Nothing succeeds like . . .

LITTLE ROCK — THE LATEST news out of the Democratic Party’s unchanged and unchanging establishment will surely hearten Republicans:

Nancy Pelosi has been re-elected the party’s leader in the House, and Harry Reid is the once and future majority leader in the U.S. Senate.

For the GOP, the good news just keeps coming.

With the possible exception of our still dazed president, these are the two “leaders” who best represent what’s wrong with the Democratic Party in all its ideological rigidity. Which is steadily turning into rigor mortis. Only a couple of years ago, the party was riding a wave of hubris. Not only had it won a majority in both houses of Congress, but the usual, too-assured voices were saying it was a Permanent Majority. Which is how pundits and pols without a sense of history and its pendulum swings talk. At least before their inevitable comeuppance as the pendulum swings back.

Heedless, the Democrats in Congress now have re-elected the same leaders who led it to defeat in the House and barely preserved its majority in the Senate. The only objections to Ms. Pelosi’s re-election came from newly awakened Democrats like Mike Ross, who represents South Arkansas in the House. But he was in a distinct minority. The fumbling firm of Reid & Pelosi is still in charge of Democratic (mis)fortunes. Both have received a vote of confidence from their much diminished party in Congress.

Nothing succeeds like success, they used to say. In the case of Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Reid, nothing has succeeded like failure. They lead their party over a cliff only to get re-elected by their colleagues, or at least by those who managed to survive the crash. So much for adages.

Meanwhile, the Republicans will need to guard against reading triumphalist tones into their own gains in the midterms. The GOP didn’t win all those congressional elections; the Democrats just lost them. The American people weren’t expressing some sudden new love for Republicans this fall, just disgust with the same old Democrats. But the Republicans may continue to win if their opposition doesn’t wise up. Instead, Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid can be counted on to do the Republicans’ job for them.

Some of us live for the day when there’s a better reason for handing power to a political party than the other one’s glaring faults.