The National Governors Association came to town over the weekend and staged a debate over President Obama's economic stimulus plan. Notably, the debate featured Republicans arguing with other Republicans.

On one hand we had the post-Millennium modernists, led by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and his Sun Belt soul mate, Charlie Crist, the governor of Florida. Both have been regarded as important symbols in the new GOP, representing as they do the first and fourth most populous states in the union.

Movie star Schwarzenegger was everywhere for days. He buddied up to the White House, praised its priorities, urged his fellow Republicans to jettison their traditional loathing of Washington and get with the program.

Told there were GOP governors willing to thumb their noses at parts of the package, the man known simply as Arnold smiled his Hollywood smile and said, "Fine, we'll take that money and rebuild California."

Crist, the man with the tan, was nearly as ubiquitous, if not nearly as upbeat. He kept talking about Florida's homes in foreclosure and jobs being lost. His sober-sided emphasis on substance evoked a flinty New England Republican from the past, a far cry from last summer's image of Crist as a glamorpuss angling to be John McCain's running mate.

Weighing in as another post-Millennial type was Tim Pawlenty, the Republican governor of glitz-free Minnesota. Pawlenty is best known for coining the term "Sam's Club Republicans," a winning description of those non-elite millions who see virtue in small government and low taxes.

Pawlenty seemed less cozy with the new president than his more photogenic colleagues from the vacation states. But he echoed their themes of inclusion and pragmatism. Midwesterners pride themselves on making things work.

On the other side, not many governors were ready to support the scorched earth resistance of Rush Limbaugh and his talk show chorus, who can't wait for the new president to fail. But a few were willing to ride the wave of resentment on the right, and most of the attention went to three from medium-to-small states in the Deep South.

The senior spokesman in that triumvirate was Haley Barbour, two-term governor of Mississippi, who was chairman of the Republican National Committee during the 1994 midterm election. That was the historic cycle in which the GOP won a majority of the Southern governorships for the first time in history, adding its first majority of seats from Southern states in the House and the Senate as well.

On the strength of its Southern surge, the GOP became the majority party in both the House and Senate, and captured a majority of the 50 statehouses as well. Barbour was highly visible that season, waving his "Rising Tide" banner for the GOP.

Barbour's trajectory suffered somewhat when his party failed to dislodge President Clinton in 1996. But Barbour personally prospered as a blue chip Washington lobbyist, then went home to become governor in 2003. Distracted by fallout from Hurricane Katrina, he has passed on chances to return to the national stage as a senator or encore party chairman. But at 61, he has time and surely wants to be part of the conversation.

While not shy about taking federal dollars for disaster relief, Barbour was hesitant about the extra money on offer for unemployment insurance. It came with strings affecting future governance of that state-federal program and a requirement for more business taxes. That was a stumbling block for other Southern Republicans, too.

One of them was Mark Sanford of South Carolina. Another Man of '94, Sanford came to the Capitol with the torch-bearing troops of Newt Gingrich but proved even more conservative than his cohort. He often lined up with libertarian hero Ron Paul, even when no one else did. And unlike many who took the three-terms-and-out pledge, Sanford did his three and left.

Sanford came back to politics two years later as governor and has shown a preference for the executive role. His second term ends in 2010, and he has been touted as a candidate for the White House in 2012. He is now chairman of the National Governors Association (a job once held by Bill Clinton) and has the backing of some who had backed Paul's earlier bids for the presidency.

And finally, the Republicans have been led in opposition to the stimulus by Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, the party choice to respond to Obama's address to Congress this week. In his way, Jindal too is a Man of '94. He was on Capitol Hill as an intern to a Louisiana congressman in the heady days before that historic election. The congressman introduced Jindal to the Republican governor of Louisiana, who gave him a job and launched his political career.

While not yet 40, Jindal has become a favorite among Republicans seeking a fresh face for 2012. Son of Indian immigrants, Jindal is often called the GOP's Obama not just for his race but for his eloquence and cerebral approach to politics. Both rose as exceptions to the corrupt reputations of their political habitats in Chicago and Louisiana.

While these Republicans delineated the debate, the silent majority of their fellow governors in both parties were far less in evidence. They enjoyed their days in the nation's capital and their visits to the White House and went home ready to claim the federal dollars coming their way.

Like most of their constituents, they surely have their doubts about how much good the stimulus can do for the country. But like those same constituents, they're ready to see how much good it can do for them.

Many may react to the latest revelations about Roland Burris with shock or outrage, but the most appropriate reaction is probably sadness.

It is now apparent that the appointee from Illinois who took Barack Obama's place in the Senate was far from forthcoming in describing how he came to be picked by a governor who has since been impeached, convicted and removed from office in infamy.

Testifying under oath Jan. 8 before an impeachment panel in Springfield, Ill., Burris failed to report several contacts he had with Blagojevich's people prior to his appointment. He has tried to excuse himself by saying he was about to give a fuller answer but was interrupted. This has met with near universal derision and disbelief.

Burris has since filed an affidavit amending this testimony, and this week he has admitted he tried to raise money for the governor during the relevant period of time. In short, Burris has blown up the essential myth of himself as a citizen innocently plucked from retirement to serve the state nobly in a moment of need, a myth promoted primarily by himself.

Shocking? Outrageous? Perhaps. But surely, it is sad for all those with eyes to see. Not just for what it says about the political ethics of one individual or one state, but for what it says about the state of politics and race in America as a whole.

In Roland Burris we have a man of modest gifts who was possessed of vaunting ambition in a time of historic opportunity. Born and raised in Centralia, Ill., midway between Chicago and St. Louis, he started life as far from the power centers of his state as anyone could. What was more, he was poor, and it was no help to be growing up black in the 1940s and 1950s -- especially in his part of the state.

Yet, at the start of his career, Roland Burris had the greatest gift a politician can have: good timing. He found his way into politics at the most propitious moment imaginable, in the late 1970s, when the state's Democratic machine suddenly needed African-Americans who could "sell" downstate. Burris not only fit the bill; he encountered few immediate rivals who did so as well. Subsequently, he won terms as state comptroller and state attorney general -- the first statewide offices held by an African-American in Illinois -- from 1978 through 1994.

However, in filling these jobs, Burris did little to distinguish himself. And when the man from Centralia reached higher -- seeking the Democratic nomination for governor or senator -- he was rudely rebuffed. The party pols in Chicago and Springfield backed other horses, and Burris wound up looking like a gambler who doesn't know the game has turned against him and it's time to get out.

Burris' career remained in the doldrums for more than a decade after 1994. He passed from late middle age to early retirement and beyond. The graveyard monument he had commissioned with space open for higher achievements went unfinished. The empty space appeared to be permanent.

Then came the electrifying historic moment in which Barack Obama, an outsider who came late to the mottled political history of Illinois, won the presidency. It was a great moment, especially for people of color throughout the nation and the world. And for Roland Burris, it had a special and more personal meaning. It opened the prospect of political redemption.

Although now past 70, Burris could discern a scenario for himself in the rise of Obama and the fall of Blagojevich. Facing not only impeachment but indictment in federal court, Blagojevich might well pass over all the other people in state politics with better credentials and choose someone like Burris to fill out the president-elect's unexpired term in the U.S. Senate. Blagojevich obviously needed someone black because he was replacing the only African-American in the Senate (Obama), and because he needed to maintain support in the black community himself. Perhaps the governor was even anticipating the racial composition of the jury that might hear his case in federal court in Chicago, somewhere down the line.

This was precisely the kind of opening Burris had been hoping for, a chance to close out his career in a position of national stature. In the Senate, he would be stepping into the void left by the elevation of the nation's first African-American president. It was a glory moment. Even if he wound up as little more than a footnote to historic events, Burris would at least be some small part of such events. And that looked like an opportunity worth reaching for.

And reach Mr. Burris surely did. We now know he was in contact with not just one but several surrogates for Blagojevich. The governor was arrested after being captured on tape auctioning the Obama Senate seat. He was impeached by the State Assembly, convicted by the State Senate and removed from office. But before he went, he appointed Burris to the seat.

Someday we may know all the motivations behind that decision by the departing governor. But we can assume he thought about embarrassing the Obama team and the Senate Democratic leaders. Having vowed not to seat anyone the embattled governor named, what were the Senate Democrats to do when confronted with a nominee who was black?

Initially, their response was to resist. No one knew what Burris might have done for the governor to win the nomination. But everyone could imagine the worst. Blagojevich had been dunning people for money in exchange for so many other favors, why would he give away a perfectly good Senate seat free?

To their credit, other ambitious Illinois politicians saw the quid pro quo on the wall and said no. But not Burris. He had been waiting too long with too little hope to let this moment go by. And he seems to have been sure he could grab the brass ring and hang on.

What no one can miss here is the contrast between Burris' maneuverings and the rather more inspiring rise of the man whose seat he has taken in the Senate. At precisely the moment the nation has turned to a black man in a national emergency -- at home and abroad -- the seat he leaves vacant has to go to someone who represents so much of what has been wrong about politics in Illinois and in the black community.

Surely, in all of this, that is the saddest element of all.

Badly outnumbered by the Midianites, the biblical general Gideon in the Book of Judges made an unconventional call. He winnowed his army to its 300 most reliable warriors and led this hardcore cadre to victory.

More than 3,000 years later, a very different leader named Vladimir Lenin adopted another less-is-more strategy as head of one of several competing parties in revolutionary Russia. Instead of expanding their membership, Lenin & Co. regularly trimmed their numbers so as to maintain focus, discipline and unity of purpose. In the critical months after the Romanov dynasty's collapse, Lenin and his Bolsheviks wound up in charge.

It's safe to say the current leadership of the Republican Party in Congress draws more inspiration from the first of these historical examples than from the second. But both models are applicable, and both offer insight into the conservative minority's mind-set.

The Grand Old Party has just been through a double disaster in the elections of 2006 and 2008. Taken together, the two cycles cost Republicans the White House and majority control of both chambers of Congress. The last time the party experienced a comparable trifecta of power loss in so short a time was in the 1930-32 elections that followed the Wall Street crash of 1929.

Given their long sojourn in political exile that followed that episode, Republicans might be expected to be chastened -- if not terrified -- by recent events. Instead, the GOP of our day has chosen a mode of defiance. Its leaders in Congress insist they have been dead right about both economic and foreign policy over the past eight years. So there.

Indeed, as the stimulus package cleared its key procedural hurdle this week on a vote of 61 to 36 in the Senate, the heart of the no-voters' argument was the inevitability of failure for any effort by the government to revive a distressed economy.

And, not content to push back on current history, many on the right feel led to insist they were right about the economics in the 1930s, too -- that it was Franklin D. Roosevelt who deepened and prolonged the Depression by imposing his New Deal on the economy. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland was among the first Republicans to sound the anti-FDR alarm in the House debate over the economic stimulus package. He said it was the definition of insanity to try the same old stimulative spending tactics "over and over."

One might say Mr. Bartlett defines a certain ultratraditional wing of the minority party. But soon we heard much the same rhetoric from Senate Republicans -- including that chamber's minority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Democrats can scarcely believe their good fortune at having this particular debate revived. It is hard to imagine a historical battle they would rather reprise than the one between FDR and Herbert Hoover. Several generations of Americans can tell you who came out ahead on that one, not just in 1932 but for several decades thereafter.

Still, Republicans in Congress see their situation quite differently. They hark back to their comebacks from the Democratic landslide of 1964 (big GOP gains in Congress in 1966, capture of the White House in 1968) and the Democratic tsunamis of 1974-76 (big GOP gains in Congress in 1978, capture of the White House and Senate in 1980) and 1992 (capture of the House and Senate in 1994).

In all three cases, they see their recovery grounded in a consistently conservative line. Looking at 1994 in particular, they believe they bounced back by resisting virtually everything President Bill Clinton and his Democratic majorities attempted on strict party line votes.

Like Gideon's army, the GOP's ranks have been thinned to a shocking degree. But like the Bolsheviks, the Republicans see in this a potential source of strength. They know they have lost nearly every seat they can lose in the House, and that the survivors are more worried about primary opponents coming at them from the right than about Democrats beating them in the fall.
This means the leaders can maintain a near-absolute discipline that maximizes their strength in the stimulus fight and beyond.

Moreover, they have learned an invaluable biblical lesson about message control. On the eve of battle, Gideon's remnant exaggerated its size by making lots of noise breaking crockery and blowing trumpets. In our time, much the same effect can be achieved in the blogosphere, not to mention on cable TV and talk radio.

The clear calculus of the minority party here is that President Obama will be overwhelmed by this economic downturn, much as his electoral rival John McCain and predecessor George W. Bush were last year. If this judgment proves correct, the new president will plummet in the polls and the uniform opposition of Republicans will give them a bitter but potent weapon going into the next election season in 2010.

Is there an alternative way for the GOP to plot its way back? Yes, say the "Big Tent" Republicans who have urged greater outreach to younger voters, women and minorities -- especially Hispanics -- throughout the past 20 years. These Republicans take hope from the election of Michael Steele as the new chairman of the Republican National Committee. Steele is an important break in the symbology, being the first African-American chairman of the party. He is also regarded as a moderate on the issues, devoted to widening the base.

But Steele will be sorely tested in his new role, because the RNC that elected him did not do so in search of a moderate but in disarray over what kind of conservative to prefer. And his efforts at outreach will have to contend with other party leaders' clear preference for the Gideon-Lenin gambit.

Not so many years ago, a young congressman spent much of each August driving himself to all of South Dakota's counties, dropping in here and there to introduce himself to his constituents.

"Hi," he'd say. "I'm Tom Daschle."

As Daschle rose from his election to the House (1978) to his first successful Senate run (1986), his appearance in even the most rural reaches of his state was no longer a surprise but a familiar ritual. He carried it on well into his third decade in Congress.

Now and again he took a reporter along, but there was no staff entourage. The lonely rambles were the ambitious young man's way of staying in touch, and making sure people knew he was working at it. He said it was a relief to get away from Washington, to spend long hours alone behind the wheel.

In the early going, he even featured his beat-up old Pontiac in his re-election ads, contrasting it with the limousines others used to navigate the nation's capital.

What a travesty to see these images now, juxtaposed with headlines about Daschle's downfall.

For 10 years (1995-2005), Daschle served as the Senate's Democratic leader, all but 18 months of that time in the minority. He became as adept as anyone in that job, alternating between enabling and frustrating the majority party. He made and kept plenty of friends in both parties. And through it all he kept the trust of the farmers in his state east of the Missouri River, the ranchers to the west and the town folk as well.

But along the way, he also settled in among the elite of the nation's capital. In 1990, he married his second wife, Linda Hall, a lobbyist. They became what is known as a Washington power couple. They bought a $2.25 million home in one of the city's most exclusive enclaves. When the duality of Washington and South Dakota finally caught up with Daschle in November 2004 and he lost a re-election bid, that house had become an issue -- and a symbol.

Daschle's life had indeed changed. Planes waited for him. He was driven through the nation's capital in security vehicles.

At a farewell testimonial to Daschle not long after his defeat, his wife joked about his adjustment to life as an ordinary civilian. She said that the first time he went out to wait for her in their car, she found him sitting in the back seat.

As it turned out, Citizen Daschle did not have to wait long for his next ride. His new gigs included an advisory role with a politically connected investment group called InterMedia Partners. As he was being paid about $1 million a year in this role, Daschle assumed the chauffeur-driven Cadillac showing up for him at his house was just another travel expense for the company -- like airfare to meetings in another city.

Of course, the former senator wound up using the car for personal purposes four-fifths of the time, according to his own accounting. So it turns out it counted as compensation. And in the top tax bracket, that meant three years of that service was equivalent to more than $250,000 in undeclared income.

Daschle says he caught this error himself and was stunned at what he owed. President Obama seemed prepared to overlook the error (or transgression), perhaps in part because Daschle befriended him four years ago, upon the Illinois freshman's arrival in Washington. Daschle had taken Obama under his wing, and several of the exiting leader's senior staff transferred to the rising leader's team.

Similar sentiments were at work this week among Daschle's former colleagues on the Senate Finance Committee. Even as the controversy burgeoned, they were loath to deny him confirmation. That said, their enthusiasm was ebbing by the hour. What had been an easy vote in favor was becoming a painful test of loyalty.

What mattered most here was neither the specific tax dodge nor the question of what Daschle would have done about it if he were not in line for a Cabinet post. The problem arises more from Daschle's fabulous haul as a counselor and speechmaker ($5 million in less than three years), and from his own explanation for his tax flub.

If we can believe he thought his car and driver were his to use for any reason, free of charge, it is because he was accustomed to such perquisites as party leader in the Senate. And that is a political reality that rankles people being taxed to pay for it, just as they are taxed to pay for bailouts for bankrupt banks that then lavish Christmas bonuses on their own executives.

This is precisely the sense of entitlement and privilege that the new administration has pledged to eradicate, both in Washington and on Wall Street. The new administration simply cannot maintain this posture and award its top jobs to people steeped in the culture of Washington and Wall Street (or both).

Yes, Tom Daschle may have been the one man best prepared and equipped to take on the redesigning of the health care world. He would have been even better able to perform the makeover miracle his new boss is demanding by dint of his work in the private sector since leaving office four years ago.

But what he cannot do is represent the change Obama has said he is bringing to the system. Tom Daschle may not have ever been a registered lobbyist -- a definitional distinction few Americans may grasp -- but he has been very much a part of the inner world of money, power and influence in Washington. That's what the home, the car and the driver and, yes, the delayed tax payments all represent to most Americans.

The Obama administration seems to think it can be selfless and transparent even as it relies on ultra-savvy inside power operators. To paraphrase an old political expression, that unicorn won't hunt.