Two weeks from today, barring recount shenanigans a la Florida 2000, America will know whether the Republicans have retained their majority in the House and Senate. We certainly think they deserve to, even though the Republicans have been far from perfect. They failed, even with majorities in both houses, to enact two of President Bush’s signature domestic policy initiatives, private investment accounts as part of Social Security and an expansion of legal work visas for immigrants. Earmarked pork-barrel spending has soared. Republican congressmen such as Randall “Duke” Cunningham of California and Mark Foley of Florida resigned after being caught up in scandals over their behavior.

While the Republicans have not been perfect, neither are the Democrats all extreme leftists. Senator Schumer, who heads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, has tried to recruit some centrists who can win elections by espousing views on some issues that sound more likely to come from Republicans. Instapundit.com points out that the Democratic candidate for Senate in Tennessee, Rep. Harold Ford Jr., “supports public display of the ten commandments, a ban on flag burning, and says he’s closer to Bush than McCain on military interrogations.” The Democratic candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania, Robert Casey Jr.,has said he favors a federal ban on abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is at stake. He also has said he favors a Pennsylvania state law that requires a 24-hour waiting period for abortions and requires minors to obtain parental consent for an abortion.

Neither are we blind to the merit in the idea of having the Congress and the presidency held by different parties. It tends to prevent federal overreach and provide more vigorous oversight. For those of us who believe that government is part of the problem, the idea of dividing power between the two great parties can even be said to have a certain amount of charm. The greatest achievements of the Clinton years — the capital gains tax cut, the welfare reform — came when a Democratic executive had to work with a Republican congress. It was not a coincidence.

Yet do we buy into the caricature of the Republican Congress as a disaster? On the contrary, the Republican controlled Congress has had remarkable achievements, too. Its tax cuts have spurred economic growth, low unemployment, and new highs in the stock market. The Senate’s confirmation of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito have put the Supreme Court on a track to sensibility, a track that would make the Founders happy. Republicans have funded the war effort and, for the most part, given Mr. Bush the tools he needs to fight the war.

Some of the individual senators and congressmen up for reelection this year have made distinguished contributions. We think of Senator Santorum’s heroic support for funding of the democratic opposition in Iran, of his extraordinary commitment to Israel and related issues, and of his comprehension of the enemy ideology we are facing as “Islamic fascism.” Some Republicans have been anything but heroic — we think of Congressman Shays of Connecticut’s support for the abridgment of the First Amendment in the name of campaign finance “reform” and of Senator Chafee, the Rhode Islander who betrayed the president over Ambassador Bolton and said two years ago that he wished he could vote for George H.W. Bush.

No concern about the weakness of the Republicans on the Hill, however, compares to problems that would be presented by a Democratic accession. Rep. Charles Rangel, while not quite the caricature leftist that he is sometimes portrayed as being, would use the Ways and Means chairmanship to reverse the Bush tax cuts and de-fund the war. Congressman Conyers, who has sponsored a bill to start an impeachment investigation against Mr. Bush, would chair the Judiciary Committee. A federal judge who was impeached in connection with accepting a bribe, Rep. Alcee Hastings, is a possible chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

In the upper chamber Senators Kennedy, Biden, and Levin would all end up with chairmanships, and the Bush administration would spend the next two years answering hostile questions from Congress instead of running the country and the war effort. As far as confirming Ambassador Bolton at the United Nations or another center-right Supreme Court justice, if the Democrats win, forget about it. Extensions of the Bush tax cuts would be non-starters, and the great expansion that has been enabled by the Bush policies would be in danger.

We’d like to think the American electorate will sort this out in favor of the Republicans. Mr. Bush would be able to claim victory even if his party loses seats, so long as it retains a bare majority in the House and Senate. And if, in the Senate, the balance ends up with Joseph Lieberman, elected as an independent by a healthy margin by the voters of Connecticut, well, partisans of a Bloomberg presidential run may gather encouragement. And the Democrats will be left to wrestle with the fact that they abandoned their most thoughtful, most principled senator over the fact that under what might be called the unwritten codicils of the American constitution, politics is supposed to stop at the water’s edge — a principle that is never more valuable than in a time like now when our country is at war.