After a fierce and sometimes bitter election campaign, there appears to be some movement to the middle in the 20th congressional district, which stretches through the North Country to Lake Placid and Saranac Lake.

The Glens Falls Post Star is reporting that Republican Chris Gibson and Democrat Scott Murphy agree on the compromise tax plan which passed this week.

Gibson, who defeated Murphy handily last month, embraced the deal which Murphy — in one of his final acts in congress — voted for:

“So, I do support the compromise that’s before the Congress right now,” [Gibson] said, speaking of legislation the Senate approved on Wednesday and the House was discussing on Thursday.

Gibson said he’s hopeful that the spirit of compromise will continue in Congress after he takes office on Jan. 3.

Meanwhile, the Albany Times Union is reporting that Gibson sought and won the same committee assignments held previously by Reps. Kirsten Gillibrand and Murphy.

Rep.-elect Chris Gibson may have been elected on a promise to change the way Washington works, but in at least one way, he’s following in the footsteps of his Democratic predecessors in the House of Representatives.

Gibson, R-N.Y., nabbed seats on the House Agriculture and Armed Services committees — the same two panels on which both Rep. Scott Murphy and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand served.

As Murphy prepares to leave office, his team hit one big snag as Federal bean counters began shutting down his offices, phones, and computers weeks before the Democratic congressman’s term was over.

That decision drew this rebuke from the Post Star’s editorial board:

In a rare instance of penny-pinching by the federal government, the U.S. General Services Administration has prematurely removed communications equipment and offices from members of Congress who lost their elections in November, even though those congressman are officially in office through Jan. 5.

Residents of the 20th Congressional District learned that the hard way just before Thanksgiving when they tried to contact Congressman Scott Murphy by phone or visit one of his local offices.

A full five weeks before he leaves office, the feds have forced him to shut down all but his Saratoga Springs office and relegated his Washington, D.C., staff to a cubicle and a couple of chairs. Gone are the staff’s Blackberrys, replaced by personal computers in cafeterias and other people’s offices.

The Post Star made it clear that Murphy and his staff weren’t to blame.

They’re making do with the hand they’ve been dealt. They’re not trying to stay on too long. They’re just trying to do the job they were hired to do until they’re no longer on the taxpayers’ payroll.

Dan Maffei, who represents New York’s 25th House district in Washington, officially bowed out of the race this week, as the ballot counting tilted against him.  This from Politico.

The Democratic Party still clings to a lot of power in Washington — they control the US Senate and the White House, after all — but there’s a growing sense that top leaders have no idea what to do next.

Republicans are stalling every Democratic maneuver, blocking votes on widely popular initiatives (ending Don’t Ask-Don’t tell, raising taxes on the wealthy), preventing the confirmation of Federal  judges, and dead-ending debate on common-sense treaties such as the new START deal negotiated with Russia.

The reason for the Democrats’ impotence is that the Big Tent coalition that they cobbled together in 2006 and 2008 is in complete disarray.

There is, quite simply, no consensus about a reasonable platform or program for their party or the nation.

You have a still-sizable coalition of Blue Dog conservatives, many from rural states and congressional districts, who have little cultural or political loyalty to the Democrats’ big urban voting base.

Then you have a big cadre of gay and lesbian activists, who view their issues — ending Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, legalizing same-sex marriage, boosting funding for AIDs care and research — as paramount.

Then there are the greenies, who see climate change as a real and present danger, a cause which trumps all other concerns and issues.

Next you have a growing Hispanic caucus, who want very liberal immigration laws, but are generally disinterested in environmental concerns and often hostile to liberal social causes.

Also in the big tent is a big faction of women voters and politicians, who see abortion rights and gender equality in the work place as fundamental issues.

And don’t forget the crucial African American voting bloc.  Black voters generally support a large social safety net and poverty reduction programs — key Democratic policies — but are increasingly hostile to liberal social policies.

There is the unpredictable and fickle youth vote.  Polls show that young people prefer Democrats by large margins, but except in rare instances can’t be bothered to actually go to the polls.

Finally, you have the liberal blogosphere, a media culture that lacks the message discipline and coordination of conservative media.

In a sense, of course, none of this is new.  Democrats have always been a herd of cats. But Democratic leaders knew this and failed to establish clear rallying points.

They were unable to craft any sort of central message — any sort of unified vision — that would keep the wheels on the rails.

In 2008, the Big Vision was a shared loathing of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.  I’m guessing that Mr. Obama thought that revulsion would linger for a while longer.

He was wrong.

Until Mr. Obama and his team come up with a broadly appealing program that gets the big tent cheering again, their movement will continue to unravel.

Admit it.  Only in public radio would we dare to launch a critical think-piece about the Republican Party in the language of the Land of Freedom Fries.

Ribbing aside, the question is real:  What next for the Republican Party, now that it possesses real power?

Here’s the conundrum for the GOP.  The defining philosophical conceit of the modern conservative movement was summed up by Ronald Reagan in his famous bon mot (see, there I go again).

“Government is not a solution to our problem,” he argued.  “Government is the problem.”

The trick, though, is that Reagan was wrong, at least a lot of the time.  If 9/11 taught us anything, it’s that big problems come torpedoing at our society all the time that have nothing to do with government.

Remember Hurricane Katrina?  That wasn’t a gray-faced government bureaucrat causing all the trouble.  It was a charging rhino of a storm that blasted a great American city.

And we expected Washington to be up to the task of responding.

These aren’t rare events.  A couple of weeks ago, when Muslim extremists tried to ship bombs on cargo flights, no one suggested that we find a laissez-faire, de-regulated, market-driven solution.

The second trick is that even the vast majority of Americans who vote Republican also want (read:  demand, in no uncertain terms) a lot of government services.

With the exception of school-age children, all those conservative-tilting seniors use more government programs and receive more government dollars in direct payments than anyone else.

In New York’s 20th district race, one of Chris Gibson’s TV ads featured an elderly voter praising the Republican for promising to protect that most Rooseveltian of programs, Social Security.

Voters also want something done immediately about jobs.  And they don’t want Bill Gates or Warren Buffet to do it.  They want Washington to make it happen.

Republicans, giddy from last Tuesday, have only begun to wrestle with this challenge

Consider health care.  If Republicans succeed in repealing or de-funding healthcare reform, tens of millions of Americans will once again be on the outs, stuck without dependable, reliable insurance.

They talk in vague terms about “repealing and replacing” the current reform package.  They offer what amount to symbolic ideas, including tort reform, as an alternative.

Yes, some kind of significant tort reform is a good idea.  But no, it won’t seriously change the cost of delivering health care to Americans, or extend care to a lot of additional people.

Being the party of Non! was a great political strategy for a party that was truly on the outside looking in.

The GOP succeeded in appropriating and leveraging America’s anger at the economic status quo.  But that’s not good enough anymore.

Now Republicans will need to govern, to legislate, and to come up with smart new policy ideas that solve real-world problems.    With the economy still teetering, gridlock and finger-pointing and campaign catch-phrases won’t satisfy voters.

We’ve had two whiplash elections in a row.  Unless Republicans pivot quickly and get down to business, look for more to follow.