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After your party has had a good thumpin’ many of your surviving members are going to be reluctant to jump into even more liberal legislation, and that will play well into the GOP’s plans to stop any more lefty nuttiness : Democratic allies are not optimistic about their legislative priorities getting done in the lame-duck session after Democratic candidates got pummeled on Election Day. Senate Democrats had discussed as many as 20 bills up for consideration during the lame-duck session, the period between the Nov. 2 election and Christmas. In the wake of a midterm election that President Obama called a “shellacking” of his party, Democratic insiders question if anything more than a stopgap spending measure and temporary extension of Bush-era tax cuts can pass. “I’m very pessimistic we’ll get much done,” said a labor official familiar with lame-duck negotiations. “We’re focused on extending unemployment benefits and middle-class tax cuts.” “Republicans will try to put off everything so they can claim credit for anything that passes at the beginning of the new Congress,” said the source. “I expect a short-term continuing resolution into the new year,” the source said, in reference to a temporary funding measure to keep the federal government in operation. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and other GOP leaders have made clear that they’re in no mood to help advance the Democratic legislative agenda. “We will stop the liberal onslaught,” McConnell declared in a speech last week at the Heritage Foundation. Hopefully this all means that card check, cap-and-tax, and amnesty for illegal aliens are all dead. If the lame-duck does nothing but make the Bush tax cuts permanent for the middle class and extend them for at least two years for everybody the session will be an outstanding success. I wrote last week that the reaction from the Democrats in the lame-duck would be interesting , especially with 60+ on their way out of office.