Story highlights There is a big difference between making promises as the minority party and governing as the majority party.

Success in politics is never guaranteed. And promises made are rarely promises kept.

Washington (CNN) For the last seven years, Republicans found common purpose in two simple words: "Repeal Obamacare."

No matter the congressman (or senator), no matter the crowd they were speaking to, no matter the other prevailing political winds, the party could always depend on one thing: A pledge to get rid of the Affordable Care Act would be a sure-fire applause line. And a big one.

Their base hated Obamacare with a deep and abiding passion -- believing the law (and the party-line manner in which it was passed) to be indicative of everything wrong with Democratic solutions to the big problems facing the country: A big government answer that ultimately would do much more harm than good.

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It's no exaggeration to credit the Republican pledge to repeal Obamacare with the party's current dominant status in Congress: In midterm elections of 2010 and 2014, Republicans across the country ran on the idea of getting rid of the law, tearing it out root and stem and replacing it with something better.

Early Friday morning, that promise broke up on the rocks of governing reality as three GOP senators abandoned their side -- leaving a Republican Party in control of the legislative and executive branches left with this sobering reality: Repeal was dead.

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