Up until this point, Democrats in Congress have worked pretty hard to support Barack Obama.
When he came into office, he laid out three pillars of how government spending should work over the course of the next four years: big reforms to health care, energy, and education. Democrats have pressed ahead with the first two, despite the political difficulties of doing so.
This has been particularly true in the House, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has marshaled impressive unity in a diverse caucus during her time in power, went to bat for Obama not just on health care--maneuvering around objections over abortion and the public option--but on energy, mustering enough votes to pass a cap and trade bill that became the downfall of many House Democrats during the 2010 elections.
There were hard votes, but every step of the way, Democrats lined up behind the president's agenda, having worked hard to elect him in 2008. The biggest clash came over the public option, when liberal Democrats threatened to block Obama's health care bill, but he overcame that opposition in the end, and Democrats proved ultimately loyal to the president even when they didn't exactly like what they were being asked to support. As far as Democratic leaders in Congress were concerned, they'd been on the same page as Obama, and their support for his initiatives was more or less automatic.