who in the final days of the campaign said, "This election is about Iraq. If indeed it turns out the way that people expect it to turn out, the American people will have spoken, and they will have rejected the course of action the president is on." The news media viewed the Democratic victory in both houses of the US Congress as "punishing President George W. Bush and his Republicans over ethics scandals in Washington and a failing war in Iraq." Democratic position After her party's victory then House Speaker-elect Pelosi (who would a month later make clear her disdain for the "surge proposal") wrote an article entitled "Bringing the War to an End is my Highest Priority as Speaker". The article explained that after visiting wounded Iraq War veterans at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center, "I left there more committed than ever to bringing the war to an end. I told my colleagues yesterday that the biggest ethical issue facing our country for the past three and a half years is the war in Iraq. ... When the House reconvenes on January 4, 2007, Democrats will take power and I will take the gavel knowing the responsibility we have to you and to the country. The new Democratic Congress will live up to the highest ethical standard... [we] are prepared to lead and ready to govern. We will honor the trust of the American people; we will not disappoint." Republican position Following the 2006 United States midterm elections where the Republicans lost control of the House and Senate, a Heritage Foundation conference was chaired by Republican whip Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) under the title "The New Way Forward: Refocusing the Conservative Agenda" on November 9, 2006, to analyze "setbacks" from the election results. Blunt bemoaned the fact Republicans had "become the defenders rather than the challengers of business as usual." Blunt opened his speech listing the oft voiced explanations of his party's defeat which included that the results were in part "a referendum on the war in Iraq". He dismissed the notion that any one single reason explained the loss, saying "Different candidates lost for different reasons." He saw a bright side in events saying: The good news is that even with these shortcomings, low presidential approval numbers, and uncertainty about Iraq, our candidates saw, even with all those things happening, their ideas taking hold in the final days