Six months ago, things looked pretty bleak for the Democrats. Town Hall meetings were exploding with astroturf protesters. Obama's "waterloo" seemed assured. The Tea Party movement (brought to you by FOX News, after these messages) was making a name for themselves (and the name was "teabaggers"). It was all going downhill. And then - Teddy Kennedy died and his seat was filled in a special election by - a Republican.

Somehow, though, Democrats still managed to get the dreaded health care bill through, passed and signed. As Obama declared after signing the bill, the sky didn't fall. Still - pundits everywhere were (and still are) declaring that Democrats will lose big in the November mid-term elections.

However, things aren't looking quite as bleak as the predictions have foretold. Yesterday, democrat Ted Deutch won a special election to fill the seat being vacated by Wexler. Republicans had hoped to pull another one from a Democrat, but it was not to be so. The pundits say it means nothing, but it shows that voters are not changing their allegiances as much as the pundits say (and Republicans hope).

And that big win with Scott Brown? He's not the lock-step marching Republican they'd hoped he'd be. He's helped the Democrats by preventing two filibusters so far, voting with the Dems on extending unemployment benefits, as well as the jobs bill in February. Perhaps there is hope for a change to bipartisanship after all.

Another Republican siding with the Democrats is retired Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM), who agrees that letting the Bush tax cuts expire would help reduce the deficit. Sure he tempered that with other cryptic comments, but he was in the Senate when the tax cuts were enacted; he was part of that machine.

What the pundits don't get is that the opposition to the healthcare bill was loud, but coming from a minority of Americans, most of them already solidly on the right side of center. There was concern, but not a lot of opposition from the center, which will dissipate as the truth about the law becomes known. Discontent from the left over the law's weaknesses will dissipate as well. Any voter discontent from progressives will come in the primaries as they support Democratic challengers to incumbents.

On top of that, there was yet another major score for Obama yesterday. He got 47 nations to pledge to a nuclear non-proliferation treaty, the first president to get that kind of consensus worldwide. This is huge. It will help prevent "loose nukes" from ending up in the hands of terrorists. It puts us on a path toward reversing the doomsday clock, so that everyone may breathe a little easier.

On the other hand, what do the Republicans (and others on the right) have going for them?

• Mike Huckabee, Republican presidential contender in 2008, compares gay marriage to incest, polygamy, and drug use


• VA AG Cuccinelli says the solution to global warming is for everyone to hold their breath.


• Supposed evidence provided by right-wing media darling Andrew Breitbart showing no one verbally assaulted Rep John Lewis is shown to be bullshit


• A VA pharmacy that only sold "moral" products (ie: no birth control pills, condoms, etc.) shuttered its doors due to lack of business

And finally - a straw poll by the SRLC shows the 2012 presidential front-runner to be... Mitt Romney?

How's that hopey-changey thing working out for the Republicans? Not so well. They can hope for change in November, but it's not looking good.