Credit former Republican Congressman Dick Armey for one of the most penetrating comments on Tuesday's elections. In an op/ed for the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Armey declared, “I've always wondered why Republicans insist on acting like Democrats in hopes of retaining political power, while Democrats act like us in order to win.”

Mr. Armey is right on both counts. Consider Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi’s astonishing declaration that Democrats “love” tax cuts, or Sen. Hillary Clinton’s hawkish poses on Iraq or the sudden concern that other Democrats have expressed over the size of the federal deficit. Democrats do campaign as Republicans in order to win.

But it is equally true that Republicans act like Democrats in the hope of retaining power. The past few Republican Congresses have certainly spent like Democrats, and they’ve displayed a Democrat-like inclination to meddle in people’s lives – at least on issues of concern to the GOP’s evangelical base. Some commentators have called this approach to running the country “big-government conservatism.”

Perhaps now that the elections are over, both Republicans and Democrats will revert to type. If they do, the Republicans will probably pay a higher price for their political cross-dressing than the Democrats. In an exit poll taken in battleground congressional districts, only one in five voters said that Republicans would do a better job to “keep government spending under control.” Almost twice as many voters said that the Democrats would do a better job.

The Republicans have lost all credibility on what used to be one of their defining issues –- fiscal restraint. With the worsening situation in Iraq, they have lost credibility on their other defining issue –- that they at the party to trust on national defense.

Right now, the state of the GOP recalls Ina Claire’s line to Greta Garbo in the 1939 film classic, Ninotchka: “The morning after always does look grim –- if you happen to be wearing last night’s dress.”