Fresh from its victory in the mid-term elections of 2006, the Democratic Party actually started acting like an opposition rather than a demoralized faction of collaborators. Indeed, they began voting on resolutions and holding debates over policy in Iraq. The White House pretended not to notice, putting more troops into the middle of the civil war in Iraq. The success of the Democrats in mid-terms of 2006 meant that the 2008 nomination was worth having. A great many Democrats and Republicans decided their time had come. Barack Obama's had. International events, of course, took little notice of the US political situation. Most significantly, Tony Blair left office at long last, and Gordon Brown began his undistinguished run as British Prime Minister. Journalists in Russia got shot, Turkey managed a constitutional crisis brought on by the election of an Islamist president, and Angola sent military support to the Mugabe tyranny in Zimbabwe. Although a sea-change in American politics was on the horizon, it was a long way from affecting the global scene.