The party of an emphatic No

What's going to happen the rest of the year now that Health Care Reform has passed -- sure, the reconciliation has yet to pass the Senate, but the president has a bill to sign right now -- is a bit cloudy. It doesn't look like a particularly good year for Democrats, but it doesn't look like a particularly good year for Republicans either. It seems like it's going to be a bad year for everyone who's already in Washington.

But: this seems like a mindblowing miscalculation. House Minority Leader John Boehner gets in front of the House and says "No, you cannot" twice to an echo of Republican "Nos" from the chamber. And he closes by shouting, "Hell no, you can't."

It's been an awful two years for most Americans. Even those who managed to hold on to jobs have felt squeezed and have been operating out of fear since early 2008 -- if not sooner. Speaking from experience -- laid off twice in two years, wife laid off, having to hunker down in a condo we couldn't sell for as much as we owed and turning my back on the only profession I've known -- it feels good to feel good about things right now. It feels good to look ahead a few months and see possibility rather than another disaster looming, even if there is, in fact, another disaster looming. The most underrated aspect of the political process is the ratio of optimism and pessimism in the country at any given time and what each party is selling.

Any Democrat running for office in 2010 who does not use that clip of Boehner and the echoes from the chamber in their advertising deserves to lose.

D: "Yes we can."

R: "Hell no, you can't."