The irony is unbelievable.
Ted Kennedy lobbied heavily to make sure the governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts could not appoint a Senator; this was under Romney, and he wanted to make sure Romney would be unable to appoint any Senators.
A few short years later, the very rule Kennedy personally lobbied for allowed Scott Brown to take the independent, Reagan Democrat vote in MA, run with it, win a stunning victory, and subsequently torpedo the very health care legislation that Kennedy had spent 47 years trying to pass.
Sweet, sweet irony of unintended consequences. Be careful what you wish for.
On a different note, there’s a good story over at Politico.com that describes the dazed state the Democrats currently are in.
This is, quite literally, an election heard ’round the world. It was 1972 the last time MA had a Republican senator, and he was a liberal one at that. Brown is an unabashed, straight-up Republican; he ran on Republican issues and won on them.
What’s going on? It’s really not that hard, people. Barack Obama, much as personally like the guy, has squandered his political capital by pursuing a hard-left agenda. The fact is that this country remains center-right. Obama ran as a center-right candidate but governed as far to the left as we’ve really ever seen in this country.
You just can’t do that. Bill Clinton learned that early on, and it allowed him to move to the center, co-opt some Republican ideas, and coast to a re-election. The vaunted “triangulation” strategy thought up by Dick Morris.
But make no mistake; this state is the bluest of the blue states, and if a Republican can ride in on a tide of anti-establishment sentiment here, a Republican can do it anywhere. Still, I would caution the Republicans not to gloat too much over this election, or to think they can just put themselves on cruise control for the 2010 midterm elections.
Personally, I was amused at Keith Olberman’s rant on Scott Brown:
“In short, in Scott Brown we have an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, teabagging supporter of violence against woman and against politicians with whom he disagrees.”
Now, Olberman is right about the partially nude photo of Scott Brown in Cosmo — big frickin’ deal, he was paying his way through law school. On his other points he has nothing but rubbish to back him up. He claims he’s reactionary, as if anyone who disagrees with the cliff Obama has been trying to push us over is out of their minds. He calls him irresponsible because he’s…not a Democrat. He calls him homophobic because he made the unbelievable comment that two lesbian women raising a child together is “not normal”. I think that makes about ninety percent of the country homophobic. He throws in “teabagging” for the lascivious aspect of it; MSNBC loves to say “teabag” all the time — I would argue there’s more homophobia in that than there is in calling same-sex adoptions “not normal”.
Support of violence? Olberman gets this from when a supporter yelled that they should ram a curling iron up Coakley’s behind; Brown didn’t hear the remark and said, in response to an unconnected remark, “We can do that.”
Let’s not forget where that curling iron comment came from, by the way. Coakley desperately tried to bury a case against a supporter of hers, a police officer who raped a 23-month year old child with a curling iron. Read about it over here.
So Keith Olberman can go fuck himself. As can the three people and one crazed orangutan who watch him on MSNBC.
The people of Massachusetts have spoken, and they have said this: We are fed up with a Democrat-controlled government that is trying to take us in a far-left direction that we simply don’t want to go. We’re sick of the kickback deals on healthcare “reform”. We’re, to borrow a phrase from Network, mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.
I have never been prouder of my state than I am at this moment.
Now, liberals, you have 10 months to start moving yourselves back to the right, or you will lose your seat in the House or Senate.
The message has been delivered. Let’s see if Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi are listening.