One of the most important things to happen to political ideology in the past couple decades is the idea that a losing party shouldn't act like a losing party-- an idea originally conceived by Newt Gingrich. Once you're able to rationalize the idea that you should never accept defeat, you can act in very militant (and effective) ways. Congressional Republicans will fight to the very end (of Obamacare) to bring down Obamacare. At the state level, Republicans will be particularly effective in making sure the bill isn't particularly effective. If there's only one thing you draw from this article - and so many more like it - it should be the fact that Democrats and Republicans are [i]not[/i] equally responsible for the lack of an effective government. Saying "they're equally bad" is false equivalence.