Coming to school was a difficult transition for old Duke. I came from a house where I was the only child and ruled my dog and cat with an iron fist. As a result when I stepped onto the playground for my first day of preschool, several things were awry. First, my teachers thought I was dyslexic thanks to a misguided attempt to be "boy wonder," which left me insisting on wearing my blue underwear on the outside of my pants. And second, the power from the dictatorship I ran at home still coursed and pumped through my veins.

I led a group of five-year old rogue vigilantes throughout the playground, sowing the proverbial seeds of havoc amongst the other children. This binge of mayhem all culminated in my team of outlaws banishing the girls from the climbing structure and turning it into our own personal secret hideout. Finally we had taken back what was rightfully ours, or so we thought.

However, the girls felt slightly less vindicated in our taking of the climbing structure, and so they put an end to our reign of terror and in typical five-year old fashion: they tattled. My mother, a power greater than that of ten five year-olds put together, intervened, and restored a sense of order and communal harmony to the playground.

Consequently the girls and boys were reunited, and all was forgotten, and we rejoiced together in the simple joy of taking turns using the slide. So I guess the moral of the story for me was: become friends with as many girls as you can from an early age, because when they get older, they might be hot, and you can try and hook up with them.

And so this brings me to the issue at hand–much as my mom stepped in to curb the oppression I was creating, the American voters have stepped in and told the Senate that they have to play nicely and evenly.

Now the Senate is being forced to understand the physical ramifications of an even split between the Democratic and Republican Parties. Indeed, in an area of fierce partisan politics, such a split could prove to lead the Senate into a veritable wasteland of inextricable gridlock.

For the Senate, which already has a procedural structure that favors debate and indecision, being in a situation where neither party has control could send it headlong into a wacky state of disarray.

As we speak, most of the Senate’s twenty committees are wrestling internally for a solution to the problems brought on by distribution equal funding and power. Those committees are the heart of the Senate, and as we all know, problems with the heart can have deadly consequences. Although Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) as well as Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) have expressed cautious optimism that the committees are "in pretty good shape." However, as Budget Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-NM) summed up the problem: "the ultimate test of power sharing is what we can get done."

The Democrats are still reeling and slightly punch drunk from the Presidential election, and one wonders whether or not they will look for vindication in the Senate by refusing to compromise on any issues. Such a refusal would throw a gigantic monkey wrench in the cogs of any sort of legislation that Bush tries to pass.

Despite Bush’s attempts to wine and dine the Senate with his charm, sweeter than that of any southern belle, if he fails in his first test in front of the budget committee with his proposed tax plans, it could set a precedent for the Senate to play the role of what I like to call "legislative spoiler." Such a failure in his first foray into the Senate could lead Bush, who holds no mandate from the voting public, to lose credibility and effectiveness.

However, in today’s political climate, partisan politics is an 800-pound gorilla. The media and the American public are highly critical of any policy decisions that seem to be rooted in such partisan politics. Let it never be said that politicians do not hear the winds of change, and thus as those winds blow, so blow politicians. Members of Congress therefore have recently been tip-toeing around controversial decisions more so than ever.

This heightened media scrutiny might be the only thing short of hot interns that forces members of the Senate to try and forge any sort of compromise.

Hopefully with the knowledge that the rueful possibility of accomplishing nothing in the Senate for the next few years exists, members will abandon their usual methods for arriving at policy decisions such as paper-scissors-rock and duck-duck-goose, and try to make thoughtful judgments that will please both parties. In the end, I predict this even split will bring the two parties back towards a happy medium of a situation where they are not constantly trying to kill each other, or at least not trying to induce heart attacks in young Strom Thurmond (R-SC) by coming up behind him in the halls and yelling "boo!" as Democratic Party members have been known to do when they’re feeling "playful." Perhaps this split will be just the dose of medicine that the Senate needs to go with Trent Lott’s (R-Miss.) "sugar," and the Senate will regain the air of cooperation it needs in order to make policy that transcends party lines and is in the best interests of the country.