"Congress is finishing this year less popular than a cockroach," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the other day. The reason, he charged, was simple: "mindless, knee-jerk obstruction from Republicans."
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., sees things differently. "As long as Harry Reid is the majority leader," he said, "the Senate will increasingly be a dysfunctional place."
It would be nice to think that Congress' easy passage of a bipartisan compromise on the federal budget this month was the sign of a new spirit of cooperation on Capitol Hill. But in the hallways of the Senate last week, there was little evidence of bipartisanship, or even Christmas cheer.
Next year is unlikely to get better because it's a congressional election year. A significant number of Republican incumbents in both the House and Senate will face primary challenges from tea party conservatives.
"Good things seldom happen in election years," said former Rep. Bill Frenzel, a moderate Republican from Minnesota.
Where are the conflicts likely to come? Rep. Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., who fashioned the bipartisan budget deal with Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., has already promised another collision over the federal debt ceiling.
"We will not want to walk away with nothing" from a debt ceiling vote, Ryan vowed on CNBC, although he added that the GOP caucus hasn't yet decided what to ask for in return.
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., seconded the idea, noting that the debt ceiling is one way for Republicans to "get the president's attention."
The only good news in this picture is that the disastrous government shutdown in October may have taught both sides about how to avoid needless catastrophes.
Ryan says Republicans have learned a lesson from that episode. Next year, he said, they'll be looking for goals that are practical, not unreachable. "You can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good," he said.
That was the message House Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, was trying to reinforce when he denounced conservative organizations for pushing his caucus into the October shutdown, advisors say. Boehner has told House members that even though he welcomes a fight over the debt ceiling, he doesn't want to risk a federal default, especially in an election year.
On the other side, even though Obama insists he will refuse to negotiate over the debt limit, that doesn't mean nobody will negotiate.
In two debt limit battles this year, Obama refused to bargain — but Reid stepped in and helped arrange a deal. In both cases, Republicans agreed to "suspend" the debt ceiling; Democrats didn't give up much of substance in return, but they did make procedural concessions.
Obama's absence from those negotiations was a plus. Especially in an election year, Republicans don't want to be tarred as too eager to compromise with a man conservatives love to loathe. A deal with Reid looks better; a compromise with the less-pugnacious Murray, better still.
So, with luck, what we can hope for next year is a return to what you might call "normal" partisan warfare: tough, sometimes even angry, but not as destructive as before. Just don't expect much to get done.
There won't be a grand bargain over spending and taxes but there may be a bit more progress on massaging the budget cuts of the sequester, a process Ryan and Murray began this month.
There probably won't be an increase in the minimum wage, although there could be an extension of long-term unemployment benefits. And there won't be a grand compromise over a comprehensive immigration reform bill.
Still, if the legislators can get through 2014 without provoking a crisis, that will count as progress. When it comes to Congress, we've learned to grade on a curve.
Doyle McManus is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times.