John Sununu – who lost a Senate election in 2008, as he freely admits later in the article – may have just a touch of the ol’ schadenfreude showing in this article:
The giddy electoral success of 2008 has been tempered by the harsh political reality of 2014. Implementing Obamacare, the president’s signature legislative achievement, has been a logistical nightmare; millions of families have lost their insurance coverage; and Obama’s approval ratings have fallen below 40 percent. “Dance with the one that brought you,” the saying goes, but when you are a Senate Democrat stuck with the wrong prom date, there’s only one thing to do: hide in the bathroom.
Note that I do not disapprove. One of the few pleasures of the Obamacare debacle is that we have rarely seen such a lopsided assignment of responsibility as we have here. Republicans up and down the line adamantly told people that this was going to be a disaster, and the Democrats took it as an opportunity to go all-in. If Obamacare had turned out to be a brilliant success the Republican party might not have survived the experience; as it stands, the Democrats will be smarting from the negative reinforcement for the rest of the decade.