions will begin in earnest Tuesday when Senate Democrats gather for their weekly policy lunch. “Folks want to have a chance to assess where we are and where we’re going” before settling on the nettlesome details of tax and spending levels.

Meanwhile, a senior Senate Republican leadership aide predicted “only the bare minimum” will get passed in the lame-duck session. Republicans, the aide said, will be content to wait for Democrats to sort out what they want to do. After all, the GOP will have more control over any of the issues that are held over to the new Congress.

House freshmen arrive for orientation

Will N.C. lawmaker challenge Pelosi?

More clarity, particularly on the issue of taxes, could come Thursday when President Obama plans to meet with bipartisan congressional leaders at the White House. Obama, who has long opposed extending the lower Bush tax rates for wealthier Americans, suggested recently that he’s open to compromises on extending, at least temporarily, the tax rates for all Americans regardless of their income level.

For more on the battles ahead, check out CNN’s White House blog, The 1600 Report

New members/same leaders

While Congress has many legislative priorities for the lame-duck session, much of the focus will be on planning for the new Congress.

Beginning Monday, Capitol Hill will be flooded by an especially large class of newly elected members of the House and Senate. Many of them won with support from the Tea Party, which is pushing for dramatic change in the Washington’s priorities, especially when it comes to tackling debt and the deficit.

But before those new lawmakers can change Washington, they must sit through an extensive weeklong orientation that will teach them the arcane and complex rules of legislating. They will learn the basics of how to set up their offices, hire staff and what ethics rules they must follow. Then they’ll jockey with each other to win key committee assignments and compete in a lottery for the best office space.

One of the first orders of business for new and returning lawmakers is voting for their party leaders. Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio is expected to become the new House speaker, and Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia will become the House majority leader.

House Democrats appear prepared to keep House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California in their top job — minority leader — and a deal struck by Pelosi over the weekend averted a nasty battle for the remaining leadership positions. But one conservative Democrat, Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina, has said he will challenge Pelosi if she does not step aside.

“To be able to put Speaker Pelosi as minority leader is unacceptable for our party, to move our party forward in a moderate direction,” Shuler said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” though he acknowledged he didn’t have enough support to win.

Democrats will meet Wednesday to vote on the slate of candidates, and rank-and-file members will decide then whether they will accept the exact same leadership team that lost them majority control.

The Senate Democratic leadership will stay largely intact, although Democrats will have to pick a new head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee who will face the daunting task of defending as many as 23 seats in the next election — many in purple states that split their support between the two parties — while just nine Republican-held seats will be up.

Senate Republicans will keep their current leadership team. But GOP senators face a tough vote Tuesday on whether to give up earmarks entirely, a policy House Republicans already have in place and are expected to maintain in the new Congress. The idea is popular with many reform-minded senators but opposed by a number of senior members who believe steering funds to home state projects is one of their key prerogatives. Aides said the outcome of the vote is too close to call.

Leftover business

In addition to the expiring Bush tax rates, the reductions in the estate tax are also expiring. That means if Congress does not act, the estate tax rate, which this year is zero, will return next year to 55 percent on assets of more than $1 million, close to where it was before the cuts were adopted in 2001. One bipartisan Senate proposal would cap the tax at 35 percent on assets over $3.5 million, but serious negotiations haven’t started on the issue yet, aides from both parties said.

Congress must quickly decide what to do about government funding before a temporary bill that’s keeping the government running lapses December 3. House Republicans are pressing for a nearly yearlong extension but want the funding reduced to 2008 levels. A Senate Democratic leadership aide called that “flat-out unacceptable” but said Democratic senators would be open to discussing reduced spending.

Senate Democrats have a number of other bills they would like to pass but acknowledge GOP opposition will make that difficult. Because the lame-duck session will only last a few weeks, Democrats said they can’t afford to take up controversial bills that will take a long time to debate.

One example is the repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that bans openly gay men and lesbians from serving in the armed forces. The repeal is attached to the annual defense authorization bill, something that typically wins bipartisan support, but often after weeks of floor debate. Because many Republicans oppose lifting the ban and are unwilling to agree to a time limit for debate, it’s unlikely the defense bill will come up this year, aides from both parties said.

Also in the Senate, Democrats said they will try, but doubt they can win approval for, a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia, the extension of unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless and funding for the settlement of a discrimination suit by black farmers.

One bill Senate Democrats hope they can get through is a long-stalled food safety measure that faces a key test vote Wednesday.

The House is expected to vote on several bills that are Democratic priorities, although none is expected to become law. They include a measure to give Social Security recipients a $250 payment to make up for not getting a cost-of-living adjustment this year because inflation is so low; a child nutrition bill that Michelle Obama has pushed; and a targeted immigration reform — the “Dream Act” — which would allow children of illegal immigrants to become citizens if they attend college or serve in the U.S. military.

Some less controversial bills will likely get through, the aides said. They include: a short-term extension of the so-called “doc-fix,” so that doctors who treat Medicare patients won’t see a reduction in their payments; and adjustments to the Alternative Minimum Tax so that more middle-income families won’t get hit with a higher tax bill next year. Several other less controversial expiring tax measures also are expected to be approved.

Americans frequently said they are eager for lawmakers in Washington to compromise with each other. The most interesting aspect of the lame-duck session might not be what bills Congress does or doesn’t pass, but how well Democrats and Republicans work together in the wake of this month’s stunning election. Will lawmakers use the lame-duck session to find compromises, or will they use it to highlight their differences and begin to position themselves for the next election?

Will Congress settle differences or scores?

Rough crowd

Former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel — better known in some political quarters as “Rahmbo” — found himself the target of an incoming egg during a stop Wednesday in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood, NBC Chicago reports. The egg missed Emanuel, who is expected to make an official announcement soon that he’s running for mayor — and the egg thrower remained unidentified, the TV station reported.

Not a fan

More trouble for Emanuel: His tenant Rob Halpin — who reportedly refuses to move from a house he’s been renting from Emanuel — said he will run for mayor of the Windy City, according to a column by John Kass in the Chicago Tribune.

Halpin’s refusal to leave could hurt Rahm’s candidacy, too: “Now Emanuel’s campaign is expected to be challenged in the courts, a legal maneuver backed by guys on the South Side who are part of the stop-Rahm movement,” Kass wrote. “And Halpin’s talk of candidacy highlights the argument that Rahm is not a resident.”

Time to build an addition on the house perhaps?

‘Real World’ Rehoboth Beach?

Christine O’Donnell — the Tea Party-backed Republican who came up short in Delaware’s Senate race — appeared Wednesday on the “Tonight Show With Jay Leno.” Now that her schedule is free, O’Donnell said plenty of big opportunities are knocking on her door.

“The offers have been interesting,” she told Leno. “Anything from a book deal to a reality show.”

Notable quotable

“The Pentagon says it doesn’t know who was responsible for launching a missile off the California coast. They don’t know. Meanwhile Sasha and Malia [Obama] can’t believe the awesome new video game they just found in the White House.” — Jimmy Fallon

From the Twitterverse

Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Illinois, tweeted during his trip to South Korea, where negotiations for a U.S.-South Korea free-trade agreement are under way. Roskam may be working on a difficult subject, but he took time out to rib President Obama on his love for the teleprompter:

@PeterRoskam: The Teleprompters arrived safely, awaiting POTUS. #Korea http://plixi.com/p/56169133

Can’t see divorce from my house

In a new People magazine article, Sarah and Todd Palin shoot down tabloid rumors that they are on the verge of a $20 million divorce settlement.

“I call Todd on the cell phone [from the grocery checkout] and I say, ‘Todd, you won’t believe this cover!’ And he says, ‘Twenty million? Write me a check,’ ” Palin recounted to the magazine. “He’s good about laughing some of that stuff off.”

The picture you need to see

Someone missed his mark.

In this Getty Images photo, the caption notes, “Obama is moved to the correct spot by South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak and his wife, Kim Yoon-Ok, for a photo during the official reception ahead of the G20 Working Dinner on November 11, 2010, at the National Museum of Korea in Seoul.”

Headline of the day

“Chuck ‘Loko’ over caffeine” — New York Post story on Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York.

Late-night laughs

Stephen Colbert: “Things are terrible right now so they [congressional Republicans] are planning to make some bold changes. Yes — extending the existing tax cuts will create jobs. Because the only way out of this mess is to keep things exactly as they are.”

Conan O’Brien: “President George W. Bush has not been in the news for a long time. The day I come back on the air after a 10-month absence he returns — with a book.”

Jay Leno: “While in Indonesia, President Obama said he is making progress toward ending people’s misunderstanding about Muslims — like the fact that he isn’t one.”

David Letterman: “Bush says he’s happy and spends a lot of time down there at his ranch in Texas. He’s glad to be out of the Oval Office. And here’s why he’s glad to be out of the Oval Office: because he does not have to think all the time. And I’m thinking, ‘Wait … that was him thinking all the time?’”

Jon Stewart: “I can’t believe that cutting through our national security bureaucracy to find out something that may not have actually happened [the mysterious rocketlike cloud in California] takes longer than an hourlong cable news shift.”

Political Circus: ‘Rahmbo’ dodges egg

In a memo sent to CIA employees, Director Leon Panetta said the government is taking “a hard line” and warned that unauthorized disclosure of information to media has done “incredible damage” and could endanger lives.

In the memo, Panetta references only one example, WikiLeaks, but writes that in other cases “CIA sources and methods have been compromised.”

The citing of Wikileaks is curious since the bulk of the 400,000 Iraq documents posted by the website are mostly military-related. There are some documents that refer cryptically to other agencies’ activities — some believed to be CIA-related — which appear under the label “OGA,” which stands for “other government agency.”

“Here at the Agency, we are a family, which means we depend on each other — sharing burdens, challenges, and successes,” Panetta writes in the memo. “But sharing cannot extend beyond the limits set by law and the ‘need to know’ principle.”

Panetta noted recent prosecutions for leaking information and said unauthorized information disclosure will be investigated by the CIA’s Office of Security and referred to the Justice Department.

There was no specific reason for releasing the memo now, a U.S. intelligence official said.

“A number of leaks over time — and across our government — prompted Panetta to remind agency employees of their obligation to protect America’s secrets,” the official said. “Unauthorized disclosures of classified information can harm national security, and he wanted to emphasize that important point.”

CNN’s Pam Benson contributed to this report.

CIA chief: No more leaking

But can they deliver on that promise without cutting entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security and angering older voters?

Seniors voted last week by an almost 60-40 split for Republican House candidates, after splitting evenly between Democrats and Republicans in the 2006 midterms. And voters 65 and older made up 24 percent of those casting votes last week.

Read more about exit polling on seniors

Check out exit polls from the 2006 midterm elections

Republicans, who will control the House in the next Congress, have vowed to cut spending in the federal budget, and entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare make up more than half of the budget. Significant cuts can’t happen without addressing these programs.

Changing those programs will be nearly impossible, with advocacy powers like AARP and other seniors’ groups resisting change.

The Arena: How to fix the economy

Perry: Let states decide Social Security

GOP strategist Ron Bonjean found that out when fellow Republicans, notably President George W. Bush, pushed a plan in 2005 to privatize Social Security and implemented changes to Medicare.

The reason Social Security reform failed was because “Americans were not fully educated in what the systemic problems were,” said Bonjean, the former chief of staff to the Senate Republican conference and director of communications for then-Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.

“Seniors seriously objected to any attempt to change it,” he added.

And seniors resisted change again this year, opposing health care reform, polls showed. Republicans hammered the Obama administration and congressional Democrats on their health care reform law and have vowed to repeal it.

It was a message that caught on with seniors, political analyst Jennifer Donahue said.

“Health care reform played a large factor. … The Obama administration appears to have gone too far too fast on health care, and especially in the minds of older voters, who already have government health care available to them.”

She added that one reason seniors favored Republicans this cycle was because of the endless attack ads on the new law.

Statistics show that anti-health care reform advocates spent $94 million on ads nationwide this year, while the other side spent $19 million.

While repealing the health care reform law will be next to impossible, the sensitive subject is one that may keep seniors wary of Democrats, Donahue added.

Will the GOP take on entitlements?

In the meantime, don’t expect Republican leaders to start changing or slashing entitlements right away, Bonjean said.

“I don’t see it as a top priority for Republicans going into the next Congress,” he said. “I think they’ll start creating a conversation, which needs to be had. Before you try to solve a problem, it will be important for Americans to understand what the problems are.”

Their primary focus will be on the economy and “low-hanging fruit” items in the budget that can be cut.

“Republicans are going to focus on growing the economy, creating jobs, repealing the health care law and cutting nondiscretionary spending. They may look at waste, fraud and abuse within the Medicare program, but their No. 1 priority is to jump-start the economy and repeal the new health care law,” Bonjean said.

Donahue added that even if Republicans float the idea of cutting entitlement programs, they have political cover.

“I think the Republicans have a little bit of cover because they know that a [Democratic] Senate and President Obama won’t cut Medicare,” she said. “So they can try to cut it and fail and that’s their safety net.”

Eventually, though, Congress will need to tackle the growing problems with these programs, which are pressing on the country’s fiscal health.

Bonjean hinted that entitlement change won’t come until the problems get really bad. Americans don’t like to deal with problems, he said, until they are “front and center and almost in a crisis level — like the economic situation we’re in right now.”

“When Medicare and Social Security get to such a point where it will be unsustainable, I think that’s when Americans will force Congress to do something about,” he added. “That’s the way the country works.”

What can Democrats do?

“To try and attract seniors is actually to make movement towards the center,” Donahue said. “And that is a dilemma for the Democrats right now because in order to attract younger voters, they actually have to move to the left.”

Democrats in recent history have had a hard time attracting seniors, so it comes as no surprise that they would face an uphill battle in this year’s election.

“Seniors have been a problem for the Democrats for at least a decade,” CNN polling director Keating Holland said. “Seniors routinely voted Democratic in House elections in the 1970s and 1980s, but starting in 1994 they trended toward the GOP and except for 2000, that trend has held up ever since. So there is some long-term pattern going on — it’s not a recent development.”

And it was certainly seen in the 2008 presidential election, when Barack Obama lost the senior vote to Republican presidential candidate John McCain. Obama was put over the top by support from independents, younger voters and baby boomers.

“For Democrats to have succeeded with older voters this cycle, they would have really had to court them,” Donahue said. “They didn’t do that. Where Republicans I think had the most energy and seemed like the most effective agent of change this cycle.”

CNN’s Rebecca Sinderbrand and Rebecca Stewart contributed to this report.

GOP walks budget-cutting line with seniors

“Many of our colleagues have called with their recommendations on how to continue our fight for the middle class, and have encouraged me to run for House Democratic Leader,” she said in a written statement. “Based on those discussions, and driven by the urgency of protecting health care reform, Wall Street reform, and Social Security and Medicare, I have decided to run.”

Pelosi initially announced her intentions via Twitter.

In the wake of Tuesday’s Republican takeover of the House, Democrats will move into the minority positions in the new Congress, which convenes in January.

Shortly after Pelosi’s announcement, House Majority Whip James Clyburn announced that he would be running for minority whip. Pelosi’s No. 2 man, Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer — who is widely considered to be more moderate — will “spend the next few days talking to [House] members and getting their thoughts on him being minority whip,” according to his spokeswoman, Katie Grant.

A senior Democratic source told CNN that Hoyer is “in a nice way saying he is going to run against Clyburn.”

Moderate Democratic Rep. Dan Boren of Oklahoma was the latest to urge Pelosi to step aside and not run for House minority leader. He said he would support a more centrist candidate.

“I cannot in good conscience support Nancy Pelosi as our leader,” Boren told CNN. “I think that it is important for the Democratic Party to move in a new direction for the sake of our country. Democrats and Republicans need leaders who are going to work together.”

Boren’s public pressure for Pelosi to go follows similar comments from Democratic Reps. Heath Schuler of North Carolina and Jim Matheson of Utah, who also have said they would prefer a new, more moderate Democratic leader.

“I think based on the outcome of this election, we should all acknowledge what the American people said — and they are looking for change. And I think when you, as a political party, suffer losses of historic proportions, it makes sense to change things up,” Matheson told CNN. “Therefore, I don’t think she should be running for leader.”

Rep. Jason Altmire, a moderate Democrat from a conservative district in western Pennsylvania, agreed. “I am not voting for Nancy Pelosi,” he said.

“I don’t get the sense that Speaker Pelosi understands what happened on Tuesday. We lost middle America. The Democratic party got crushed,” Altmire told CNN.

He noted that many of his fellow Democrats in districts near his lost their seats.

Despite his opposition, Altmire, who voted against major pieces of Democratic legislation, including the health care bill, said Pelosi will easily be victorious in her quest to be minority leader.

But Democratic Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. of Illinois said he would support Pelosi’s bid. “We’re in a political storm, but we don’t need to adopt an ‘any leader in a storm’ mentality,” Jackson said in a statement issued Friday. After Tuesday’s losses, moderate Democrats are now a very small part of the Democratic caucus. The bigger question, according to multiple Democratic sources, is what Pelosi’s fellow progressives want her to do. Americans United for Change, a progressive political organization, sent an e-mail notice to its members Friday morning asking them to send personal notes to Pelosi urging her to stay.

“Make sure she knows that we will support her,” said the e-mail.

“If she runs, she will win,” said one senior Democratic source.

A progressive Democrat told CNN he had talked to many of his colleagues about the situation in the past few days.

“It’s fair to say that for most progressives, their visceral place was that Nancy deserves to be the leader if she wants to be, but no one would have burst into tears if she decided not to,” said the congressman, who did not want to go on the record in order to protect private conversations.

The Pelosi supporter said she should not be blamed for the losses. Rather the setback was the result of a bad economy and, the supporter said, an ineffective job by the White House in selling Democratic achievements.

While Pelosi’s tireless fundraising has built a reservoir of support among Democratic lawmakers, several sources within the party said there are a number of progressive Democrats also who do not want her to run. Meanwhile, Rep. John Yarmuth, a Kentucky Democrat who had been a staunch supporter of Pelosi, told a local television station that he wants Pelosi to step down as Democratic leader.

“I know that there is some thought that Nancy Pelosi may stay around,” Yarmuth said Thursday. “As good a leader as she has been, I don’t think she’s the right leader to take us forward.”

Shuler is considering challenging Pelosi if she runs, according to a number of Democratic sources. Because of the makeup of the Democratic caucus, few think he would win.

Several Democratic sources say they worry about this dragging out, especially given how public the Democrats’ dispute over Pelosi’s future is becoming.

On Thursday, Pelosi told the Huffington Post that she is getting a positive response from Democratic lawmakers because she has “kept the caucus together” and increased Democratic numbers in 2006 and 2008.

Matheson told CNN one of the political concerns is that it will be harder to recruit candidates to run in 2012 with Pelosi as the Democratic leader — especially those who just lost and may want to try to get their old seats back.

CNN’s Evan Glass contributed to this report.

Pelosi running for minority leader

The voting on November 2 is expected to diminish Democratic majorities in both chambers and perhaps cost them control of the House. Whatever the final tally, widespread voter dissatisfaction with the hostile political climate in Washington is evident.

Democrats blame Republican intransigence, calling the GOP a “party of no” that has opposed almost every initiative to undermine President Barack Obama’s campaign pledge to change Washington politics.

Republican leaders say their opposition is a response to a left-leaning agenda pushed by Obama and Democratic leaders that far exceeds what the public wants.

In a new development this election cycle, the conservative Tea Party movement wants to throw out both parties, but its agenda aligns it with Republicans in the heated campaigning.

Video: David Axelrod talks elections, tax cuts

While Obama and some Democrats and Republicans say they hope for better relations after the election, they express different views of what that would mean.

“We’re going to continue to reach out, and we’re going to look for common ground and a way forward to solve the problems facing this country,” White House senior adviser David Axelrod said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” program Sunday.

Axelrod predicted Democrats will keep their majorities in both chambers, but conceded that “Republicans will have more seats in Congress.”

“We’re hoping with that comes a greater sense of responsibility,” he said.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas had a different take, telling “Fox News Sunday” that it is up to Obama to change, not Republicans.

“If the president’s going to maintain his ideological stance and try to jam things through to support the left in America, when we’re still a center-right country, then we’re going to say ‘no,’ ” Cornyn said, adding that Republicans will work with Obama on issues such as job creation, spending cuts and reducing the national debt.

“There is , I think, a fatigue on the part of the American people with the aggressive agenda that, frankly, they don’t agree with, but they haven’t been listened to,” Cornyn said. “They’ve been lectured to, and they’re tired of it. They’re going to speak up on November 2nd.”

Cornyn’s Republican colleague, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, agreed on the CBS program “Face the Nation” that Obama and Democratic leaders “over-reached” in the first two years, which he said rattled the American people.

“I don’t think it’s about everybody becoming a Republican in the last two years,” Graham said of expected GOP election victories next month. “I do believe it’s a rejection of an agenda that scares people. The health care bill, the stimulus package, the financial regulation, all the spending was not what people expected from this president.”

At the same time, some bipartisanship will occur, Graham predicted.

“There will be a bipartisan effort to extend the Bush tax cuts and not let them expire” at the end of the year, Graham said. As Democratic candidates in swing states realize voters want middle-ground policies instead of a liberal agenda, more compromise will come, he said.

“I think we’re going to have some bipartisanship when it comes to replacing the health care bill with a more moderate approach,” Graham said. “You’ll see some Democrats and Republicans working early on to try to moderate things.”

According to Graham, the Tea Party movement has helped refocus the national political debate on a center-right agenda, but added that conservatives shouldn’t get carried away.

“Our Tea Party friends have done us a favor, “Graham said. “But if we talk about doing away with Social Security as part of our agenda, then we’re going to lose the public. … If you get too far right or too far left, you’re going to lose the American people.”

Axelrod and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs outlined an agenda for the second half of Obama’s presidential term that focuses on the nation’s immediate and long-term economic welfare.

Gibbs told the NBC program “Meet the Press” that the president will work on strengthening the economy and trying to ensure its future stability, while continuing to push education reform and making sure that health care and Wall Street reforms are properly implemented.

Obama needs Democrats and Republicans to work together to deal with the federal debt, Gibbs said. A bipartisan debt commission is scheduled to report a set of proposals in December.

He made no mention of major issues such as immigration reform and energy reform, which Obama pushed strongly in his first two years. Axelrod, speaking on CNN, said both issues were part of the necessary foundation of reforms for sustainable economic growth in the future.

“I think that regardless of the outcome of election night that voters are going to want two political parties who may have different ideas but understand they have to come together and work together to solve our problems,” Gibbs later told reporters.

However, other Democrats don’t expect a new spirit of partisanship to emerge.

“It doesn’t appear right now that the Republican Party is welcoming moderates any more,” Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill said of the effect of the Tea Party movement on GOP candidates.

“I think that independent voters need to take a hard look in these elections and realize that what we may be getting to is the kind of gridlock that, frankly, is not something that’s desirable in terms of good policy in this country,” McCaskill said on “Fox News Sunday.

Republicans “won’t even pledge that they’ll quit earmarking,” she said, later adding: “If they won’t even say they’ll stop earmarking in this kind of spending problem that we’re facing, I just think there’s a lot of politics being played.”

Can Dems and GOP work together after the election?

“I think they might have predicted our demise a little too soon,” an energetic Chet Edwards tells the crowd to a round of cheers.

A young volunteer turns to a friend and says he’s eager to help the long-term Democratic congressman because, “he needs all the help he can get.”

The dozens of supporters standing in the room know Rep. Chet Edwards is in the toughest fight of his political life.

Edwards has long defied the political odds in Texas — a Democrat repeatedly elected to Congress since 1990 in one of the most conservative districts in the country.

The district includes Waco and Bryan-College Station, home to Baylor and Texas A&M universities, both bastions of conservatism.

In 2004, John Kerry received 30 percent of the vote in Edwards’ congressional district. In 2008, then-Sen. Barack Obama managed 32 percent. Each time, Chet Edwards was elected back to Congress.

Edwards is often called an “endangered species,” as many conservative Democrats have disappeared from the political landscape of Texas in the last 20 years.

His political survival skills even catapulted him to the shortlist of potential vice presidential nominees for President Obama in 2008.

Now, Edwards’ opponent doesn’t miss an opportunity to link Edwards to the unpopular president and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The Republican challenger, Bill Flores, paints Edwards as part of the Washington establishment.

“Since Nancy Pelosi took over, Edwards votes with her 96 percent of the time,” said one Flores campaign advertisement.

Edwards said he feels comfortable as an underdog. “I think voters have known me for years and they’ve known I’ve always been independent.”

Edwards sounds like a Republican in his campaign commercials, criticizing Democrats for passing health care reform and for being too liberal.

“I think Democrats in Washington have tried to do too much,” he said. “I wish some of them had focused more on our economy.”

Edwards bills himself as an independent voice in tune with the conservative side of his constituents. It won him the endorsements of the National Rifle Association, the Texas Farm Bureau and many military veterans groups.

But the intense anti-incumbent, anti-Washington mood is blowing swiftly across the rural Texas prairie that makes up much of Edwards’ congressional district.

The lunchtime crowd at the Bunkhouse BBQ joint in Clifton, Texas, symbolizes the struggles Edwards is facing this election year.

Burl and Dianne Hammons describe themselves as independent conservatives who’ve supported Chet Edwards in the past.

They have a son in the military and the congressman’s support of military issues often won them over. But this year, the Hammons are voting for Republican Bill Flores, even though they admit they don’t know much about him.

“He’s [Edwards] done a lot of good, but he’s through. He’s finished. He’s moving into the Pelosi area. … That doesn’t get my vote,” Burl Hammons said.

The last month of the campaign promises to be intense. The Edwards campaign accused Flores of supporting plans to privatize veterans health care and Social Security.

Flores said that’s not true but said he does support giving veterans the choice to use private doctors at government cost if they don’t want to travel to a VA hospital.

According to Flores, those attacks show Edwards is in more trouble than he’s ever been before and the Flores campaign said this is the first time the “right kind” of Republican opponent has matched up against Edwards.

Flores grew up in the Texas Panhandle, graduated from Texas A&M and spent 30 years working in the energy industry. This is his first run for public office.

Flores’ attempts to paint Edwards as a Washington liberal appears to be working.

Back at the Bunkhouse BBQ joint, Kim Watkins remembers all the votes she cast for Edwards, but said the congressman has swung to the left.

“He’s a hometown boy — he’s been around a long time, but I think the Democratic roots are showing up a little more,” said Watkins.

The Edwards campaign said it’s starting to cut into Flores’ lead. According to the campaign’s internal polling, Flores had a 10-point lead in mid-September. Their poll this week says the congressman has cut the lead to four points.

But the Flores campaign fired back with its own internal polling taken September 23 that shows Flores with a 19-point lead.

Edwards is used to this story. He often jokes that his Republican opponents start measuring the drapes too soon.

“They’ve written my obituary in so many elections over the years,” he said.

Texas Dem fights for survival in GOP hotbed

It’s a race too close to call. That’s why Reid will have his work cut out for him when he returns to his home state Tuesday for some good old-fashioned campaigning.

A CNN/Time/Opinion Research Corp. poll released September 15 finds the race between Reid and Angle to be statistically deadlocked, with 42 percent of likely voters supporting Angle and 41 percent backing Reid.

“This election is very important to me,” said Alfred Noble of Henderson, Nevada, a Las Vegas suburb. “I think Harry Reid is out of touch, and I think Sharron Angle is a little extreme, so I’m still up in the air about what to do.”

Henderson is in Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District, a swing district where “everything’s going to come together,” according to David Damore, a University of Nevada, Las Vegas, political science professor.

Video: Momentum swings back to Dems?

Video: Reid calls Angle’s views extreme

Video: Angle challenges Reid

It seems even those in Henderson who support Reid haven’t been 100 percent satisfied with his governing, but they said he’s the lesser of two evils.

“I think he does need to focus a little more back on the state,” said Brian Manore, “but I think he’s done well, and I do not think that Sharron Angle is the answer.”

Mary Ann Brim said she feels there’s a “terrible, terrible hatred” in the air for Reid, but she said she isn’t sure why. She said those who vote for Angle purely because they don’t like Reid should reconsider.

“We stand to lose, I think, some power for the state,” Brim said. “[Some people are] so determined to dump Harry that they don’t realize that the alternative is very scary.”

Brim said her dislike of Angle stems from, among other things, comments the candidate has made surrounding the elimination of Social Security and other government programs.

“It’s like everybody is on the edge of rage, and it’s driving them to decisions that just don’t make sense,” she added.

But Tracy Romano said she appreciates Angle’s desire to shrink the federal bureaucracy. She said the candidate seems “real” and believes Angle when she says she’ll go to Washington and lower taxes.

Not surprisingly, her opinions of Reid play a factor as well.

“[He] hasn’t been good for our taxes, hasn’t been good for our home values, and he’s just basically gone with [President] Obama and [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi on everything.”

One thing that everyone seems to agree on though is that the economy is the most important issue come Election Day. Nevada is home to the highest unemployment rate in the nation (14.4 percent) and highest foreclosure rate.

Many associate the poor economy with the politicians in power and blame them for not fixing the problem. That view is Reid’s biggest hurdle, and the Angle campaign’s recent focus on immigration and health care — as opposed to the economy — is a bad move, according to Damore, the political science professor.

“Any day that [the Angle campaign] is not talking about the economy is a win for Harry Reid,” Damore said.

Reid faces tough fight at home

With less than a month to voting day, even the most ardent Democrats conceded on Sunday talk shows that the outlook wasn’t rosy.

They differed on whether they can retain majorities in both the House and Senate, with the House considered more vulnerable, but all agreed there will be fewer of them working in Congress next year.

Republicans certainly believe it. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, predicted a GOP “tsunami” at the polls.

While he declined to offer a specific prediction on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Cornyn added he expected a “good day” on November 2, adding: “I don’t know how high or how wide that tsunami will be, but I think it will be significant.”

His Democratic counterpart, Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, warned on the same program against counting any electoral chickens before they hatch.

“With midterm election history, the president’s party, going to back to the Civil War, it means the president’s party loses seats,” conceded Menendez, who heads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “But the difference between a tsunami and losing some seats is the suggestion that they can take over the majority. That will not happen.”

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, one of the most visible carriers of the Democratic banner, agreed that the Senate majority was safe, but he was unwilling to offer a similar guarantee for the House.

“I think we’re definitely going to keep the Senate,” Rendell said on the CBS program “Face the Nation.” “And I think we have a chance to win the House because I believe that Democrats, including the base, are starting to come back.”

Video: Momentum swinging back to Democrats?

From liberal to moderate, all the Democrats interviewed Sunday concurred that the party has to offer voters a unified message that clearly contrasts their agenda with what Republicans have done and are doing.

The goal, they said, is to energize the party’s liberal base and convince independents that it is Democrats looking out for working-class Americans while Republicans represent special interests and corporate fat cats.

One line of attack, already employed by Obama and other Democratic leaders, is to blame Republicans for deploying a strategy of congressional obstruction instead of trying to work out differences on major issues.

“They do not want America to succeed,” independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a far-left liberal who sits with the Democratic caucus, told the CBS program. “They’re into politics.”

Asked if he meant such a harsh appraisal, Sanders responded: “I would say that, given the choice between regaining power or obstructing the initiatives that create jobs, that protect the American people, yes, I think gaining power is their major initiative.”

Democrats also have to put aside any internal debate over whether Obama’s administration and congressional leaders have too easily compromised away policies and provisions sought by the party’s progressive wing, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said on “Face the Nation.”

“We should stop firing at each other; we’ve got enough people, the Republicans, firing at us already,” Richardson said. “We don’t need these divisions in the party.”

To Richardson, Obama has to lead the Democratic charge in the final weeks of campaigning to make sure voters understand the choice before them regarding economic policies and other key issues.

“It’s not enough to say, ‘OK, American people, give us credit because we Democrats prevented it from getting any worse,’ ” Richardson said of a standard message from Obama and Democratic leaders. “You’ve got to be positive. You’ve got to talk about jobs, and you’ve got to talk about the economy, and you’ve got to connect with people emotionally.”

Republicans are making Obama and his policies the issue of the campaign, even though it is not a presidential election year and all the races are at the statewide or district level.

“I think this election really is about the president’s agenda,” Senate candidate Rand Paul of Kentucky — who is backed by the Tea Party movement — said on “FOX News Sunday.” “Do you support the president’s agenda or do you not support it? I think his agenda’s wrong for America.”

On the same program, Paul’s Democratic opponent — state Attorney General Jack Conway — backed some Obama achievements, including health care reform, but adopted the stance of Republicans, including Paul, and some other Democrats on extending the Bush-era tax cuts to everyone.

Obama and Democratic leaders favor extending the lower tax rates to the 98 percent of people earning up to $200,000 a year as individuals or $250,000 as families, while letting the rates for the other 2 percent return to higher levels from the 1990s.

The president says it is too expensive for the government to borrow the additional $700 billion over 10 years needed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

However, Conway agreed with Senate Republicans, who pledged a filibuster against allowing anyone’s tax rates to go higher, as well as some Senate and House Democrats unwilling to vote for what opponents would label a tax increase so close the November election.

“I think that raising taxes, we shouldn’t be doing it as we recover from recession,” Conway said Sunday.

Polls show Conway may be starting to erode a big lead by Paul, the Tea Party favorite who defeated a mainstream Republican candidate in the primary vote. To Richardson, such primary upsets by social conservatives such as Paul in Kentucky and Christine O’Donnell in Delaware present an opportunity for Democrats to highlight how the Tea Party influence has shifted the Republican agenda further to the right

“I also think we should take on the Tea Party,” he said on CBS. “For some reason everyone is scared of them. What they really want to do to this country when they talk about reducing deficits is they’re cutting into Medicare, Medicaid, firefighters, teachers, nurses, people’s benefits, Social Security.”

Cornyn, however, said the Tea Party movement is only expressing a deeper and wider political desire among the American people.

“They want us to stop the runway spending, the unsustainable debt, and they want to put America back to work,” Cornyn said on CNN. “And they see the big-government American policies of the last year and a half being an impediment to job creation in America.”

Another Republican, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, said the new faces in Congress after November will bring an unpredictable atmosphere.

“There are going to be a lot of new faces and probably some pretty strongly-held views,” Thune said on the C-SPAN program “Newsmakers.” “We’ll see how that works.”

Dems look to curb expected losses

The conservative political force has shaken up this year’s congressional elections, backing candidates who defeated Republican incumbents and other mainstream GOP candidates in primaries across the country.

Sal Russo, chief strategist for the Tea Party Express — the most organized and visible of the movement’s factions — told the CBS program “Face the Nation” that his group is a political action committee comprising members limited to donations of up to $5,000 with no corporate contributions allowed.

“We’re the purest form of democracy, I think, in the Tea Party movement, in the sense that when we want to do something, we don’t have any money to start with, we have to send an e-mail out to our people and say, ‘Hey, we think Sharron Angle is going to be a great candidate in Nevada, and do you want to get behind her?’ ” Russo said Sunday.

The end result, he said, would be the election of candidates “willing to stand up for more responsible fiscal policy in Washington.”

“We’ve turned the political system on its head,” Russo said. “And what’s done that is that millions of Americans, who, many of them, had been sitting out the political process, have gotten involved in the campaigns.”

However, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat in the chamber, told CNN’s “State of the Union” program that candidates such as Angle showed the negative impact of the Tea Party movement on the political right.

Republican primary victories by Tea Party-backed nominees over mainstream contenders such as Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and nine-term Delaware Rep. Mike Castle end up giving Democratic contenders a chance to win previously out-of-reach races in November, he said.

Video: Tea Party activists: Here to stay

Video: Florida’s Tea Party surprise

Video: Campaign Twitter wars

“When the Tea Party becomes the gatekeeper of a Republican primary, we end up with contests we never dreamed of,” Durbin said. “Who would have guessed that today we would be taking an honest look at Alaska, Delaware, and Kentucky, where we clearly have races where the Democrats can win?”

Durbin also cited Florida, where Republican Marco Rubio’s Senate candidacy with Tea Party support caused Gov. Charlie Crist to wage an independent campaign, throwing the race into what Durbin called “turmoil.”

“I think that shows the Tea Party position is too extreme for most voters, and I think we’re going to do well in those states,” Durbin said. “People have to ask themselves, is this what we really want in the United States Senate?”

Rubio, interviewed on the CBS program, said he and the Tea Party movement reflected the “sentiment in mainstream America that Washington is broken.”

“We don’t want to change America,” he said in reference to President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign theme and agenda. “We want to fix things that are wrong in America.”

He advocated bedrock conservative positions, including a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution, banning congressional earmarks and imposing term limits on Congress members.

However, his stance was more moderate on an issue important to the crucial senior citizen population in Florida — reforming Social Security to ensure its future solvency.

Rubio said benefits for current retirees or those close to retirement should remain fixed, and the system must survive for the younger and future generations without bankrupting the country.

“We’re going to have to accept there are going to be some changes,” he said, mentioning a possible future increase in the retirement age for eligibility.

Also on the program, another Tea Party-backed nominee — Colorado Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck — expressed similar conservative credentials.

“I see myself as part of a group of candidates who have been elected in this country because of frustration with what’s happening in Washington, D.C.,” Buck said.

“We’re going there not to be part of the establishment, not to be part of what we consider the problem in Washington, D.C., but to get there and to reduce spending, to promote ideas like a balanced-budget amendment and term limits and ideas that have been talked about for a while,” he said.

The Tea Party-backed candidates interviewed Sunday made no mention of the “Pledge to America” document released last week by House Republicans as a proposal for how they would govern if in power.

Democrats criticized the economic-focused program that includes reduced spending, lower taxes and other bedrock GOP positions as a rehash of failed past policies.

In an editorial Saturday, the New York Times called the document “a bid to co-opt the Tea Party by a Republican leadership that wants to sound insurrectionist but is the same old Washington elite.”

“Not only are the players the same, the policies are the same,” the editorial said. “Just more tax cuts for the rich and more deficit spending. We find it hard to believe that even the most disaffected voters will be taken in.”

Conservative Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana told the NBC program “Meet the Press” that the “Pledge to America” represented a return to Republican roots.

“Republicans didn’t just lose our majority in 2006, we lost our way,” Pence said. “We walked away from the principles of fiscal discipline and reform that minted our governing majority back in 1980 and again in 1994. And the American people walked away from us.”

Conceding that the proposals in the document are “not necessarily new,” Pence said it represented a commitment to “important first steps in this Congress to steer our national government back to” basic principles and practices.

Tea Party: Return to basics or divisive force?