When future generations look back on this election, the first after President Obama’s dramatic victory in 2008, will they see it as a repeat of the 1994 Gingrich Revolution? An unraveling of the Obama agenda? Or a chance for the president to rebrand himself?

Douglas Brinkley, professor of history at Rice University and author of “The Wilderness Warrior” and “The Great Deluge,” gives us his historical perspective. Todd Zwillich also has a few ideas.