The veil of a happy Democratic governing majority is finally lifted.

No, I am not playing the popular elementary school game of Opposites Day. It's true. Progressives won in the 2010 mid-term elections.

As touching as it was to see Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) choke up over the retelling of his hard-knock life story of having to be a waiter in his dad's bar, tears are not so attractive on the faces of Progressives this morning. Did we all miss the news flash? PROGRESSIVES WON! Two significant exceptions are of course the tragic defeat of Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) and the sad loss of prinicpled Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL). But, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the largest caucus in the House Democratic Caucus at over 80 members, emerged virtually unscathed, losing only three members.

By constrast, the conservative Blue Dog Democratic caucus was more than sliced in half from 54 members to only 26. Further, of the 34 conservative Dems who voted against Obama's Healthcare Reform, a mere 12 won re-election.

Dead weight gone. Good Riddance. The blame for the stalemate to come can now fall squarely where it belongs...on the anti-progressive, anti-democratic, anti-populist Republican members of Congress.

Our work is now finally beginning. The veil of a happy Democratic governing majority is finally lifted. We didn't have it then; We don't have it now. But what we do have now is a more solidly progressive bunch of Dems in Congress and a president presumably less encumbered by the false illusion that playing nice will get him a date with the other team.

Let's thank Grayson, as well as Reps. John Hall (D-NY) Phil Hare (D-IL) for their principled time in office. Let's get Feingold on the ticket as Obama's runningmate in 2012. Let's throw our support unabashedly behind the Congressional Progressive Caucus and let's push Obama to finally do the right thing through as many Executive Orders as we can present to him.

People...Progressives WON!!! Republicans are all over the map. They're a mess and won't be able to wreak the havoc they seek. We should be energized. We must be energized. Too much is at stake. The road ahead isn't so bad as long as we have the big picture and the fighting spirit spurring us on. Progressives will be the heroes in 2012. Let's make Obama one too.

An earlier version of this appeared on Huffington Post.
Karen Dolan, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, was a co-author of the IPS report Battered by the Storm: How the Safety Net Is Failing Americans and How to Fix It. Follow her on Twitter: www.twitter.com/karendolan
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/11/04-6

Really??? this is pretty pathetic. What happened was the end of this administrations and congress' spending. that is a victory for America, who gives a damn about parties? Politicians doing whats best for their party is always bad for the country, how about they try to do what the people want. The people didn't want this ridiculous spending and the dems with their ridiculous spending just got served.

I wonder what it would be like now in this country had Obama said "Oh we have to cut spending" while the banks were failing, the auto industry was failing, etc etc. I think the only spending we could afford to cut is defence spending. Its laughable realy. Hey lets close the Libraries, lets stop fixing the roads. forget unemployment starve! Medicare forget it thats socialism! Let the market fix it. This country is off its colective rocker (no pun intended)

Instedd of bailing the liberal friends on walstreet at the tune 900 million dollars, they should have taken that money and cut every single TAX PAYING AMERICAN CITIZEN a check and that would have allowed people to pay off their mortgages, credit cards, cars which would have helped the banks. people who have older cars would buy new ones, that would help the auto industry. People who don't own their own home could buy one outright or at least put a hefty down payment on one and everybody could spend money at malls, restaurants and so on. That would have gotten the economy back on track and made him the most popular president of all time. Instead he gave our money to fat cat bankers without any stipulations in regards to debtors and the banks cutting the debts out right or at least severely reducing the amount an individual owed, they just sat on it and didn't lend it out but did however find it appropriate to give our bonuses.

How about twenty acres and a mule?

seriously>>>>>>>>>>>>>

US TARP and related programs
In 2008-9 the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve System bailed out numerous very large banks and insurance companies, as well as General Motors and Chrysler. Congress at the urgent request of President George W. Bush passed the Troubled Asset Relief Program or "TARP", funded at $700 billion. The banks have largely repaid the money and the net cost of TARP may eventually be in the range of $30 billion.[16] The bailout of Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac, which insure mortgages, totals $135 billion by October 2010, and could be much higher, depending on the future of the housing and mortgage markets.[17]

The issue of federal bailouts of the banks and big corporations became a major issue of the 2010 elections, with the Tea Party movement in particular focusing its attack on bailouts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bailout

I know, its disgusting how politicians look out for money whether than the citizens. Don't use wikipedia as a source, I could go on there and write a matter of fact piece on hoe the sun is a defective black hole.

The facts in this case are accurate.

And yet the bailouts and stimulus kept us out of a depression which is what they were supposed to do.

So much for caring about the country huh?

I cant wait untill they start cutting the funding to popular programs or try to privatize social security again. Brace yourselves we are in for the downhill ride of our lives.

I haven't had a job since 2007, so yeah his policy is working.

The Senate can shut down the Repubs so it will be lame duck. Nothing is going to get done now.

Oh think again, something IS getting done and that is Husseins days of spending out of control are over.

well good sir, may I ask how you are surviveing?

Think again, there is a stimulus in the works right now. You can bet that it will cost to do it.

Financial aid for school, and i use the term "surviving" lightly.

Come January his future spending is done!

The two economies that won in that Cash for Junkers was China and Japan.

Japanese cars sold the most and China gets the metal from the junkers.

Did they?

If we had allowed the 'front' companies to fail the 'actual' companies holding 'stake' in the assets would have been revealed as they scrambled to 'save' their collective *****.

Instead they got Congress to 'bailout' the 'front' companies so that those Politicans, cronies, and shadow theifs would not be revealed (cause it would have left a paper trail and led to many joining Madoff in prison).

Would have been no depression for the average joe/joeett on the street. Just for the idiots that thought easy money was allways available.

how many Senators are up for re-election in 2012?

You really think they did not 'get' the message of the 2010 elections.

Pink slips is comin for those that forget who is in charge of OUR government.

Reckon some of the things the Senate will do after January will suprise a lot of people.