Republicans Take Massachusetts Senate Seat from Democrats

The Senate seat held by Ted Kennedy for the better part of five decades fell to the Republicans last night. Scott Brown, a rather unimpressive state legislator, beat Martha Coakley, the state's attorney general, by 6% to claim the seat for the GOP. The blogosphere and punditrocracy are making a big fuss over the 41st vote against everything Obama. A big deep breath is in order.

Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, was perfectly wrong in saying, "This is a referendum on the Barack Obama agenda and a way of working in Washington, an arrogant approach to politics." No, it wasn't. It was a referendum on a crap candidate who ran a crap campaign and who forgot that one must actually ask voters for their support. All politics is local, as the late Massachusetts leader Tip O'Neill said. She forgot that.

While the GOP may claim that this vote was a referendum on the ineptitude of the Obama Democrats during the last year, the fact is that the US is suffering from a huge anti-incumbent fever. That is not the same as hating the Democrats. The voters see a huge budget deficit (which is actually preserving their jobs), they see two lost wars in Asia (which are Bushevik follies that Mr. Obama has yet to end) and a dysfunctional Senate unable to act at all (which should be abolished in favor of a unicameral legislature -- hold not thy breath). It is not an anti-Democrat wave but rather an anti-incumbent tsunami that hit yesterday.

The ramifications are clear. Health care reform was always on life support. When the Democrats had to rely on Ben Nelson (Fascist- Nebraska) and Joe Lieberman (Likud --Tel Aviv and Aetna) for their 60 votes for a filibuster-proof majority, they really didn't have one. If they're smart (and these are Democrats, so maybe they aren't), they will let the bill die and blame the GOP in the 2010 elections. That would require the 45 million uninsured to register and vote, and one is dubious of their ability to support their own interests. The lower classes in America are, by and large, ignorant and ill-informed. They rarely vote, and when they do, they vote against their own interests. That may make this journal sound elitist, but it is unapologetically so. Why should one apologize for being better informed?

More importantly, bipartisanship is now demanded by the system. The Republicans can stop any legislation they hate. They must now explain why they hate it. That 41st vote makes them responsible for what happens in Washington for the next year. They will, of course, act like yahoos intent on the destruction of the republic, but the truth remains, they now have skin in the game. The GOP can no longer be the party of "No" but of "No, but . . ." There is a difference between being a party of obstruction and a party of opposition. Soon, the American voters will learn if the GOP understands the difference.

© Copyright 2010 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.

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