On the day of Barack Obama's first inauguration as president, January 20, 2009, a group of Republican elected officials met at a Washington, D.C. steak house for dinner. Among those present were Eric Cantor, Jeb Hensarling, Pete Hoekstra, Dan Lungren, Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan, now Speaker of the House of Representatives, Pete Sessions, Tom Coburn, Bob Corker, Jim DeMint, John Ensign, Jon Kyl, Newt Gingrich. The meeting was organized by Republican strategist Frank Luntz.

That evening, the day of the inauguration, as the inauguration balls were going on, the Republicans decided on a strategy of total obstruction of anything the new president attempted to do.

The Republicans were as good as their word and for seven years they have pursued their strategy of obstruction.

Never had anything like this happened before.

Why had this happened? Why then? Why with this president and no other? There you go. Because it was this president. This president, with the exotic, foreign-sounding name, Barack Hussein Obama, and because Barack Hussein Obama was Black.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/apr/26/democrats-gop-plot-obstruct-obama
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/the-republicans-plan-for-the-new-president/
Do Not Ask What Good We Do. Robert Draper. Free Press, 2012.
Election 2012: The Battle Begins (The RealClearPolitics Political Download). Tom Bevan and Carl M. Cannon. Ebook, 2011.