While Democrats assess a return to the White House and an overwhelming congressional majority, both of which are theirs to lose, I can’t help but think of 1994.

As Matthew Continetti asserted in his account of the Republican Revolution, The K Street Gang: The Rise and Fall of the Republican Machine, Rep. Bob Michel (Ill.) was retiring as House Republican leader and two potential successors emerged.

Each was emblematic of the paths that lay before the GOP: Newt Gingrich, who Continetti described as “fiercely ideological, tirelessly combative, and endlessly inventive”; and Tom DeLay, who “combined the convictions of an ideological conservative with the street smarts of a machine politician.”

The party initially chose to be an ideological phenomenon, but the decision to shift its focus toward monopolizing K Street turned the movement into a revolution against republicanism, ending a period that could have been a dynasty.

The Democrats, whom voters will probably see as the better brand this November and reward with more power, are also staring down two paths. One would mean continued animosity toward the global economy to maintain the party’s populist bona fides. The other would mean sailing willingly into these new seas to achieve the party’s core objectives.

The second course will be taken only when Democrats recognize that in a global economy driven by leaders and not dictated by empires, they have no choice but to be anti-tax and pro-free trade.

There is a synergy between Wall Street and Main Street, but unceasing Democratic promises to roll back the Bush tax cuts (presumably including corporate tax cuts) sahow that the party sees these circles as opposing rather than concentric.

Beyond the question of how corporate taxes affect government revenues, they clearly have a discouraging and unequivocal effect on investment. A 2005 Congressional Budget Office report found that corporate taxes increase the cost of investment by acting as a tax on capital while decreasing the rate of return for investors.

Other countries are cutting tax rates to lure investment dollars. Lucrative, job-producing information industries require astonishing amounts of capital. And the United States is no longer unmatched in three key innovation sectors — auto, pharmaceuticals and computer technology.

It should be clear from all this that corporate taxes threaten profits and paychecks. So not only should Democrats endorse a substantial across-the-board rate cut, but they need to push the sunset provision far into the future, if not consider a permanent cut, to spur long-term contracts by making capital costs more constant and investment returns more predictable.

A second synergy is between free trade and human rights. If Darfur has proven anything, it’s that the economic interests and energy demands of individual nations can paralyze necessary intervention. Though there is no shortage of Democrats depicting free trade as a bogeyman, the reality is that it could be our greatest bulwark against the worst violations of international law.

Free trade, despite its problems, is also one of the world’s few truly connective strands. The WTO showcases the memberships of Saudi Arabia and Israel, India and Pakistan, and the U.S. and Venezuela. Iran, Iraq and Sudan continue to apply for admission.

If a Democratic White House and Congress seek to attach WTO sanctions to signatory countries that engage in genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity, similar to the party’s efforts to connect labor standards to bilateral free trade agreements, the WTO will become just as necessary to international peace and security as is the U.N.

This movement would also link three voting blocs into a support triangle for Democrats: Center-right business people, centrist working Americans, and global-minded left-wingers. This new triumvirate would broaden the party’s support base and could endure well after 2008.

No one who knows Democratic history should expect a President Obama to head an ideological sleeper cell. No transcendent movement came without its supporters, deeply motivated by circumstances, who were ready for that historic evolution. Change will have to come from the bottom up, just as it did with the Great Depression and the New Deal, the Civil Rights Movement and the Voting Rights Act. Bottom-up change is at the core of Obama’s campaign.

Yet none of this will play now. Campaigns are about aspirations. People want to feel change without knowing its less idyllic realities. But if Democrats get what they want in November, then their 1994 moment will mean deciding whether they are ready for what they need.

Mikhail is a former staff writer for The Hill.