A few weeks be­fore the 2010 elec­tion, I ran in­to then-House Minor­ity Lead­er John Boehner at a re­cep­tion. Pres­id­ent Obama’s ap­prov­al rat­ings were tank­ing, the Af­ford­able Care Act that had passed earli­er in the year was ex­ceed­ingly un­pop­u­lar, and, un­sur­pris­ingly, Demo­crats were in a free fall. Boehner saw me, walked over, leaned in, and said quietly, “We’re go­ing to win this thing.” Then he paused and turned it in­to a ques­tion, “Aren’t we?” I laughed and replied something like, “Yup, I think you are.” Boehner’s re­sponse was, “Damned­est thing I ever saw.” Re­pub­lic­ans were about to re­cap­ture the ma­jor­ity they had lost four years earli­er, and only be­cause Demo­crats were self-de­struct­ing. When Boehner an­nounced last week that he was step­ping down from the speak­er­ship and resign­ing from Con­gress next month, I thought about that con­ver­sa­tion. This year it seemed like, in very dif­fer­ent ways, both parties are at risk of self-de­struct­ing. Re­pub­lic­ans seem hell-bent on com­mit­ting self-im­mol­a­tion on both the pres­id­en­tial and con­gres­sion­al levels. Demo­crats, who pretty much settled on a pres­id­en­tial nom­in­ee early on, now find their front-run­ner hope­lessly

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