Nearly three years passed since the campaign and there was no joy in the White House. The mood of the country had turned terribly sour. The liberal young president was elected by a small margin three years ago; a reaction to four years with a more conservative predecessor and media bashing that bordered no out right lies about the predecessor which destroyed much of the media’s credibility. The left wing power bases were all marshaled to effect change. Unholy alliances were made; shaky alliances of bedfellows that hated each other. They could not last and they did not. In six months the alliance of the left was in shambles. In spite of all of this the win was accomplished but only because the third party Labor candidates that would have split the liberal vote were killed in a plane crash three weeks before the election. The Labor party, unable to field a replacement slate, endorsed the Democrat slate and in the vacuum of leadership the Democrat presidential candidates captured almost all of their votes. The selection of a more moderate vice presidential candidate and this windfall took Dave Donaldson into the White House with a margin that made Kennedy’s less than half of a percent look like a landslide. With this small margin Donaldson did not provide any coattails and congress did not reflect the change. Worse yet, split ticket voting was endemic because the voters saw a differentiation between the candidates for congress and the Republicans wisely fielded candidates who had appeal and increased their seats in both the Senate and the House. They now had a clear majority of 61 to 39, nearly enough for a veto proof congress. A couple of Democrat defections and a veto could be overridden. The Republicans placed what could easily be called fiscally conservative candidates in almost every race and the country, tired of higher taxes and spending responded. The Democrats alienated many of the voters in the congressional races by inserting liberals nobody but the extreme left could stand. In the off year election with a repeat of this liberal action the Republicans fielded more conservative candidates and increased their lead to 67 to 33. They could now effect cloture on most issues and override nearly any presidential veto. The liberal strongholds may be able to elect a president but they had just learned they could not defeat a single conservative congressman with a tax and spend Socialist democrat as they were being pegged. There were only three congressmen left who were listed as liberals. All were Democrats. Moderates held nearly a third of the seats but most of these had some conservative leanings. The conservatives held two thirds of the seats on both houses. This majority had only one possible result. One vote after another sent conservative legislation to the White House for veto and one veto after another was overridden. The president no longer had any control of what was passed or even how the country was being run. The delicate balance of powers had been destroyed by liberal excess. Frustration gripped the liberal ranks as they saw decades of social legislation being dismantled one piece at a time. The president seemingly stood by and did nothing to stem the tide. The Supreme Court was packed with young conservatives from the previous administrations so legal challenges died there too. Worse, no liberal justice had the chance of an ice cube in hell as the president put it when in frustration he nominated a relatively conservative Democrat for a retiring justice after four nominees, three of them moderates were rejected. The court took on more of a list to the right under a liberal president.