For Democrats And Obama, Christmas Came Early

[Dulcinea]

It's hard to say who had the better December, the University of Connecticut women's basketball team or President Obama and the lame-duck Democratic-controlled Congress. If you had to choose, though, it'd probably be Obama and the congressional Democrats. The UConn women clearly have the edge over just about all their rivals.

By contrast, the conventional wisdom in Washington was that Obama and the congressional Democrats would be lucky to limp into the new year after the mid-term elections, with emboldened congressional Republicans hobbling them until the Christmas break.

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On the Wednesday before Christmas, the president was able to point to an impressive number of initiatives that had seemed unlikely to get past the Republican opposition.

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Far from being a broken party, the Democrats appeared to legislate with an energy that suggested they intended to use every remaining hour of their dwindling time controlling both chambers of Congress to legislate considering that in just a few weeks Republicans would control the House agenda.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2010/12/23/132264257/for-obama-democrats-christmas-came-early