It is difficult to overstate the significance of Scott Brown’s victory in the Massachusetts special election of January 19th. He will take a U.S. Senate seat that has been continuously held by Democrats since John F. Kennedy defeated Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. in November of 1952. If Martha Coakley had won that seat, it would have shortly been eligible to retire and collect Social Security.
It has been extremely entertaining this past week watching liberal politicians and pundits struggle to explain their catastrophe. The voters were sexist. No, they were racist. And angry, or maybe fearful, but certainly stupid. What a flattering view the Democrats have of the electorate.
Perhaps it wasn’t the voters, but the candidate, who only portrayed himself as a political outsider. His 30-plus years of Army National Guard service was a red herring that did not truly inform his insight on terrorism. His semi-nude modeling, in 1982 while a college student, was a clear disqualifier of which the voters were clearly (and stupidly) unconcerned.
OK, maybe not the candidate, but the competition. Coakley ran a weak campaign. If she had not won the primary, a stronger candidate (e.g., Representative Michael Capuano) would have assuredly prevailed against Brown.
Democrats consumed a post-election poll sponsored by Moveon.org and concluded that the election was a stinging repudiation of George W. Bush and a ringing endorsement of the Obama agenda. So, not a catastrophe at all, they convinced themselves, but a sign that they had not hewn far enough to the left, and the voters had simply voiced their disapproval thereof.
Barack Obama took that message to heart and, in his interminable State of the Union address, reaffirmed his focus on growing government, taking over the health care system, imposing a massive energy tax, and picked very public fights with Wall Street and the Supreme Court – all intended, of course, to stimulate the creation of private sector jobs.
It is as if the ship of state, with Admiral Obama at the helm, is clawing off a lee shore, rife with crippling shoals and dangerous rocks. The wind and seas are brutal, and suddenly a flare ascends from this Massachusetts shoreline. It is Scott Brown, crying “Tack to starboard, tack now! You are in terrible danger of foundering!” But Obama, in his willful hubris, instead tacks to port.
We can only hope that the November elections will send a clear, unambiguous, unmistakable message that we must take that starboard tack – and that it happens before our hull is pierced and torn. That would be the true catastrophe.
On a Lee Shore
Winslow Homer – 1900
(Note – this image is in the public domain as the creator has been deceased for over 70 years)
A Few Reasons Why Coakley Lost:
ReplyDelete1) There was nothing going right for the citizens.
2) Coakley was the status quo. A typical liberal elitist.
3) Gerald Amirault
4) Ted Kennedy didn't have a lock on the seat anymore, so we finally had a choice.
5) Scott Brown's comment, "It's the people's seat"
6) Obama's promises of transparency, were just promises.
7) The health care bill was a 2000 page complex, sloppy mess, which included bribes and sleezy, special interest deals.
8) The youth and the blacks, who voted for Obama in 2008, didn't show up to vote.
9) The Christmas Day Underpants Bomber Homeland Security debacle
10) We needed change