Markets rallied this morning, as expected, and history says they'll rise. Can the Republican establishment govern us to prosperity? The Dow advanced to a record high today on the heels of both the Republican Party's Senate victories in yesterday's midterm elections and a stronger-than-expected jobs report. While the tech industry reported weaker-than-expected numbers, the energy sector reported skyrocketing earnings. Energy is Wall Street's biggest winner in the midterm aftermath. Medical device companies coming an optimistic second with hopes that the Republican Senate will lead to a repeal of the Affordable Care Act's medical-device tax. Bullish reactions to midterm elections have been the norm, reported Reuters, noting that "since 1928, the S&P 500 has posted a median return of 7 percent in the 90 days after a midterm, with returns positive 86 percent of the time, according to Barclays". The long-term aftermath of the midterms may be just as profitable. U.S. stocks have gone up substantially for stretches of about six months in the aftermath of the past 13 midterm elections. The potential deals to be reached once the campaigns are a memory, perhaps even beginning with the lame duck Congress expected to pass last-minute legislation in December, are bottle popping news in Lower Manhattan. The question now turns to whether or not the Congress can meet the markets' expectations when they convene in January. There will now be a strengthened Republican majority in the House and a Senate majority of at least 52 GOP Senators (Alaska and Virginia are still currently too close to call and Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana is headed for a December run-off against challenger Bill Cassidy after last night's election put her over one percentage point ahead). The hope for many govern-ready Republicans is that the solidly red Congress can now send the President legislation that he'll need to either sign or veto -- and that President Obama will now have to play ball with the Republican Congress to move legislation, but the element they will confront in doing so may be the right-wing of their own party. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who will most likely retain his position as the Senate Republican Leader in January and become the Majority Leader, spoke out on the need for bipartisanship during his victory speech. "We do have an obligation to work together on issues where we agree," McConnell said Tuesday evening, after defeating the once-ahead Democratic candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes what could now be called a crushing landslide. "Just because we have a two-party system doesn't mean we have to be in perpetual conflict." It's a different tune than the one heard on the Hill in the earlier days of the Obama Presidency, but it's one McConnell knows is critical if the country, and his own party, are to see success in the next two years. The key figures in the new Senate will likely be the more moderate Republicans, including newcomers like Shelley Moore Capito who won her West Virginia Senate race by more than sixty percent. The new center-right guard will join the ranks of old-school Republicans like Susan Collins of Maine, the Senate's most liberal Republican, who won her race last night with nearly seventy percent of the vote. The Republican establishment's coalition, cobbled together from the ranks of conventional conservatives like McConnell and the few remaining moderate Republicans like Collins, Illinois Senator Mark Kirk, and Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, will govern the 114th Congress, but they'll have to keep the (for now) receding forces of the Tea Party wing of the GOP at bay. If they can do that, they may be able to govern quite successfully, if they can survive their biggest loss: to win the majority back they had to pick off one moderate Democrat after another, leaving the Democratic Caucus smaller, but more liberal and possibly more hostile to compromise. I don't expect them to say it out loud, but it wouldn't completely surprise me if some Senate Republicans were secretly hoping for a Landrieu win.