End of Decade: Political Partisanship Marks Legacy of 2000s

Dec. 3, 2009 -- It survived two wars, a financial crisis, and the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. Two new presidents came to office vowing to banish it.

Yet it endures as perhaps the most lasting political legacy of a decade marked by tumult.

From hanging chads to tea bags, the bitter partisanship that defined the start of the decade is still with us as it closes.

Perhaps the madness of Florida in 2000 should have taught us at the start: Nothing in politics this decade was going to be easy.

Stubborn divisions survived earth-shattering political events. Sept. 11, 2001 stunned the nation and reconfigured its politics; two wars united, then divided, the nation and its voters; Hurricane Katrina fueled frustration and anger at the federal government; the worst financial crisis in generations brought the economy back as the top political issue.

Along the way, history was made: The son of a president was elected to the office himself for the first time in nearly two centuries. He did it by losing the popular vote but winning the Electoral College -- a feat not accomplished in more than a century.

Then something even more remarkable happened: The nation elected its first African-American president, elevating a man who started the decade as a little-known state lawmaker over a former first lady and a decorated war hero.

It was a decade that changed the way politics is conducted.

Trent Lott and George Allen spoke their minds and revealed a new reality.

Howard Dean showed what was possible; Barack Obama made possibilities into realities.

Arnold Schwarzenegger rode his celebrity to political office; Sarah Palin rode political office to celebrity.

The nation got its first female House speaker; the nation lost the last Kennedy brother.