You bring up a good point, Purple State. On the one hand, any party that enjoys an undivided government surely understands that such moments without opposition are brief because our government is intended to be divided and American voters typically correct the imbalance within 1 election cycle. With that being said, however, the huge majorities by the Democrats in both houses of congress is pretty unusual and while the GOP will certainly make big gains in the 2010 mid-terms, there's a better than 50/50 shot the Dems will still have an undivided government after election day.

That could be good or bad depending on what they get done. The election of Obama, and the subsequent congressional sweeps in favor of the Democrats, was a stark referendum against the last 8 years of GOP rule. But we shouldn't forget that it was only 7 years ago when it was the GOP that enjoyed an undivided government. At that time it was the Democrats who were a party without an identity. Fortunately for them, they simply sat back and allowed the Neocons to drive a gaping wedge into the Republican Party. A wedge that has yet to close.

But if the Democrats aren't able to drum up serious momentum after the American voters handed them the keys to the government (after changing the locks), then you may very well see yet another sudden electoral reversal shifting back to the right.

But it seems to me as if the real problem in Washington these days is the abject refusal of one party to work with the other. This troubling precedent was quite obviously started by the neocons in the Bush administration, in union with the regular conservatives who joined in on the power trip. But it was Obama who promised during his campaign that he would reach across the aisle and would tirelessly seek bi-partisanship.

His party has fallen well short of that goal even if he himself has not. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid (especially the former) are in the midst of a GOP-like power trip. The House of Representatives is on the verge of passing the largest piece of purely partisan legislation in the history of the United States. Democrats are quick to pain the GOP as "The Party of No," and while there is some truth to Republican obstructionism, it's difficult to side with the House Democrats when they refuse to come down off of a public option.

Earlier this week the House Republicans finally offered their own health care reform plan. It numbers less than 300 pages and only proposes to extend coverage to approximately 3 million more Americans; the primary objective of the proposal being that of curtailing costs of health care as opposed to finding ways to extend it.

So here we have Nancy Pelosi's bill which is, in my opinion, far too liberal in size and scope. It numbers over 2,000 pages and would cost around $1.2 trillion. On the other hand, you have a Republican bill which is far too conservative and doesn't do nearly enough to extend coverage to Americans who really need it.

In years past, we'd see the two parties get together in a situation like this and try to hammer out a compromise. There's no doubt the debates would be heated and both sides would fight tooth and nail to preserve as much of their bill as possible, but in the end, a workable bi-partisan bill would emerge. In this particular case, why not drop the public option but refuse to allow insurance companies to refuse applicants for any reason? Does that not seem like a reasonable compromise on the issue of extending coverage? Seems logical considering both parties already agree that costs must be lowered for people who already have insurance.

But this idea by the party in power that, "let's see if we can get our agenda through without even engaging the other party," has potentially disastrous complications. Hopefully the voters are recognizing that and will make the proper adjustments.