Instead they did a whole series of unpopular things, culminating in the health care revision bill. The technical term for this political behavior is "overreach." The result is that their popularity has never been lower, a Gallup poll finding we reported on April 9.
In 2008 pundits were writing that the GOP was so badly damaged that it would spend 20 years wandering in the wilderness as a minority party. Two years later the same pundits are seriously considering whether in 2010 the GOP will retake majority status in the Senate and House.
Oddly, all the GOP did to effect this head-snapping turnaround was to say "no" to everything the Dems proposed. I fear we must give most of the credit for this dramatic change in fortunes to the Dems. With breath-taking accuracy, they metaphorically shot themselves in both feet.
This seems to be something Dems do when given too much power, for example in first two years of the Clinton presidency leading up to the electoral cataclysm of 1994. It's a fascinating example of the axiom that those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
