This is the engine room of a novel grass-roots machine that may soon have another purpose: to help Obama govern the country. If he wins, it also could cause him headaches...'His supporters have sky-high expectations and expect to be involved,' says Will Marshall, who studied the Obama organization for the Democratic Leadership Council. 'They are loyal but not easy to control.'...

It could also cause Obama problems. Much of America may be gung-ho about putting more troops into Afghanistan, but it's not clear Obamaworld is; he could run into opposition if he seriously pursues it. On the other hand, initiating talks with Iranian and Venezuelan dictators enjoys more support on his e-mail lists than in the rest of the country. If the Democrats win bigger majorities in the House and Senate, they (if not Obama) may well be eager to exact vengeance on Republicans, or at least cram Democratic ideas down GOP throats. Obama supporters might prefer more reaching-out. As Marshall sees it, most of them want a "transpartisan" approach that jettisons the old labels. "These people feel a close, personal tie to Obama, just as conservatives did to Reagan," he says. "But if and when he starts governing, he is going to start disappointing them."

To the Village, it would be horrible - catastrophic even - if Obama supporters dared to expect Obama to actually pursue a true progressive agenda. Obama supporters are therefore depicted as a wild-eyed, bewildered herd of lunatic leftists that, as the corporate-backed DLC says, are - gasp! - "not easy to control."

This is a portrayal designed to press Obama to immediately shun his base, capitulate to conservatives (in the spirit of "transpartisanship"), reject "cramming Democratic ideas down GOP throats" (even though Obama campaigned on Democratic ideas), and bow down to the Serious and Respected Villagers after the election. Of course, these are the same Villagers whose neoconservatism got us into Iraq and whose free-market fundamentalism drove the country to the bring of economic disaster - all under the guise of "transpartisanship." Now, these same Villagers are making it clear that the Serious and Responsible thing for Obama to do is deliberately "disappoint" the people who elected him.

Democrats said they were well aware of the mistakes of the past and the overconfidence exhibited during one-party rule of the Clinton and Bush administrations that led to Democrats’ losing control of the House in 1994 and to Republicans’ experiencing a similar defeat in 2006.

Chastened by their years in exile, Democrats said they were determined to avoid those pitfalls should voters deliver them control of the White House and Congress.

The nature of the Democratic majority, expanded partly through the election of centrists and even conservatives, would also temper Democratic zeal to pursue an overly ideological agenda, Democrats said.

“We are going to get new members with a clear understanding that the reason they won is appealing to independents and disaffected Republicans, and they are going to want to continue to do that,” said the House majority leader, Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland.

“I think the Senate operates best when it makes things happen in the middle, and that happens when you have 41 or more people who resist an idea to the point where you can compromise,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader and a lawmaker whose own seat is at risk. “I think there will be enough Republicans plus discerning Democrats in the Senate after January to keep a kind of far-left agenda from steamrolling through the Senate like it often does through the House.”