(Image source: Fox News, ABC, NBC, CNN)

BY MALLORY PERRYMAN

So....now what? That’s the question that faced Republican Sunday guests giddy from a midterm election that gave them back the House.

From Chris Wallace to David Gregory-- the Sunday hosts were tired of talking theory--they wanted to talk about reality. The GOP got some power back-- so what exactly are they going to do with it?

Let’s start with the godfather of the Tea Party movement.

DAVID GREGORY: “Going back to 2008 spending levels won’t get anywhere close to balancing the budget. So you’re saying that everything has to be on the table?”

SEN. JIM DEMINT (R-SC): “No we’re not talking about cuts in Social Security. If we can just cut the administrative waste we can cut hundreds of billions of dollars a year at the federal level.” (NBC’s Meet the Press)

GREGORY: “But where do you make the cuts? I mean if you’re protecting everything for the most potent political groups like seniors who go out and vote, how are you really going to balance the budget?”

DEMINT: “Well look at Paul Ryan’s ‘Roadmap to the future.’ We see a clear path to moving back to a balanced budget over time.”

Post-interview, the Meet the Press round table talked about vague phrases like “fixing entitlement programs” and “balancing the budget.” Former Obama Communications Director Anita Dunn says-- the campaign is over, it’s time to dump the bumper stickers slogans and get specific.

ANITA DUNN: “Senator DeMint this morning said we have to fix Social Security and Medicare but apparently that doesn’t involve making any tough choices. Now that they control the House of Representatives, they can’t just say we have to cut spending, they actually have to propose cuts in spending.”

Senator DeMint did specifically mention a ban on earmarks-- an idea recently touted by GOP leaders but one that actually enjoys bipartisan support.

DeMint wasn’t the only one facing the “what now” line of questioning-- ABC’s Christiane Amanpour grilled Senator-elect Rand Paul as well.

RAND PAUL: “It has to be everything across the board...”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: “Entitlements?”

PAUL: “You have to look at entitlements.”

AMANPOUR: “Social security?”

PAUL: "What I would say is not the people who are currently on it and not those approaching retirement, but the sooner we fix it, the better. So, it may be 55 and under, but that should be this year, we should be looking at 55 and under, what do we do to change the system to make it more sustainable."

AMANPOUR: “Raise the retirement age?”

PAUL: “You may have to. You may have to.”

Meanwhile, on Fox News Sunday, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor was setting the stage for gridlock. Asked by Chris Wallace if Republicans would force a shutdown if they can’t extract spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling, he said this:

REP. ERIC CANTOR (R-Va.): "this is a cost-cutting Congress."

Cantor made it clear that if a shutdown ever occurred, it would be President Obama’s fault just as much as the Republicans’. He also refused to give Wallace a straight answer on whether he would support a permanent extension of all the Bush tax cuts...or nothing at all.

The Huffington Post analyzed the interview this way:

“Cantor, however, said that Republicans will work with Obama only if he agrees with them 100 percent.”

But what about the Democrats? CNN’s Candy Crowley sat down with Democratic Congressional Campaign Chairman Chris Van Hollen, who has announced he will step down from his committee post. Like the Republicans, Van Hollen wasn’t spared this Sunday from the tough questions.

CANDY CROWLEY: “You know, no where in here or have I heard from the President that you see anything wrong in the policy that was passed, you think this is all kind of outside forces coming to bear that somehow fooled the American people into voting Republican.”

REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: “Candy I don’t think anyone thinks the American people were fooled. I think what the American people were saying loud and clear is that the pace of the economic recovery, the continued rate of joblessness is unacceptable. And it is unacceptable.”

And finally--- since the Sunday crews could no longer talk about predictions for the midterm elections, they’ve moved on to bigger and better things: the 2012 GOP Presidential ticket.

GOV. TIM PAWLENTY (R-MN): "I don't know for sure what I'm going to do after I'm done being governor. I'll decide that early next year."

REP. MIKE PENCE (R-Ind.):"We're intent on taking the coming weeks to really prayerfully consider that, to wait on the Lord, to seek counsel. And after the first of the year, we'll make a decision." -- Pence, "This Week"

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R-NJ): "I'm going to be governor until 2013 and then we'll see what the verdict of the people is of the job I did by 2013."