RALEIGH – There are about as many explanations for the Democrats’ electoral success as there are Democrats taking credit for them, Republicans explaining them away, and political pundits feeding the post-election demand for analysis and commentary. One typical theme, already evident in some of this year’s newspaper and magazine coverage, is to associate election results and implications with a particular personality, often either a new and interesting victor or someone whose pre-election take on things is shown to be prescient.

There are a number of nominees for the “It” Guy/Gal of 2006. Among Democrats, they include Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the former Clinton aide who heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, who headed that chamber’s Democratic effort. Incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi is also an obvious contender, now that it’s safe for her to emerge from quasi-hiding (which was savvy tactic, by the way). Senate leader Harry Reid isn’t in the running, though. Too boring.

Among Republicans, the nominees include two former colleagues of mine in the state think tank movement, Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona (who once headed the Barry Goldwater Institute) and Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana (once the head of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, now candidate for House minority leader). Each has been screaming bloody murder for years about pork-barrel spending, immigration-policy mishandling, Capitol Hill mismanagement, and other issues that they warned, correctly, would split the GOP coalition.

Also, presidential aspirants Sen. John McCain of Arizona and outgoing Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts are drawing lots of ink and airtime (even though both campaigned for lots of losing candidates, McCain among House and Senate members and Romney as head of the Republican Governors Association). That’s because the 2006 election winnowed the field by removing outgoing Sens. George Allen and Bill Frist from serious contention. I haven’t seen much of Rudy Giuliani yet, but it won’t be long.

Believe it or not, a solid candidate for “It” Guy 2006 is none other than North Carolina’s own newly elected Democratic congressman from the 11th District, Heath Shuler. He got a fair amount of national chatter in the months leading up to Election Day, but his relatively easy win over Charles Taylor catapulted Shuler into the ledes or thesis paragraphs of some dozen or more major post-election pieces I’ve seen in the past few days. Consider this passage from a Sunday New York Times account of Republican and conservative election reactions:

After two decades of defeats, [Democrats] have largely dropped their former calls for major defense spending cuts, talk of a Canadian-style national health insurance, or campaigns for gun control. They work hard to avoid getting tagged as tax raisers, and since 2004 they have tried to open their doors to opponents of abortion as well.

To be sure, many Democrats campaigned this fall for increasing the minimum wage, preserving the estate tax or a prompt withdrawal from Iraq. But the party made many of its gains in both the House and the Senate by recruiting candidates with conservative views on abortion and gun rights, most notably Bob Casey Jr., the senator-elect in Pennsylvania, and Heath Shuler, representative-elect from North Carolina.

Shuler may turn out to be a flash-in-the-pan, admittedly. Unlike the 2004 “It” Guy who parlayed his initial fame into White House buzz – Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, a former state legislator – Shuler is a political neophyte. To use appropriate lingo, he’s got a little more time safe in the pocket, but pretty soon the old bulls on Capitol Hill and the Washington press corps will be rushing him. As political linebackers go, they’re pretty beefy. Shuler and the other 15 or so newly elected Democratic conservatives and centrists will have no problem voting for legislation likely to move early in the House, such as a minimum-wage hike. Then will come tougher votes, on taxes and the budget or perhaps on social legislation.

Will Shuler and his center-right Democratic colleagues stick to their guns? Literally?

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.