Two years after the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, the Republican party seized control of Congress. The Democratic administration henceforth had to work with the enemy. What can the Republicans do to make this happen again?

The Republican triumph of 1994 was due to unforced errors on the administration's side (gays in the military, the hubristic overreach of Hillary Clinton's healthcare plan) and remarkably effective Republican leadership in Congress (Newt Gingrich and the “Contract with America”).

Barack Obama faces challenges far more difficult than the ones that confronted President Clinton. This gives greater scope for momentous errors but the politics works to Mr Obama's advantage: the country knows that the problems he faces are not of his making. The Obama team is cautious and shrewd. The missteps of the first two Clinton years are branded on its collective memory and unlikely to be repeated.