The day after the election always dawns sunny and full of hope in Washington. From Representative John A. Boehner on down, Republicans talked on Wednesday about how open they were to working with the president (except, perhaps, for repealing that whole health care thing). Rand Paul, the next senator from Kentucky, said on MSNBC that his family was hoping to meet the Obama girls. You could almost see the two dads stretched out in front of the TV, sharing a laugh at "Phineas and Ferb."

Reality will intrude soon enough, and Republicans will have to decide what kind of opposition they intend to be. One could argue that the most fundamental choice facing the new Republican House majority, in particular, is whether to stand on cultural or intellectual dissent -- or, put another way, whether they want to cast themselves principally as the party of Sarah Palin or the party of Paul Ryan.

Read the entire New York Times article here.