I remember the Lord of the Rings and the hobbits, and how that worked out in the end.

The 2010 election, which as far as Democrats are concerned never actually happened, was driven by the principle that the government spends too damn much money and has gotten too damn big and that we need to do something serious, soon. (There seem to be a hell of a lot of hobbits out there.)

A lot of Republican leaders seem to think that if they just spend the next fifteen months doing whatever the Democrats want, they'll win the same great victory in 2012 as they did in 2010 and then they can "really do something." This is what we call a "learning disability."