Tag Archives: massachusetts special election

A must read in today’s New York Times: (it happens)

With the Senate’s passage of financial regulation, Congress and the White House have completed 16 months of activity that rival any other since the New Deal in scope or ambition. Like the Reagan Revolution or Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, the new progressive period has the makings of a generational shift in how Washington operates.

First came a stimulus bill that, while aimed mainly at ending a deep recession, also set out to remake the nation’s educational system and vastly expand scientific research. Then President Obama signed a health care bill that was the biggest expansion of the safety net in 40 years. And now Congress is in the final stages of a bill that would tighten Wall Street’s rules and probably shrink its profit margins.

If there is a theme to all this, it has been to try to lift economic growth while also reducing income inequality. Growth in the decade that just ended was the slowest in the post-World War II era, while inequality has been rising for most of the last 35 years.

It is far too early to know if these efforts will work. Their success depends enormously on execution and, in the case of financial regulation, specifically on the Federal Reserve, which did not distinguish itself during the housing bubble.

Already, though, one downside to the legislative spurt does seem clear. By focusing on long-term problems, Mr. Obama and the Democrats have given less than their full attention to the economy’s current weakness and turned off a good number of voters.

After months of discussion, and with the unemployment rate hovering near a 27-year high, Democratic leaders said Thursday they had finally reached agreement on a bill that would send aid to states and take other steps to increase job growth. Congress plans to vote on the bill next week. But some of the money will not be spent for months and may not be enough to affect voters’ attitudes before November’s midterm elections.

Still, the turnabout since Jan. 20 — the first anniversary of Mr. Obama’s inauguration and the day after Scott Brown, a Republican, won a Senate seat in liberal Massachusetts — has been remarkable. Then, commentators pronounced the Obama presidency nearly dead. Today, he looks more like a liberal answer to Ronald Reagan.

“If you’d asked me about this administration after Scott Brown was elected, I’d have told you it was going to fizzle into virtually nothing,” said Theda Skocpol, the Harvard political scientist. “Now it could easily be one of the pivotal periods in domestic policy.” But, Ms. Skocpol added, “It will depend on what happens in the next two elections.”

Continue reading here. Ms. Skocpol is right; the next two elections will be decisive. You can’t say you weren’t warned.

Stanley Greenberg and James Carville claim that the Republican Party has peaked too soon. Incredibly, Greenberg says that “when we look back on this, we’re going to say Massachusetts is when 1994 happened.” Stan’s only claim to expertise in the 1994 elections, of course, is that he’s the guy who blew it for the Democrats. Right after that, President Clinton fired both of the flawed consultants and never brought them back again.

Their latest pitch is that the highpoint of the GOP advance was the Scott Brown election and that, from here on, things will “improve slightly” for the Democrats.

Once again, Carville and Greenberg are totally misreading the public mood. Each time the Republican activists battle, they become stronger. Their cyber and grass roots grow deeper. The negatives that attach to so-called “moderate” Democratic incumbents increase. And each time Obama, Reid and Pelosi defy public opinion and use their majorities to ram through unpopular legislation, frustration and anger rise.

Were Obama’s ambitions to slacken, perhaps a cooling-off might eventuate. But soon the socialist financial takeover bill will come on the agenda, followed by amnesty for illegal immigrants, cap-and-trade and card-check unionization. Each bill will trigger its own mobilization of public opposition and add to the swelling coalition of opposition to Obama and his radical agenda.

And, all the while, the deficit will increase, interest rates will rise and unemployment will remain high.

Meanwhile, the political process will generate more and more strong Republican challengers. We have yet to see if former Gov. Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin or Dino Rossi of Washington state will emerge to challenge Sens. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.). Better House candidates will decide to capitalize on the momentum and will jump into the race and Republican donors will come out of hiding, their efforts catalyzed by the growing optimism about GOP chances.

Presaging the looming Republican sweep is the shift in the party ratings on various issues. Rasmussen has the Republicans ahead by 49-37 on the economy and 53-37 on healthcare. His likely-voter poll shows GOP leads on every major issue area: national security (49-37), Iraq (47-39), education (43-30), immigration (47-34), Social Security (48-36) and taxes (52-34).

When Republicans are winning issues like education, healthcare and Social Security — normally solidly Democratic issues — a sweep of unimaginable proportions is in the offing.

Will the rise in economic growth and job creation — if they continue — offset the Republican gains? Not very likely. Remember Bill Clinton’s 1994 experience. Even though the recession had officially ended in the quarter before he took office and he proudly pointed to the 5 million new jobs that had been created during the first two years of his presidency, Clinton got no bounce from the jobs issue or the economy. Even in the election of 1996, the economy was only marginally a source of strength for the Democratic president. It wasn’t until impeachment that the job growth that had been ongoing since he took office began to work heavily in his favor with the public. The hangover from a recession, and certainly from one as violent as this, lasts a long time. A very long time.

And all this assumes that things will, indeed, improve. Worries about inflation loom large and concerns that higher taxes and interest rates will trigger a new downturn also abound. As long as the deficit is as high as it is, there is no solid foundation for a sustained period of economic growth.

Finally, Obama is now responsible for healthcare in America. When premiums rise, it will be his fault. When coverage is denied, it will be on his watch.

When Medicare cuts kick in, it will be Obama who gets the blame.

Carville’s last book touted “40 more years of Democrats.” Now he dreams of a loss of “only” 25 seats in the House and “six or seven” senators. But these are pipe dreams. Republicans will gain more than 50 House seats and at least 10 in the Senate, enough to take control in both chambers. That’s reality.

This article originally appeared in The Hill.

Later today Scott Brown will be sworn in as the 41st Republican in the United States Senate.
He is on his way to Washington DC right now with certificatation in hand.

One of the many players who contributed to Scott Brown’s victory is Ken Pittman from WBSM in Massachusetts. Ken interviewed Democrat Martha Coakley the week before the Massachusetts election. It was during this interview that Martha told Ken that if you object to abortion and are a devout Catholic then…

“You probably shouldn’t work in the emergency room.”

That was the wrong answer.

Ken sent me this article last night that he wrote on this historic Massachusetts election:

America Chose the Pickup Truck Over the Prius

In what has to be the most important non-presidential election race in many decades, Scott Brown won a most unlikely race in the state bluer than Frank Sinatra’s eyes, Massachusetts. So much weighed on the outcome outside of our state that the RNC finally heeded to the desperate cries for help from those of us here who have fought behind the enemy lines, praying for the cavalry for a half century.

On Tuesday night, January 19^th 2010 at the Boston Park Plaza, I felt something like what the fictitious shipwrecked character Robinson Crusoe must have felt after seeing a mast come over the horizon for the first time.

To his credit (as a politician) it is clear that Senator Ted Kennedy was the glue that bonded the cohesiveness of this impenetrable synergy of liberal progressiveness in Massachusetts. With his death it appears that many notes were paid off. Allegiances broke and rival camps formed within the same party. Ted never allowed that on his watch.

While all that is true, it cannot alone explain what we witnessed last Tuesday. Governing from the left as Massachusetts has been doing, has built an under the radar, untapped resentment that never worked as a collaborative. The resistance has always been poorly articulated, fragmented and apparently unaware of the alliances that never formulated.

Never, that is until around Christmas of 2009. A little known state senator from the almost forgotten political party called Republican campaigned tirelessly in town after town building support in liberal working class cities as well as bedroom community towns. Scott Brown didn’t fear the 30 point lead his opponent Democrat Attorney General Martha Coakley enjoyed and enjoy she did.

Coakley’s abysmal campaign came with as many errors as Brown’s came with momentum.

The week she took off between Christmas and New Year’s Day will be discussed in poli-sci classes for many years to come and I believe there to be a story behind that worthy of investigating. Some will say the Christmas Eve vote on healthcare by the senate caused a backlash. Was it an antagonistic move against the Christian right by secular progressives? Was it the Christmas Day bombing attempt over Detroit by an al Qa’eda pawn? Was this a reminder of how Democrats in the 1990s ignored national security threats made by radicals? I think all of the above may be in the equation.

Martha Coakley antagonizing devout Catholics, if not all those of moral principle, with her remarks about who should and shouldn’t be working in emergency rooms revealed a radical in the candidate that really didn’t plan on showing that side of herself until the 20^th of January. Calling an ace pitcher of the Boston Red Sox “another Yankee fan” was a tad unwise. Curt Schilling? Accusing that local hero who helped to deliver the first World Series championship for Boston in 86 years wasn’t classic strategy for most observing pundits.

However, living in Massachusetts broadcasting from Barney Frank’s district on the south coast qualifies me to say that all of the above still doesn’t explain what happened.

The lesson which must be learned is that when the ideological pendulum swings hard, right or left, it also comes back with a lot of momentum. Republicans need to learn this truth as well. If the agenda of those governing isn’t executed and articulated successfully , the governed will eventually turn on the plan and the planners.

The ideological bigotry which plagues this nation is hamstringing progress and prosperity but the corruption and demonization by opponents clouds this problem by filling the room already on fire with thick, choking black smoke.

Scott Brown is a man who naturally migrates toward conservative ideals but is thoughtful enough to be inclusive for those who care about political issues yet disagree with his specific path. This has produced in Massachusetts a man who has designed a truly centrist platform.

He doesn’t shy away from disrobing the radical left’s plans but doesn’t visibly side with the conservatives in any monolithic fashion (the key word was visibly if you are wondering).

As a result we are seeing a dream realized here that only months ago seemed years away.

President Obama’s candy coated promises have produced bitter results and the veil seems to have been lifted. The trance has been broken. The instrument is Scott Brown. The people have decidedly chosen to side with the candidate who calls for sterner treatment of enemy combatants and who is sending the healthcare plans back to the kitchen. Martha Coakley ran on the Obama agenda of nationalized healthcare and climate change.

Democrats have made a potential fatal error politically in not identifying the mainstream movement dubbed “The Tea Parties”. It is nothing close to fringe. They have decided to apply the ‘us against them’ tactic and find themselves on the threshold of obscurity. To this day, they don’t seem able to identify this.

Give Scott Brown credit though. He is a disciplined attorney. A JAG in the Army Reserves with the rank of Lt. Colonel. He has climbed the political ladder one rung at a time and is an experienced legislator. He is also the candidate who redirected the conversation from the clenches of an heir apparent opponent. National security, the economy and healthcare became his issues and not hers. He never got off message like so many can and often do once they get momentum.

Americans in Massachusetts have chosen the guy in his truck who tried to earn their vote and asked for it and they or should I finally say “WE” have shown the door to the Prius driving elitist who felt entitled to their votes with the promise of pushing through Obama’s agenda.

Ken Pittman

“Talker” on 1420 AM WBSM – “The Ken Pittman Show” – New Bedford, MA – Blogs at kenpittman.com

As reported in a previous article, Senator Harkin clearly contradicted President Obama when he stated:

Labor leaders had announced an agreement with White House and congressional representatives over an excise tax on high-cost insurance plans on the Thursday before the special election.

Harkin said “we had an agreement, with the House, the White House and the Senate. We sent it to [the Congressional Budget Office] to get scored and then Tuesday happened and we didn’t get it back.” He said negotiators had an agreement in hand on Friday, Jan. 15.

Harkin made clear that negotiators had reached a final deal on the entire bill, not just the excise plans, which had been reported the previous day, Jan. 14.

Harkin said the deal covered the prescription-drug “donut hole,” the level of federal insurance subsidies, national insurance exchanges and federal Medicaid assistance to states.

Senator Harkin would know if a deal was done as he was in the marathon meeting at the White House on January 13, 2010. On the same day, Obama, Pelosi, and Reid put out a brief joint statement:

“Today we made significant progress in bridging the remaining gaps between the two health insurance reform bills. We’re encouraged and energized, and we’re resolved to deliver reform legislation that provides more stability and security for those with insurance, extends coverage to those who don’t have coverage, and lowers costs for families, businesses, and governments.”

However, it appears that the statements made by Harkin weren’t so far-fetched. On January 14th, House Ways and Means Chairman, Charlie Rangel, who was also in the WH meetings, confirmed that the healthcare bill was on its way to the CBO for scoring, either Friday the 15th or Saturday the 16th, to reporter Anna Edney, who then Tweeted the information:

So, who is telling the truth? Harkin and Rangel or Obama at the GOP Retreat when he stated they were still working on those “stray cats and dogs” in the bill.

There is, however, one more problem. When you talk to members of Congress, they consistently refer to the health bill as being in “conference” to merge the House and Senate version. When, I went to the THOMAS bill tracking system, it mentions nothing of the sort. It has all of the amendments and votes, but the latest update has nothing about the bill being in conference as other legislation documents. This administration is circumventing the legislative process so much that the offical bill tracking system can’t even be updated properly.

The only conclusion that can be made is that Obama, Pelosi, Reid and company were indeed attempting to jam through a healthcare bill and vote on it before the MA election, but time ran out for them and they lost a day due to the MLK federal holiday on January 18th. So much for Obama’s olive branch to the Republicans at the GOP retreat–all talk–just words as Obama’s says in this speech. I think we get it now, again, I hope the GOP does too.

The next questions are: where is the final agreement that went to the CBO and why haven’t the American people been shown the new merged bill?

The Hill is reporting that Senator Tom Harkin, chairman of the Senate Health Committee, stated that negotiators from the White House, Senate and House reached a final deal on healthcare reform days before Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts.

From the article:

Labor leaders had announced an agreement with White House and congressional representatives over an excise tax on high-cost insurance plans on the Thursday before the special election.

Harkin said “we had an agreement, with the House, the White House and the Senate. We sent it to [the Congressional Budget Office] to get scored and then Tuesday happened and we didn’t get it back.” He said negotiators had an agreement in hand on Friday, Jan. 15.

Harkin made clear that negotiators had reached a final deal on the entire bill, not just the excise plans, which had been reported the previous day, Jan. 14.

Harkin said the deal covered the prescription-drug “donut hole,” the level of federal insurance subsidies, national insurance exchanges and federal Medicaid assistance to states.

This cannot be right.

If Harkin is telling the truth, then that would mean President Obama is lying because at the GOP retreat, Obama stated that there were some “stray cats and dogs” in the legislation. This quote from Obama at the retreat:

“The last thing I will say, though — let me say this about health care and the health care debate, because I think it also bears on a whole lot of other issues. If you look at the package that we’ve presented — and there’s some stray cats and dogs that got in there that we were eliminating, we were in the process of eliminating. For example, we said from the start that it was going to be important for us to be consistent in saying to people if you can have your — if you want to keep the health insurance you got, you can keep it, that you’re not going to have anybody getting in between you and your doctor in your decision making. And I think that some of the provisions that got snuck in might have violated that pledge.”

So which is it? Was the health bill done as Harkin states? Or, were Obama and congressional leaders still trying to capture those stray cats and dogs? If the healthcare bill was sent to the CBO as Harkin confirms, then where’s the score? Was it withdrawn from the CBO due to the MA election?

These are just some of the questions that we will follow up.

Someone is clearly lying, stretching the truth, pandering to the GOP, whatever you want to call it. However, it appears that the White House was trying to jam through the healthcare bill before the MA election, but the CBO could not score it fast enough.

Let’s just hope the Republicans in Congress see the same tom-foolery that the American people see.

Once Scott Brown took away the Democrat majority in the Senate by becoming the Republican’s 41st vote based in large part on the fact that Massachusetts voters were unhappy with Obamacare, one would think that President Obama and the Democrat Party would learn a vital lesson. A look at a dozen or so stories across the media over the last few days shows that the Democrats have indeed learned a lesson from Scott Brown’s victory. But is it the right lesson?

Did they learn that they’d better slow down their freight train of extremely left leaning policies? Did they learn that with 58% of Americans standing in opposition to Obamcare they’d better reassess their direction? Have they learned from an entire year of raucous healthcare townhalls, multiple loses at the polls, and tea party protests that brought out over a million people that they might be agitating the American people?

Nope.

Looks like the lesson they’ve learned is that they have to pass their bad policies faster before they really lose power in the November midterm elections. It seems that a certain self-righteous arrogance is what we are seeing from Democrats instead of an acknowledgment that the voters have chastised them in Virginia, New Jersey, and now blue, blue Massachusetts. Democrats have not learned that they’d better listen to the voters but instead have decided that they better move on their agenda even faster. It’s hubris that they’ve assumed not a mien of humbleness.

For his part the president has boldly claimed that even as more Americans every day are turning against his ideas he’d rather make of himself a “really good one-term president” and pass his cherished policies than win a second term. In yet another TV interview Obama told ABC’s Diane Sawyer that he doesn’t care if he pays a political price at the hands of an unhappy electorate.

The president has previously admitted the convoluted process of cobbling together the huge bill had alarmed voters, but said today he will not back off of tackling large issues despite the political jeopardy involved.

So it’s Katie bar the door, and full steam ahead as far as this president is concerned — voters be damned.

The president isn’t the only one. One-time Senate Majority leader Tom Daschle — a man who himself was thrown out of office by his constituents — told reporters about the lesson Brown taught him. Oh, it isn’t to slow down and think harder, no-siree. As far as Daschle is concerned the Dems need to hurry up and “do the right thing” and pass the hard bills that Americans are against. That, to Daschle, is “political courage.” Some may call it political suicide, others extreme arrogance, but, well, you know.

Another voice of the Democrat establishment is campaign wunderkind David Plouffe who the president has called back to Washington to help the donkies retake victory at the polls in 2010. Did Plouffe advise his patrons to step back and reevaluate their position? Uh, nope. Plouffe immediately began by saying that the Democrats should hurry up and pass Obamacare.

In a recent mass emailing, for instance, Plouffe told supporters that they have to push even harder on every policy that has caused the voters to rise in anger against them.

The President’s resolve has never been stronger to keep fighting for health insurance reform, for lasting job creation, and to rein in the big banks and fight the undue influence of lobbyists. Wednesday’s speech will be a pivotal moment for us all to get on the same page and continue the fight together.

Lesson learned? Hardly.

These few aren’t the only ones. The Associated Press is reporting that Congressional Democrats are gathering to unite on a health care strategy and that strategy is to pass through the House of Representatives the same Senate bill that drove Massachusetts voters to vote against their Democrat candidate for Senate.

Lesson learned: Hubris, not humbleness.

So what are the Democrat’s rewards thus far? Check out these headlines:

Poll: Americans glad Dems lost supermajority

Is The Senate Also In Play?

CNN Poll: 3 of 4 Americans say much of stimulus money wasted

Republicans Pull Ahead on Generic Ballot

If these headlines are any indication the voters really are trying to teach the Democrats a lesson. But if I can paraphrase a saying, Is Demmie learning?

The Massachusetts Special Election last week upended “conventional wisdom” about “who can/might/should/ or will win” and how traditional voting blocs may cast their ballots in upcoming elections.  This is not simply a look at “what happened,” but also what it means for the legislative agenda in Washington. In this poll, actual voters provide a roadmap for reform as Washington continues to debate how best to fix the economy, jump-start entrepreneurship, and shore up national security.

Some highlights from the poll:

*       Independent Women Voters: This demographic was key to the electoral outcome. They bucked their gender, with 67% of them supporting Scott Brown.  Majorities say that Congress should stop the current levels of spending and call for enacting provisions that make it more affordable for people to buy health insurance on their own, instead of through their jobs, in the same way people buy homeowners’ and life insurance (56%). Two-thirds of Indie women would allow small businesses to form groups to buy healthcare coverage at lower rates, and 45% want Congress to “start over” on healthcare reform; just 2% say continue with the reform “as is.”

*   Those who had frequently voted for Ted Kennedy in the past (63% of the sample) had some surprising opinions: 79% of them said providing tax cuts to small businesses for job creation will speed up the nation’s economic recovery; 47% say Congress should open healthcare negotiations for the public to observe.

*     Healthcare Plays the Heaviest Hand: Nearly two-in-five (38%) actual voters said they had healthcare on the brain when deciding between candidates; of those, 57% said in a later question that they support current efforts being undertaken in Washington.  Other issues of importance were the economy (16%), jobs and unemployment (13%), government spending (7%), and taxes (3%), meaning that fiscal issues summed statistically-equal to healthcare (39%).  Among the 29% of respondents who said that healthcare was their top concern, the majority (51%) said it was because they oppose the current legislation being considered in Washington, D.C., 46% because they support it.

*National Security: Because the Christmas day near-miss terrorist attack happened during the campaign, the issue of national security presented itself.  During a rally, then-candidate Scott Brown said, “In dealing with terrorists, our tax dollars should pay for weapons to stop them, not lawyers to defend them.”  Sixty-four percent of voters indicated that hearing Scott Brown say this was “very” (42%) or “somewhat” (22%) important when deciding which candidate to support.  Seventy percent of voters who said the statement had importance cast ballots for Brown.

*       National Consequences: Whereas 72% of Brown voters said they cast votes “mostly for” him and 60% of Coakley voters said theirs were also “mostly for” her, voters had not forgotten the consequences of their voting decisions.  Consider that 80% of Brown voters said that their “all” or “some” of their votes were “to oppose President Obama’s agenda in Washington” and, similarly, 82% of Coakley supporters said that their “all” or “some” of their support was “to advance President Obama’s agenda in Washington.”

*       When asked which candidates they supported in the past – Democrats or Republicans – for United States Senate and then asked to anticipate how they will vote in the future, there was a seven-point difference between the percentage of voters saying they have always or mostly voted for Democrats and the percentage saying they will do so in the future

IWV — Massachusetts Post-Election Survey TOPLINE DATA to CLIENT 1.26.10 –

The poll, conducted for IWV by Women Trend, a division of the polling company™ inc. surveyed 411 Massachusetts voters from January 23rd-24th, 2010.

IWV — Massachusetts Post-Election Survey Release to CLIENT 1.26.10 –

As Democrats are grieving their lost super-majority in Congress, some special interests are trying to spin the loss in ridiculous ways. The latest: Union boss Leo Gerard writes that “The message of Massachusetts should be clear: If Democrats want to save their own jobs in the midterm elections this fall, they must create jobs now.”

Create jobs? Create jobs?! It’s truly a fundamentally different worldview — and the kind that led Democrats off the cliff in the first place — to believe the government, rather than American entrepreneurs create jobs. (Here’s just one retort to that kind of logic.)

In one sense, there is a way Democrats could create jobs: They could quit trying to kill job-creating employers. Shred cap and trade. Hit the reset button on health care legislation. And, particularly important given the disastrous push by labor bosses, toss card check. Quit trying to force “green jobs” by killing other jobs. Stop the devastating machine of regulation from steamrolling any hope of economic recovery.

The point of Massachusetts, and the point of mass protest, has been that the government is trying to do too much, control too much. It can only “create” economic growth by getting out of the way.

Yesterday, Congressman Marion Berry (D-AR) became the first Democrat to announce his retirement in the wake of Scott Brown’s win in the Massachusetts special election. He will not be the last.

Apparently, the paint job didn’t take in Arkansas.

Lost in the pre and post-election analysis out of Massachusetts has been the major policy differences between Martha Coakley and Scott Brown over foreign policy and defense.  The issue garnered some attention briefly during their final debate, when Coakley erred saying terrorists “were gone from Afghanistan.”  But then the attentions of the media quickly turned back to the health care debate.

In campaigning with Brown in the final days, Rudy Giuliani mapped out the battle lines: “This election will send a signal, and a very dramatic one, that we are going in the wrong direction on terrorism, and we need to change it, and change it now.”  Giuliani added: Scott’s background in the military speaks volumes about his understanding of what we face.  And frankly his opponent’s ignorance about the issues facing us is astounding.”

From the start candidate Brown was unequivocal on defense matters.  A 30-year Veteran of the National Guard, still serving as a lt. colonel, Brown unashamedly backed the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.    It’s notable that not once did he seek to separate himself from the Bush foreign policy agenda.

He repeatedly criticized his opponent, an attorney general, for her support of Obama’s policy of trying Khalid Sheikh Muhammed in a civilian trial in New York City.

Scott Brown refusted to back away from allowing the CIA and the Military to use strong interrogation techniques, including water-boarding, after being accused of supporting “torture” by Coakley and her supporters.

In contrast, candidate Coakley took a Ron Paul almost isolationist view on foreign policy.

Coakley called for a complete and immediate pull-out of Afghanistan:

“I think we have done what we are going to be able to do in Afghanistan.  I think that we should plan an exit strategy.  Yes.  I’m not sure there is a way to succeed.”

Coakley on her campaign website, like Paul, took a straight Anti-War in Iraq stance:

“Had Martha been in the Senate at the time, she would have voted against the Iraq invasion. It is now crucial that American troops leave the country.

Martha supports President Obama’s plan to fully withdraw from Iraq…”

I served as Congressman Ron Paul’s Senior Aide from 1997 to 2003. I can remember his early noises made to his policy advisor circle immediately after the 9/11 attacks, not to vote for the resolution to go into Afghanistan.  He finally relented after much pressure from the district, and even his staff.  It was his decision in 2003 not to back the President Bush and the War in Iraq that finally led to my resignation.

Looking back, with the Iraqi people fully liberated, and a stable pro-American democracy developing, we can see that George W. Bush and Rudy Giuliani were right. Ron Paul got it wrong.

Perhaps Massachusetts voters sensed that Coakley’s Ron Paul-esque approach to fighting Islamic terrorism was rather weak like Paul’s.  Perhaps the seriousness of the terrorism issue, came back to the fore in the minds of these voters, after the shocking Ft. Hood shooting, followed by the Christmas Day bomber.

Yes, health care was front and center.  But it is notable that voters of one of the most dove-ish of states, chose to side forthrightly with the candidate of the Bush foreign policy agenda, over Obama/Paul.

As many of you know, I ran for Massachusetts State Representative in the 2nd Franklin District in 2008. Miss Kim joked on Monday that maybe I ran two years too early.

Apparently  not.

In the six towns that make up the 2nd Franklin, Democrat Martha Coakley beat Republican Scott Brown 6776 to 6070. It’s even more clear my home district is as dysfunctional as the black community, and my saying this is going to really irk them.

The truth hurts.

You know how your car drives; how it feels.

Let’s say you notice something feels very wrong with your car and you take it to the shop. You tell the mechanic what feels wrong and he tells you to leave it with him. He later calls, you pay him and begin to drive off, when you feel the same thing wrong with your car.

You take it back to the mechanic, tell him he didn’t fix the problem, describe the symptoms, and leave it again. You get another call later, pick up the car and when you’re driving away feel the same problem with the car.

The question is, would you ever take your car back to that mechanic again?

Blacks would, and so would the majority of voters in my home district.

In the black community (and most of the 2nd Franklin), Democrats hold almost every elected office from clerk to congressman. According to the hype, both communities should be utopias on Earth. However, both suffer from a chronic lack of economic development, questionable or outright failing schools, lackluster home sales, high foreclosure rates, and no end to that pattern in sight.

Despite what many of you may think, I’m not looking for everyone to become Republicans tomorrow. That’s quite unrealistic. But I look forward to a day of political competitiveness and accountability, because when politicians know they don’t have to produce to keep their jobs, they get lazy and don’t. I invite any of you living in either area to think of ONE meaningful thing that an entrenched Democrat has done to put one meal on your table (not including welfare or unemployment benefits).

Texas is a state that’s weathered the recession storm better than almost any other. What do they have that others don’t? A politically competitive climate. If a politician doesn’t deliver, next election the people give someone else a try.

I’ve talked to people in the 2nd Franklin who tell me their representation hasn’t done anything for them in the many terms they’ve been returned to office, yet they keep getting reelected. This is not the politicians’ fault. It’s the fault of those who refuse to hold them accountable, and both my district and the black community will not. For that, your complaining will continue to fall on deaf ears.

While the rest of the state issued a clear warning to Washington, D.C. after the special election, most of the 2nd Franklin District of Massachusetts chose continued unemployment, almost non-existent economic development, and a political class that’s been given a pass so they don’t have to work to improve anything.

As much as I love that area, you can lead a horse to water….

As I said during the campaign, “If you like the way things are, by all means, vote for the incumbent… and don’t complain.”

They did, so don’t.

Reagan famously said that Republicans believe everyday is the 4^th of July and the Democrats believe everyday is April 15^th.  An oversimplification to be sure, but that sentiment was not far from the minds of the Massachusetts voters.  Already laboring under a bad state imposed health care system, in spectacular fashion, they rejected ObamaCare and elected Scott Brown to a “people’s seat.”

In California, that lesson apparently went unnoticed for California Democrats.   Less than 48 hours after the dust settled from the Brown triumph, California Democrats voted for a State imposed “universal” health care plan.  In other words, a state run health care system that would bar private insurance.

Keep in mind that California is already amidst a chronic and prolonged budget crisis brought on by runaway spending and exorbitant taxing.   Perennially listed among the worst states in our Union to do business, California features 10%+ income taxes and the highest regulatory burden around.  So imposing are the costs to business in California, despite its ports and natural resources, Nevada and its desert is #1 in the Country in new business development.

As Congressman Tom McClintock famously says, only government policy could convince people and business to relocate from lush California to the barren deserts of Nevada.  The practical result of those anti-job polices is that California now has a revenue problem.  Just 3 years ago revenues were in the $125 billion dollar range.  Now they are in the $85+ billion dollar range.  In other words, government has created a revenue problem by killing off jobs and, without those jobs, there are less taxpayers, less income tax and less sales tax.

Rather than make California job friendly again – and thereby increase government revenues through sales taxes and new income taxes from new jobs – California Democrats offer nothing but tax hikes and even more regulation.  And now this.

The estimated cost of the Democrats California Health Care bill is over $210 billion dollars a year!  Nearly 250% more than the existing state revenues.  But wait – there is more – or less depending on how you think about it.  The Democrats don’t even have a funding mechanism in place to pay for their bill.  Instead, they want to create a committee (itself costing $1 to $2 million) to come up with a funding mechanism.  Of course, that means a government committee to devise a tax scheme to pay for government bureaucracy.

When this bill was considered before, the Democrats claimed that they would raise billions upon billions of dollars thorough new taxes and fees.  However, the “non-partisan” Legislative Analyst’s Office,  predicted that the new fees and taxes would result in added deficits of over $40 billion per year, i.e. over 40% of the current budget.

In truth, the deficits would be far worse because there is not $200 billion or $100 billion or even $25 billion more to collect from California tax payers.  They are already over taxed and over regulated -which is why so many have left the state, or are unemployed, and the government has a revenue problem today.

But don’t tell the Democrats in Sacramento that.  They are going to govern us whether we like it or not – at least until November that is and California may have its own 4^th of July.

Suddenly, all the condescending ‘tea-bagger’ jokes must not be quite so funny in liberal circles.  Serves them right.

Losing the seat formerly held by the champion of socialized medicine – in the bluest of states – apparently hasn’t phased the radical left.  SEIU president Andy Stern put the blame on the fact that Democrats in Washington, DC, who the union spent tens of millions of dollars electing, haven’t done enough to pass the progressive agenda.  From a SEIU statement:

“The reason Ted Kennedy’s seat is no longer controlled by a Democrat is clear: Washington’s inability to deliver the change voters demanded in November 2008. Make no mistake, political paralysis resulted in electoral failure,” Stern said.

“During the past year, Republicans refused to do anything but stand in the way of change and Democratic Senators took too long to do too little. And tonight, the Senate bears the consequences for its failure to act decisively but the American people are the ones left paying the price…

“The Senate may have squandered the trust the American people gave to Washington in 2008. But now, every member of Congress and the Administration must act with a renewed sense of purpose to show working families whose side they are on and deliver meaningful change to every American. This is not the time for timidity. It starts by passing health insurance reform and giving Pat [DeJong] and millions of people like her the security and peace of mind they deserve.”

Massachusetts voters stood at the borders of their state – and the polling places – with virtual pitch forks telling politicians, to paraphrase Johnny Paycheck, “take this agenda and shove it.”

But yet, the field marshals of the liberal army (I know, I know, “liberal” and “army” don’t really go together) are actually saying that those in Washington, DC haven’t done enough.

News to Andy: the Democrats may follow your lead and plow ahead with an agenda that Americans clearly don’t want, but instead of a Second Tea Party limited to Massachusetts, radicals will experience a full-blown national Tea Party come November.

So the paradox facing the left is this: do they allow Field Marshal Andy Stern to order them off the cliff, or do they tell Andy that his investment in spending tens of millions electing Democrats to implement a Marxist agenda was little more than buying fool’s gold.  Either way, radical liberals face one ugly year ahead.

These may well be the times that try the souls of Democrat politicians.

In the year since Obama took the oath of office, the fortunes of the Democrat Party have changed substantially. Voters, especially Independent voters, now favor Republicans on many issues and in Rasmussen’s Generic Congressional Ballot by 9%. Entrenched Senate Democrats like Christopher Dodd and Byron Dorgan are retiring and now – in no small irony – in the election heard ‘round the world, Scott Brown, campaigning against ObamaCare was elected to “Kennedy’s seat.”

It has been a remarkable turnaround – yet the worse is yet to come for Democrats in office.

Keep in mind that voters turned out the Republicans in 2006 and 2008 in large part because they spent too much, reformed too little and ran up the deficit into the $400 billion range. By the end of the Bush Presidency, economic troubles were mounting and the Republicans had no clear plan for a national recovery.

Today, the incidence of buyer’s remorse for voters over Barack is mounting for all the same reasons and more. Unemployment is at double digits, government reform has been abandoned in favor of unprecedented government spending and the deficit is in the $1.5 trillion range. All of that, with no meaningful recovery in site.

Beyond that, the President has his Party in the stickiest of wickets known to you as the Health Care debate. By allowing Pelosi and Company to write the bill, Obama lost control of the process and now public opposition to the bill is at an all time high.  Even so, the Democrat leadership still promises to push it – whether we like it or not.

That is, at least until Scott Brown came around – which begs the questions:

So what’s a Coercive Utopian to do? And what is a sensible Democrat to do? And of the two, who will prevail?

In the months ahead, the coercive utopian Democrats, who control government, i.e. Pelosi & Reid et. al., now know they may be out of power in 10 months – but not because of the Scott Brown election or The Lessons of ’66 and ’94 that Loom Over the Democrats.  They have been repeatedly told, by Bill Clinton and others, that the failure to pass HillaryCare in the ‘90s was the reason they lost in ‘90s, because their base became discouraged.  Beyond that, they will have to provide an answer to the country for solving the deficit.  Given their reflexive answer to that enduring question, i.e. raising tax rates, the Obama, Reid and Pelosi may well force their Democrats supporters in Congress to vote for higher taxes.  If anyone thinks that’s a good idea, (besides the coercive utopians), ask the 54 House seats that went from Democrat to Republican in ’94 how that worked for them.

So what’s a sensible Democrat in Congress to do? As a Shakespearean politician may have said: To Be Re-Elected or not to Be Re-elected, that is the question. Of course, that would require them to break company with Barack and the hard place in which he is forcing them – thereby splitting the Democrat Party.

Who will win that battle?  Perhaps the Lessons of ’68 are relevant here.  During that election year, the Vietnam War badly split the Democrats between the pro-war Johnson/Humphrey faction and the anti-war faction led by Senator McCarthy.  A split of that magnitude simply could not be mended within a single election year.  Their political civil war was  so bad that even the Republican Presidential nominee, who once declared that we would no longer have him to kick around just 8 years before, Richard Nixon, was able to make the ultimate comeback and win the Presidency.

In other words, for the Democrats, there probably will be no victor in this inter-party war – all of which amounts to one gigantic opportunity for the Republicans – if they would just do these 4 things . . . The Top 4 Things Congressional Republicans Must Do In 2010.

I want to start off by saying congratulations to Massachusetts new U.S. Senator Scott Brown.

Secondly, as I stated at the beginning of the campaign trail. Either way this election went, it was going to be an historic one. Coakley and the Democrats would have changed healthcare forever behind closed doors. Brown has a chance to stop Obamacare, and is the 41st vote that would be cast against the bill.

My four day trip to Massachusetts was a great one. I was proud to volunteer for Scott Brown, and I would do it again in a second. I met a lot of nice people along the way, and left with some lifetime friends. This campaign taught me that anything is possible, and anything can change in a second.

Congratulations to Scott Brown and his campaign for this historic election.

With the upset victory (understatement of the day) in Massachusetts of Republican Scott Brown over shoo-in Democrat Attorney General Martha Coakley, the pundit establishment will be giving their political pals a tip: move to the center, and I really hope my Bay State brethren don’t let their guard down.

As someone who ran for State Representative (12th Franklin District) in 2008 and for Massachusetts Republican Party chair in 2006, I know how Democrats think.

While enjoying an 87% super majority on Beacon Hill, Massachusetts Democrats weren’t satisfied. They had their feet on our necks and their mission was to squeeze the life out of us. Thanks to Brown’s victory last night, Democrats nationally know that their lifeclocks are ticking and are now trying to figure out what to do about it.

Their immediate goal will be to put on a front of being moderate and you’ll hear the phrase “move to the center” more than you can stomach over the coming months. Democrats will attempt to make the America people believe they get it and will slow their arrogant leftward lurch.

They will ask for forgiveness, attempt to have us give them another chance. Then again, they may just try and ram through everything they can, while they can.

The bottom line is this: Republicans now have their feet on the necks of Democrats and it’s not a good time to let them breathe.

If the American people fall for the Democrat move center, just what do you think they’ll do if they save their majority status? I predict, knowing Democrats as I do, they’ll go right back to the arrogance we all know and love to hate.

Trust them at our nation’s peril. Squash them while we can and ignore their assurances of “getting it”, because they don’t. They just got caught with us seeing them for who they really are. A move to the “center” will not be sincere, but just their way of showing continued contempt for the American people with their assumption we’re all to stupid to know that their new-found moderation is just for public consumption and totally insincere.

The polls have closed, the votes are counted, and Massachusetts voters have sent the “Scott heard ’round the World”.  All day long, pundits have been giving their assessment regarding why Scott Brown would win.  All day long, too many of these pundits have proven that they still have not learned to listen to the clear message being sent by the American people.

Like rats fleeing a sinking ship Democrat pundits have been blaming Coakley for running a failed campaign.  While it is true that the path to victory checklist laid out by her strategists probably did not include insulting Catholics and Red Sox fans, to blame a Democrat for losing in the bluest blue state in this environment is a convenient oversimplification.  Further, it is incredibly insulting for the political class to dismiss the voters as being that petty.

For their part, Republicans who argued that it is not about Coakley’s gaffs offered up disturbingly similar alternative explanations.  Mitt Romney speaking on Fox news said it was:

Overwhelmingly an outpouring of support for Scott Brown and his vision”.

No, it is not about Scott Brown.  Or his vision.

This election result is not about personality it is not even about policy.  It is more.

It is true that the poll numbers began the dramatic swing the more the Democrats in Congress pushed the health care bill.  Brown was down 9% before the Senate passed the bill.  As the Democrats pushing the bill made shocking statements like “they need any bill’ or in the case of Obama advisor David Axelrod opponents of the bill are “insane,” Coakley numbers continued to shrink.

Health care reform policy was the backdrop.  It would be fair to stop there and say the voters rejected the policy of health care reform.  I believe it goes a step deeper.

If Massuchusetts voters looked beyond the personalities and were troubled by the policy of health care, did those blue staters who embraced universal health care in their state, suddenly reject the idea of universal health care done by their fellow Democrats in Congress?

I believe the voters rejected the operating principles of the Reid, Pelosi, Obama oligarchy.  Just as Republican voters lost faith in their leaders for the bloated spending, Democrats and Independents have looked with horror at the principles dominating this Congress that said any health care bill is a good bill.  They were shocked when taxing “Cadillac” plans suddenly did not include union Cadillac plans.  Most of all they were dismayed that all of these discussions were occuring not in the transparent way, on C-SPAN that candidate Obama had promised, but behind closed doors in smoke filled rooms–probably not cigar smoke, but clove or “medical marijuana” smoke filled rooms.  The voters found this disgusting.

So was this a victory for Republicans?

Before the GOP celebrates the personality of Brown, or the victory for moderates or begins believing the GOP is back, they need to consider that the same body politic that now distrusts the Democrats is the body politic that reviled the GOP just 14 months ago.

The Democrats have lost three major battles because the voters saw the incongruity between the stated policies and the actions.  Similarly, they rejected Republicans in 2008 because the Party, my Party, dominated by moderates calling themselves “fiscal conservatives,” grew entitlement spending,  war spending, and deficits in a way that contradicted their public pronouncements.   In short, both parties suffer a huge credibility gap.  The American public has not so much rejected personalities or even policies, they have rejected the lack of principles.

So now begins a new race.  A race for credibility.  The Party that hears the voters and regains the trust of the American people will be in control in 2011.

The first step to regaining trust begins with an apology.  I have heard a number of hapless GOP incumbents make statements like “we probably spent a little too much”, or “we should have said ‘no’ a little more”,  or “except for the war on terror, we only grew Federal spending by 5% on an annualized basis before factoring in inflation,” blah blah blah.  Just once I want to hear a Republican leader say this:  ”Yes, we spent like (pick your metaphore) a. drunken sailors, b. college girls with a new credit card, c. lotto winners on Rodeo drive, and you took the credit card away from us, you were right, and we are sorry.”  The emphasis needs to be on a heart felt, full out mea culpa apology.   Admit you did a terrible job carrying out the duties we elected you to do!  Admit it, dammit!  You overspent.  You were wrong. You need to own up to it.

If the GOP will do that, and beg for another chance, we may be able to save this Country from the economic collapse driven by the leftists elected by the reaction to the wayward Republicans.  They need to swear to cap the spending, cut failed programs and guarantee that they will shrink the federal government back to its Constitutional limits.

If they do that, we just might have a chance to leave this country just as our forefathers left it for us-better.

The polls have closed, the votes are counted, and Massachusetts voters have sent the “Scott heard ’round the World”.  All day long, pundits have been giving their assessment regarding why Scott Brown would win.  All day long, too many of these pundits have proven that they still have not learned to listen to the clear message being sent by the American people.

Like rats fleeing a sinking ship Democrat pundits have been blaming Coakley for running a failed campaign.  While it is true that the path to victory checklist laid out by her strategists probably did not include insulting Catholics and Red Sox fans, to blame a Democrat for losing in the bluest blue state in this environment is a convenient oversimplification.  Further, it is incredibly insulting for the political class to dismiss the voters as being that petty.

For their part, Republicans who argued that it is not about Coakley’s gaffs offered up disturbingly similar alternative explanations.  Mitt Romney speaking on Fox news said it was:

Overwhelmingly an outpouring of support for Scott Brown and his vision”.

No, it is not about Scott Brown.  Or his vision.

This election result is not about personality it is not even about policy.  It is more.

It is true that the poll numbers began the dramatic swing the more the Democrats in Congress pushed the health care bill.  Brown was down 9% before the Senate passed the bill.  As the Democrats pushing the bill made shocking statements like “they need any bill’ or in the case of Obama advisor David Axelrod opponents of the bill are “insane,” Coakley numbers continued to shrink.

Health care reform policy was the backdrop.  It would be fair to stop there and say the voters rejected the policy of health care reform.  I believe it goes a step deeper.

If Massuchusetts voters looked beyond the personalities and were troubled by the policy of health care, did those blue staters who embraced universal health care in their state, suddenly reject the idea of universal health care done by their fellow Democrats in Congress?

I believe the voters rejected the operating principles of the Reid, Pelosi, Obama oligarchy.  Just as Republican voters lost faith in their leaders for the bloated spending, Democrats and Independents have looked with horror at the principles dominating this Congress that said any health care bill is a good bill.  They were shocked when taxing “Cadillac” plans suddenly did not include union Cadillac plans.  Most of all they were dismayed that all of these discussions were occuring not in the transparent way, on C-SPAN that candidate Obama had promised, but behind closed doors in smoke filled rooms–probably not cigar smoke, but clove or “medical marijuana” smoke filled rooms.  The voters found this disgusting.

So was this a victory for Republicans?

Before the GOP celebrates the personality of Brown, or the victory for moderates or begins believing the GOP is back, they need to consider that the same body politic that now distrusts the Democrats is the body politic that reviled the GOP just 14 months ago.

The Democrats have lost three major battles because the voters saw the incongruity between the stated policies and the actions.  Similarly, they rejected Republicans in 2008 because the Party, my Party, dominated by moderates calling themselves “fiscal conservatives,” grew entitlement spending,  war spending, and deficits in a way that contradicted their public pronouncements.   In short, both parties suffer a huge credibility gap.  The American public has not so much rejected personalities or even policies, they have rejected the lack of principles.

So now begins a new race.  A race for credibility.  The Party that hears the voters and regains the trust of the American people will be in control in 2011.

The first step to regaining trust begins with an apology.  I have heard a number of hapless GOP incumbents make statements like “we probably spent a little too much”, or “we should have said ‘no’ a little more”,  or “except for the war on terror, we only grew Federal spending by 5% on an annualized basis before factoring in inflation,” blah blah blah.  Just once I want to hear a Republican leader say this:  ”Yes, we spent like (pick your metaphore) a. drunken sailors, b. college girls with a new credit card, c. lotto winners on Rodeo drive, and you took the credit card away from us, you were right, and we are sorry.”  The emphasis needs to be on a heart felt, full out mea culpa apology.   Admit you did a terrible job carrying out the duties we elected you to do!  Admit it, dammit!  You overspent.  You were wrong. You need to own up to it.

If the GOP will do that, and beg for another chance, we may be able to save this Country from the economic collapse driven by the leftists elected by the reaction to the wayward Republicans.  They need to swear to cap the spending, cut failed programs and guarantee that they will shrink the federal government back to its Constitutional limits.

If they do that, we just might have a chance to leave this country just as our forefathers left it for us-better.

With 70% in, Brown leads Coakley 53-46%. From what we’ve seen, there is no scenario where Coakley can win. Also no scenario to prolong the race with a long legal fight. Ladies and Gentlemen, Senator Scott Brown.

**Update**

Full text here.

The polls have closed in Massachusetts. Check back for updates throughout the night.

This afternoon, the Coakley campaign convened a press conference to say they had received reports of voters receiving ballots, pre-marked for her opponent, Scott Brown. It would be a serious charge.

But we’re skeptical. Below is a screenshot of Coakley’s website taken this afternoon. The press release making the ballot fraud charge is dated yesterday, before any ballots were issued to voters. (Click Full Screen to view properly)

With such seers working on the campaign (able to foresee possible ballot fraud before it happened), you’d think the Coakley campaign would have been able to anticipate Brown’s campaign surge.

The Coakley release on the allegations now has the correct date on it. It can be found here.

From the Boston Herald:

Neither rain nor snow in dead of winter could keep voters away from the hottest special election in living memory, as elections officials today reported high voter turnouts across the state in the 11th-hour nailbiter to choose a successor for the late U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

Steady streams of voters have been heading into the polls to have their say in the bitter contest between GOP state Sen. Scott Brown and Democrat Attorney General Martha Coakley – a fight to determine the fate of the controversial health care bill, President Obama’s agenda, and one-party dominance in Washington, D.C.

Plus this tidbit on voting in Boston:

As of 3 p.m., 81,882 people had voted in Boston, according to city figures.

Election Department Chairwoman Geraldine Cuddyer predicted turnout could be has high as 20 percent to 30 percent and possibly rival November’s mayoral election, when a little more than 31 percent of the city’s voters cast ballots to send Mayor Thomas M. Menino to a historic fifth term.

According to this story in Politico, a 20-30 percent turnout in Boston is bad news for Coakley.

And, of course, both sides are alleging ballot irregularities:

Both the Brown and Coakley campaigns have raised issues of voter irregularities with Galvin’s office.

Read the whole article here.

I believe that Scott Brown will win the senatorial election being held in Massachusetts today and that he will do so not by an eyelash but by a landslide. We are about to witness the Massachusetts Miracle.

I have three reasons for being so confident. First, the polls — with admirable consistency — suggest that he is ahead. Second, the Coakley campaign and the Democratic Party nationally have panicked. Coakley’s minions have sent out a flier accusing Scott Brown of wanting to turn rape victims away from Massachusetts hospitals, and the DC apparatus has sent in Bill Clinton and Barack Obama for last-minute campaigning. Both moves are likely to backfire.

First, the claims in the flier are ridiculous and demonstrably false, and voters in Massachusetts have the wit to recognize that fact. Second, the bloom is off the rose. Clinton is a has-been, and Obama inspires little in the way of adulation these days. Their appearance in Massachusetts under these circumstances is a public confession that Martha Coakley is herself a loser. In special elections, turnout is everything. Scott Brown commands enthusiasm; no one — even within the Democratic establishment — has expressed any genuine excitement regarding his opponent.

There is, then, if I am right, one crucial matter left to consider. This evening Scott Brown will be called upon at some point to address his supporters, and the whole nation will be watching. Here is what, I think, he should say:

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a turning point — not only in Massachusetts politics, but in the politics of the United States. We have won a great and unexpected victory against a well-entrenched political machine, and I want to thank all of you for the help that you have given my campaign. I know how hard you and many others not present in this room have worked, and I promise to do my best to justify the hopes that you have lodged in me.

Tonight marks the end of a long, hard campaign. But it also marks a beginning. The people of Massachusetts have a way of speaking for the American people as a whole. They did so at the time of the Boston Tea Party; they did so again when a shot was heard around the world; and they did so today. For this election was a referendum on the conduct of the Obama administration in Washington. It was an anticipatory tremor — a harbinger of the electoral earthquake that is going to take place throughout the United States in November.

President Obama was in Massachusetts on Sunday campaigning for my opponent. Your rejection of her candidacy was, as he well knows, a rebuke of his administration. What you have said is simple and straightforward, and I will do my best to put it into words.

First, Mr. President, Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid, there is this: You promised us transparency in government, and you have done the opposite. We in Massachusetts demand that you deliver what you promised. No more deals behind closed doors. No more corrupt bargains. No Gator Aid; No Louisiana Purchase; No Cornhusker Kickback; no special deal for union members. What we want is a fair deal for all Americans!

Second, Mr. President, Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid, there is this: We do not want healthcare rationing; we do not want to gut Medicare; and we do not want a middle-class tax increase under any disguise.

Please understand, it is not our view that the existing healthcare system is perfect. We believe that costs could be reduced and access encouraged by four simple expedients.

First, we urge the adoption of tort reform — which would result in a reduction in the costs of malpractice insurance and an elimination of the pressures on physicians to order unnecessary medical tests.

Second, we urge a repeal of the measures which consign health insurance to state regulation. We want a national market for health insurance — we want to increase competition and thereby lower costs.

Third, we urge that hospitals, clinics, and physicians be required to post their prices — so that consumers can shop around.

Fourth, we urge that legislation be passed eliminating the connection between employment and the formation of pools for the purchase of health insurance so that voluntary associations — churches, clubs, professional societies, unions, and other comparable organizations — can form pools to negotiate discounts and health insurance arrangements on behalf of their members.

Mr. President, when you were inaugurated, you promised to “roll back the specter of a warming planet” and “restore science to its rightful place.” This past Fall, we learned that what many have long suspected is sadly true: that the work done by the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, which formed the basis for the four reports issued by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is a fraud — that the data was doctored, that the computer simulation was a scam, and that systematic efforts were made by prominent climate scientists to corrupt the peer-review process and suppress legitimate criticism — all for the purpose of imposing a socialist strait jacket on the world economy.

We remind you, Mr. President, that a specter is “an apparition inspiring dread” and that one of the principal functions of science is to dispel illusions of this very sort. We demand that you now be true to your word; that you act to “roll back the specter of a warming planet” and “restore science to its rightful place” by sponsoring an impartial reconsideration of the evidence both for and against man-made climate change.

Finally — and most important — Mr. President, we remind you that this country faces an economic crisis and that a great many Americans are unemployed and underemployed.

It is not our opinion that a massive expansion in the federal bureaucracy is conducive to a recovery of the private sector. Nor do we do believe that a massive increase in the national debt is favorable to the long-term well-being of the American people. We call upon you to balance the federal budget by reducing dramatically the size of that bureaucracy and by eliminating unnecessary programs reflective of corrupt bargains negotiated in the past.

We also call upon you to make the tax cuts introduced by President Bush permanent — so that Americans have a compelling reason to work long hours and risk their savings by investing them in new ventures likely to produce jobs.

We have one more thing to say. Not long after the spontaneous formation of the Tea-Party Movement, Anderson Cooper of CNN disgraced himself by applying to those who joined that movement the obscene phrase “tea-baggers.” Since that time, Mr. President, you have demeaned your office and others, such as Senator Schumer of New York, have demeaned theirs by deploying the same vile phrase. We call upon you to stop this practice, to apologize to the American people for your misconduct, and to conduct debates concerning public policy in a civil fashion from now on.

If, in his victory speech, Scott Brown were to say something along these lines, I am confident that it would electrify the nation, put both the Obama administration and the Democratic Party on the defensive, and set the Republican Party on the right path. The country is beginning to mobilize; the first Tuesday in November is just a few months away; and now is the time for the campaign to begin.

I’ve been involved in politics for longer than I usually care to remember. I’ve been in and around countless campaigns at all levels of government. One of the more intense times in political campaigns is the period immediately following a campaign; when operatives are busy taking credit or assigning blame. And let me tell you, they take this spin-battle very seriously.

That said, this is a battle that takes place AFTER the returns are in. Politico has a “leaked” memo from the Coakley campaign blaming national Democrats for their poor showing:

National Dems Failed to Aid Coakley Until Too Late

— Coakley campaign provided national Democrats with all poll results since early December

— Coakley campaign noted concerns about “apathy” and failure of national Democrats to contribute early in December. Coakley campaign noted fundraising concerns throughout December and requested national Democratic help.

— DNC and other Dem organizations did not engage until the week before the election, much too late to aid Coakley operation

Brown Capitalized on Concerns About National Democrats

— From the beginning, Brown labeled President Obama’s health care and cap and trade plans as tax increases. Polling throughout the race showed this to be the most effective attack on Coakley

Politico even has a response from a “Senior Democratic Official”:

This memo is a pack full of lies and fantasies — The DNC and the DSCC did everything they were asked and have been involved in the race for several weeks, not just the last one.

The campaign failed to recognize this threat, failed to keep Coakley on the campaign trail, failed to create a negative narrative about Brown, failed to stay on the air in December while he was running a brilliant campaign. It’s wishful thinking from a pollster, candidate and campaign team that were caught napping and are going to allow one of the worst debacles in American political history to happen on their watch that they are at the 11th hour are going to blame others.

I have NEVER seen such an intense and personal blame-game play out in public while polls are still open. This is simply unprecedented. We can assume that whatever internal polling numbers the Coakley campaign has, they are terrible. Even worse than any of us could have hoped.

It should be a good night.

Yesterday, I introduced myself and told my story about a half-dozen Californians who decided, at the last minute, to travel to Massachusetts to campaign for Scott Brown. Below is video from today’s activity on the Brown Campaign.

This video is quickly making the rounds across the Internet. It show’s Coakley staffers or volunteers throwing some reporters out of a Coakley office. Aside from the humor of a bunch of leftists and progressives suddenly discovering and asserting private property rights, the video has a classic display of the left’s quick resort to the N-Bomb, as in Nazis.

The video is just about a minute long and they can still work in a comparison to Nazis? Sheesh.

But, there is something else very interesting about this video that isn’t getting talked about.

One of the staffers shown cashiering the reporters out of the office is wearing a turtleneck with “UFCW Local One” prominently displayed on the neck.

UFCW Local One is the local for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union...in Upstate New York.

If Coakley has to import union activists from other states, her campaign is in more trouble than even we realized.

The folks at  Election Journal caught up with Isabel Melendez handing out absentee ballots in Lawrence, Massachusetts. She also helpfully explains how she can mark the ballot for the voter:

“My candidate is Martha…so I can mark it”

If one were trying to manufacturing fraudulent votes, absentee ballots would be a great place to start. In many cases stacks of these have been turned in at one time, making it impossible to verify that an individual voter submitted each ballot.

Check for more updates throughout the day.

UPDATE: This Boston Globe story reports that Isabel Melendez is a community activist in Lawrence. She ran for mayor of the city in 2001, losing out by just over 900 votes.

Often people write to me asking, “Pamela, what can I do? The problems are overwhelming.”

Well, here is an easy and immediate fix: if you are in Massachusetts, vote for Scott Brown. If Brown makes it, the Democrats lose their super majority. Scott Brown in the Senate would break the filibuster-proof Congress. He can save America from imminent ruin from statists and socialism.

Yes, the election in Massachusetts today is that big. The Brown/Coakley face-off is arguably the most critical and historic race in the already monumental 2010 election year. We can stop, with one election, America’s race off the cliff, a race that comes to us courtesy the Obama Administration. The stakes could not be higher.

Scott Brown faces enormous odds, in the form of the enormous and corrupt Democrat Massachusetts political machine. And yet the Democrats are clearly running scared. A blue state for decades, the union thug-owned Democrat machine in Massachusetts is pulling out all the racketeering stops to destroy democracy and keep their party’s Congressional filibuster-proof majority. They are scared witless, as evidenced by the array of dirty tricks they are playing against Brown. The vicious attack ads are just the beginning. Brown has filed an ethics complaint with Massachusetts’ State Ethics Commission after the Service Employees International Union, which supports Coakley (of course), used state resources to aid her campaign.

Not coincidentally, the SEIU is closely linked to Barack Obama. According to the Federal Election Commission, the SEIU’s Committee on Political Education spent $18,818,358.97 on Obama’s behalf through December 2008. Some of this money paid for door-to-door canvassing for Obama, voter identification and registration, and phone banks. Andy Stern, the Service Employees International Union president, said in May 2009: “We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama — $60.7 million to be exact — and we’re proud of it.” And Obama remembered to thank the SEIU, paying at least $2,250,000 to the SEIU over the last few months of his election campaign.

And now the same organization is pulling out all the stops to elect Martha Coakley and protect the Democrats’ anti-democratic super majority. And while it’s important to focus on the exceptional qualities and skills that Scott Brown will bring to the Senate, it is just as important to expose the ugly and disturbing resume of his unworthy opponent, Martha Coakley.

The thing is, the Democrats are so cocksure of their control, of the absolute corruption of the system and of the efficiency of their systemic voter fraud apparatus (the latter largely operated by ACORN), that they think they can run anyone, no matter how awful his or her record may be, or even someone with a mysterious opaque history (i.e., Barack Obama), and still win. They are not altogether wrong in that. If Martha Coakley wins today, their assumption will be proven right again.

Coakley, as Attorney General of Massachusetts, once advocated for the release without bail of a man who raped a 23-month-old baby girl with a hot curling iron. The rapist’s father had made a hefty contribution to Coakley’s campaign. And that is not the only ugly episode in the checkered career of Martha Coakley. You may remember the Amiraults, who were among the foremost victims of the bizarre “witch hunts” that went on in the 1980’s: people who ran daycare centers were accused of ritual rapes, devil worship, even baby sacrifices, etc. — all of it based merely on the weird testimony of obviously coached and manipulated children. And in spite of the egregious nature of the alleged crimes, there was no physical evidence to establish that they had happened at all. These were terrible persecutions of scores of innocent people in a sort of fashionable prosecution spree.

Yet even after Gerald Amirault had served fourteen years in prison despite the lack of a shred of evidence supporting the charges against him, and after the Massachusetts Governor’s Board of Pardons and Paroles had voted unanimously to commute his sentence, Martha Coakley lobbied hard against his release, and succeeded in keeping him in prison for four more years.

Martha Coakley is all for releasing true rapists with hot curling irons, but as for innocent people, that is a different story.

Maybe Gerald Amirault should have made a contribution to the Coakley campaign.

Vote for Scott Brown. So much of America’s future depends upon it.

Often people write to me asking, “Pamela, what can I do? The problems are overwhelming.”

Well, here is an easy and immediate fix: if you are in Massachusetts, vote for Scott Brown. If Brown makes it, the Democrats lose their super majority. Scott Brown in the Senate would break the filibuster-proof Congress. He can save America from imminent ruin from statists and socialism.

Yes, the election in Massachusetts today is that big. The Brown/Coakley face-off is arguably the most critical and historic race in the already monumental 2010 election year. We can stop, with one election, America’s race off the cliff, a race that comes to us courtesy the Obama Administration. The stakes could not be higher.

Scott Brown faces enormous odds, in the form of the enormous and corrupt Democrat Massachusetts political machine. And yet the Democrats are clearly running scared. A blue state for decades, the union thug-owned Democrat machine in Massachusetts is pulling out all the racketeering stops to destroy democracy and keep their party’s Congressional filibuster-proof majority. They are scared witless, as evidenced by the array of dirty tricks they are playing against Brown. The vicious attack ads are just the beginning. Brown has filed an ethics complaint with Massachusetts’ State Ethics Commission after the Service Employees International Union, which supports Coakley (of course), used state resources to aid her campaign.

Not coincidentally, the SEIU is closely linked to Barack Obama. According to the Federal Election Commission, the SEIU’s Committee on Political Education spent $18,818,358.97 on Obama’s behalf through December 2008. Some of this money paid for door-to-door canvassing for Obama, voter identification and registration, and phone banks. Andy Stern, the Service Employees International Union president, said in May 2009: “We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama — $60.7 million to be exact — and we’re proud of it.” And Obama remembered to thank the SEIU, paying at least $2,250,000 to the SEIU over the last few months of his election campaign.

And now the same organization is pulling out all the stops to elect Martha Coakley and protect the Democrats’ anti-democratic super majority. And while it’s important to focus on the exceptional qualities and skills that Scott Brown will bring to the Senate, it is just as important to expose the ugly and disturbing resume of his unworthy opponent, Martha Coakley.

The thing is, the Democrats are so cocksure of their control, of the absolute corruption of the system and of the efficiency of their systemic voter fraud apparatus (the latter largely operated by ACORN), that they think they can run anyone, no matter how awful his or her record may be, or even someone with a mysterious opaque history (i.e., Barack Obama), and still win. They are not altogether wrong in that. If Martha Coakley wins today, their assumption will be proven right again.

Coakley, as Attorney General of Massachusetts, once advocated for the release without bail of a man who raped a 23-month-old baby girl with a hot curling iron. The rapist’s father had made a hefty contribution to Coakley’s campaign. And that is not the only ugly episode in the checkered career of Martha Coakley. You may remember the Amiraults, who were among the foremost victims of the bizarre “witch hunts” that went on in the 1980’s: people who ran daycare centers were accused of ritual rapes, devil worship, even baby sacrifices, etc. — all of it based merely on the weird testimony of obviously coached and manipulated children. And in spite of the egregious nature of the alleged crimes, there was no physical evidence to establish that they had happened at all. These were terrible persecutions of scores of innocent people in a sort of fashionable prosecution spree.

Yet even after Gerald Amirault had served fourteen years in prison despite the lack of a shred of evidence supporting the charges against him, and after the Massachusetts Governor’s Board of Pardons and Paroles had voted unanimously to commute his sentence, Martha Coakley lobbied hard against his release, and succeeded in keeping him in prison for four more years.

Martha Coakley is all for releasing true rapists with hot curling irons, but as for innocent people, that is a different story.

Maybe Gerald Amirault should have made a contribution to the Coakley campaign.

Vote for Scott Brown. So much of America’s future depends upon it.

In Massachusetts, where 97% of us have health insurance by mandate since 2006, we have learned a few things about health care reform.

We have learned that universal coverage does not mean universal access to a doctor.  The Massachusetts Medical Society reports that there is a critical shortage of family physicians and severe shortage of internal medicine doctors.  Seven physician specialties are also operating in critical or severe physician labor markets.

A recent study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation showed that 75% of non-emergency ER visits occurred because a regular physician was not available after hours, and half of these visits occurred because a timely appointment was unavailable.  With more than half of all the doctors trained in Massachusetts leaving the state, citing the practice environment and low salary levels, and one out of every four currently practicing doctors considering a career change, it does not appear that access issues are going to improve soon.

We have also learned that mandating coverage does not decrease costs.  In fact, health insurance premiums have gone up and health care expenditures have not gone down since universal coverage was mandated in Massachusetts.  The cost for Commonwealth Care (the state’s low or no-cost insurance program) is five times its initial budget.  Defensive medicine (medical practice aimed at reducing a physician’s likelihood of being sued),  was not affected by the mandate, and is estimated to cost $1.5 billion annually in Massachusetts – actually, more than enough to pay for Commonwealth Care.  Massachusetts is now looking to cut health care costs, in a collaborative fashion between hospitals, physicians and lawmakers.

Our Massachusetts health care reform is said to be the model for national  reform.  The health care reform bill in Congress calls for an “Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality” which will disseminate research findings to help inform the decisions of patients and providers regarding the clinical effectiveness of different medical treatments.  Yet our experience in Massachusetts does not appear to be “informing” the decisions of those in Congress.  There are laudable and necessary elements to the health care reform proposed, but it is far from a finished product.   Our legislators know politics, but most do not know economics, few have studied medicine, and only your personal physician understands your medical needs.

It is time for the citizens of Massachusetts to inform Washington that they must look at the results – the evidence – of health care reform in the Commonwealth.  We alone have a vote in the health care reform debate.   You can vote for Martha Coakley, who has said she will pass the Senate bill in its current state or you can vote for Scott Brown who has said that he will take the experience of Massachusetts to Washington to help craft a better bill.   Please choose wisely, and vote in the special election today.  The country is watching.

It has begun…

When I heard that Brown had been within reaching distance of Coakley, and that Brown would be the 41st vote to stop Obamacare. I got together with a good friend of mine and said “We need to be there.”

Knowing how huge this election was and how important it was to me, we got on the our local radio station last Friday and said “We are going to Massachusetts to defeat Martha Coakley in one of 2010s most important elections. Who is coming?”

Being from California, and with such last minute notice, we didn’t think we could get anyone to come. To our surprise, 6 strangers come forward to help us for an election on the other side of the country. I have created a video blog of what is has been like since we have been here, and what it is like to work on a campaign, to try and make a difference, show people how important it is to be involved in politics, for it is the future of our country.

Tomorrow is a historic election for Senate in Massachusetts.

An election that is going change the United States forever, either for better or worse. If Republican Scott Brown wins it is going to send a message to Washington that the Obama Administration is no longer the invincible power that it once seemed. As it will be the 3rd strike for the Democrats, after losing the Governors’ races in Virginia and New Jersey.

If Martha Coakley wins then the it will be another lobbyist/union-bought-candidate who is out of touch with reality and will be another Democrat that will vote for Obama care. Dramatically changing the health care system in the United States.

I will have updates of the campaign and election throughout the day tomorrow, and more video blogs.

“I certainly didn’t realize that this was a rally for Martha and I thought it was inappropriate that she was starting to ask for other people’s votes when we were trying to remember Martin Luther King Jr.”

Scott Brown
2010 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast
Boston, MA

Martha Coakley told attendees at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast this morning that, “Dr. King would be standing with me if he was alive today.” Scott Brown answered reporters while leaving the breakfast:

“I thought it was inappropriate to be politicking when we are trying to honor Martin Luther King today. I don’t have any comments on what it says about her. Right now I am not going to comment on anything political right now, we’re going to start campaigning in about a half hour… I certainly didn’t realize that this was a rally for Martha and I thought it was inappropriate that she was starting to ask for other people’s votes when we were trying to remember Martin Luther King Jr. …I don’t remember hearing anything about Martin Luther King except for minor references. “

Scott Brown attended the breakfast this morning but was not asked to speak.

Man, Scott Brown sure makes it look easy. This was perfect:

NECN Boston

By the way… Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece would likely disagree with Martha Coakley.
Life Site News reported:

On a day when Americans across the country are celebrating the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his desire to regard all people as Americans worthy of equal treatment, his niece says King’s dream, if announced today, would also include protecting unborn children from abortion.

Dr. Alveda King, today, is celebrating Uncle’s life and she said he would agree that, when it comes to treating all people with respect, that he would include babies before birth.

“Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of a Beloved Community where all are treated with respect and dignity,” Alveda King told LifeNews.com today.

“He fought against society’s exclusion of people who were treated as less than human because of their appearance,” she added. “Today, we are compelled to continue Uncle Martin’s fight by standing up for those who are treated as less than human because of their helplessness and inconvenience.”

King told LifeNews.com, “The unborn are as much a part of the Beloved Community as are newborns, infants, teenagers, adults, and the elderly.”

President Obama traveled to Boston to help stop the bleeding of Martha Coakley’s campaign from several self-inflicted wounds. There are many critiques of the speech, with some pundits saying Obama was flat, uninteresting, and full of the usual drive-by campaign rhetoric that we have all become able to recite ad nauseum.

As most of us are aware, Obama–without his teleprompter–rambles, is at times incoherent, and goes on and on to answer a yes or no question. He needs his teleprompter. It’s not like an addiction need, it’s more like ‘I really need my teleprompter, because I don’t want to say what you don’t want to hear’ type of issue.

Obama and his compliant press have tried to manufacture him as a centrist; however, that cover has been blown as of today.

What was stated in the Coakley cheerleading campaign speech in Boston, I don’t think Obama meant to say. He’s been off the campaign trail for so long, that he’s not on his game; I think the misstatement by Obama was a huge gaffe. At about 4:28 during the speech, Obama states:

“…you will carry on the best progressive, forward-looking values…”

He alluded to Massachusetts’ as being progressive and may have thought he was in good company, but for those watching the speech who are undecided and awakened to the whole progressive agenda, maybe not so much anymore. I’ve seen many speeches, and I have yet to hear Obama use the word progressive. He is very careful to hide his progressive roots from the Independent voters who are so critical. It is also further confirmation to the rest of the country, for those who continue to doubt, that he is indeed a progressive and clearly not a centrist

Finally, could Obama have underestimated the people in Massachusetts? Could they be reclaiming their history as it appears? After all, Massachusetts did fire the shot that was heard around the world.

President Obama traveled to Boston to help stop the bleeding of Martha Coakley’s campaign from several self-inflicted wounds. There are many critiques of the speech, with some pundits saying Obama was flat, uninteresting, and full of the usual drive-by campaign rhetoric that we have all become able to recite ad nauseum.

As most of us are aware, Obama–without his teleprompter–rambles, is at times incoherent, and goes on and on to answer a yes or no question. He needs his teleprompter. It’s not like an addiction need, it’s more like ‘I really need my teleprompter, because I don’t want to say what you don’t want to hear’ type of issue.

Obama and his compliant press have tried to manufacture him as a centrist; however, that cover has been blown as of today.

What was stated in the Coakley cheerleading campaign speech in Boston, I don’t think Obama meant to say. He’s been off the campaign trail for so long, that he’s not on his game; I think the misstatement by Obama was a huge gaffe. At about 4:28 during the speech, Obama states:

“…you will carry on the best progressive, forward-looking values…”

He alluded to Massachusetts’ as being progressive and may have thought he was in good company, but for those watching the speech who are undecided and awakened to the whole progressive agenda, maybe not so much anymore. I’ve seen many speeches, and I have yet to hear Obama use the word progressive. He is very careful to hide his progressive roots from the Independent voters who are so critical. It is also further confirmation to the rest of the country, for those who continue to doubt, that he is indeed a progressive and clearly not a centrist

Finally, could Obama have underestimated the people in Massachusetts? Could they be reclaiming their history as it appears? After all, Massachusetts did fire the shot that was heard around the world.

Consider this irony: Democrats and their special interest allies are in the fight of their lives to keep the seat formerly held by the champion of socialized medicine in the bluest of states.  Democrats should be tap dancing on the foreheads of Republicans in Massachusetts.  But instead, they’re racing against the clock for a deal on health care reform because they run the risk of losing their critical 60^th vote in just a few days.

So the Democrats strategy is clear:  seek forgiveness of American voters in November instead of permission now because the probable message from Tuesday’s election will not be in favor of ObamaCare.  Democrats are “hoping” to have an overall deal on health care reform, the tax-dodging Ways and Means committee chairman Charlie Rangel told NationalJournal.com, just in time to avoid the Tuesday Massachusetts vote.

The Huffington Post quoted SEIU vice president Anna Burger as saying, “Let’s go on and actually pass this bill.”  Anna’s wish is, of course, this White House’s command.

The special election this week in Massachusetts can easily be viewed as a referendum on Obama, his policies and specifically government-run health care.  And in a state that is navy blue, it’s a dog fight, with SEIU stepping in to plop down over $600,000 for TV ads savaging Republican candidate Scott Brown.  And RedState.com reported House Democrats are spending beaucoup bucks to elect a Democrat to the Senate.  It’s pure panic time for Democrats in Washington.

But they’re working as fast as they can to make health care reform a non-issue by the time the newest senator from Massachusetts is seated.

And worse still, more giveaways are emerging from Washington, DC but this time, not to lawmakers but to campaign-funding special interest groups.  News broke Thursday afternoon that Democratic leaders had “negotiated” a compromise with labor leaders over the so-called “Cadillac” tax.  They must have made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

The New York Post said it well in Friday’s edition:

Big Labor got some big love from President Obama and congressional Democrats yesterday after they agreed to exempt union workers from the whopping “Cadillac tax” on high-cost health-care plans until 2018.

The sweetheart deal, hammered out behind closed doors, will save union employees at least $60 billion over the years involved, while others won’t be as lucky — they’ll have to cough up almost $90 billion.

So Andy Stern can go back to his members and say, “See what our $60 million investment in electing Obama got us?”

And CNN.com reported that, “AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka has made looking out for all workers — not just union members — a big part of his platform.”  What a peach!  That must be why benefits negotiated through collective bargaining were exempted but not those for non-union workers.  Way to look out for everyone, Richie!

The Post also reported:

Powerful unions were well-represented around the bargaining table.

Participants included AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Andy Stern, head of Service Employees International Union; Anna Burger, head of Change to Win [and SEIU vice president]; and the leaders of unions representing teachers, government workers, food and commercial workers, and electricians.

Isn’t that great?  Obama’s pledge to rid the special interests from the halls of power seems to be more than a little phony these days – it’s bordering on insulting.

This Christmas Tree for campaign funders and liberal groups is the skunk at the garden party for Americans.  And the bad thing for Democrats is this time, Americans know it.  And in all likelihood, the Democrats know it too and that’s why they’re scrounging up a compromise because the wheels may fall off Tuesday.

Republican Scott Brown has been running ads in Massachusetts where he is out driving around in his old pickup truck while campaigning for US Senator something Marcia Martha Coakley refuses to do.

On Sunday Barack Obama slammed Scott Brown and his truck several times in his Bush-bashing campaign speech for Martha Coakley.

Maybe Barack Obama didn’t notice that Scott Brown’s truck is a GM truck.

A GMC Canyon
Hat Tip ebayer

Maybe Obama forgot that the US now OWNS General Motors. You’d think he’d want Americans to “Buy GM” not “Bash GM”? You’d think.

More… Scott Brown gave an excellent rebuttal to Obama’s truck bashing.

Thank you very much.  What a privilege it is to share the stage with John Ratzenberger, Lenny Clarke, Doug Flutie, Curt Schilling, Fred Smerlas, Steve DeOssie, and many, many others – and my favorite singer, Ayla Brown.

As you know, Curt Schilling made the news just a couple of days ago when my opponent didn’t recognize his name.  Of all the many false accusations she’s made in this campaign, one of the strangest was to call Curt Schilling a Yankee fan.  Let me properly identify the guy she’s been smearing on the radio: His name is Curt Schilling, formerly of the World Champion Red Sox – you know, a baseball team that plays at Fenway Park.

Doug Flutie, what can I say, great guy, great career, and I am proud you are here.  John Ratzenberger, a wonderful actor, you brought a lot of laughs to us during your many years with Cheers.  Fred and Steve, you are legends and good friends. Ayla, thank you for again sharing your beautiful voice.  Millions have seen her on national TV, and going through this campaign I’ve got an idea of what Ayla went through on “American Idol.”  She had to deal with Simon Cowell, and I had to deal with David Gergen.

Our campaign is going strong, and the finish line is in sight.  The day of decision is almost here.  The whole nation is watching, but the choice on Election Day belongs to you and no one else.  Friends and fellow citizens, I’m Scott Brown, I’m from Wrentham, I drive a truck and I’m asking for your vote.

When we started this campaign just a few months ago, the political machine wrote us off.  A Senate seat in Massachusetts, we were told, was already spoken for – and this special election was just a minor detail that wouldn’t get in the way.  The political machine already had a short-term placeholder in the Senate.  Now all they needed was a long-term placeholder, and everything had been arranged.

Well, there was just one little problem with that plan – the independent-thinking people of Massachusetts wanted a real choice, and they – and you — have made this a real contest.

The voters are doing their own thinking, and the machine politicians don’t quite know how to react.  So they put in a distress call to Washington, and the next thing you know, Air Force One is landing at Logan.

My first response is very simple: Democrat or Republican, the president of the United States is always welcome in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Now, it wasn’t exactly a scheduled visit.  Sort of a last-minute thing. The political machine controlled that Senate, he was told, and it was going to stay that way.

Well, the party bosses gave the president some bad information.  This Senate seat belongs to no one person and no one political party – it belongs to the people of Massachusetts.

Maybe they also told President Obama that I had no chance at all.  After all, who ever heard of guy from Wrentham getting elected to the U.S. Senate?  But as the president might remember, upsets like that have been known to happen.

The president may recall as well how much he used to talk about a new kind of politics – about campaigns based on conviction, instead of just false and small-minded negative ads.  Well, as long as he’s paying a visit, he might want to talk to Martha about that.  Not only are her ads negative, they are malicious. How quickly the politics of hope have become replaced by the politics of desperation. Shame on Martha.

Before the president rushed to the scene, we saw my opponent standing with a former president, the governor, the senior senator, the appointed senator – the whole party establishment, right on down the line.

At the beginning, it felt like me against the machine. But guess what? I was wrong. It’s us against the machine.

I don’t need an establishment to prop me up.  I stand before you as the proud candidate of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents across Massachusetts, north and south, east and west.

The party machine is in high gear for my opponent.  The establishment is afraid of losing their Senate seat.  You can all remind them that this is not their seat, it is yours.

Should I have the honor of representing our state in Washington, D.C., I will serve no faction but Massachusetts.  I will pursue no agenda but what is right.  I will be nobody’s senator but yours.

One of the great advantages of being independent is that you meet voters of every kind.  And you learn what people are really thinking about the big issues facing our state and our country.  The political experts are still wondering how this little campaign of ours grew so fast and gathered so much strength and momentum.  The reason is simple.

We do not want a senator whose only question on health care is to ask Harry Reid, “How do you want me to vote?”  Massachusetts wants real reform, and not this trillion-dollar Obama health care bill being forced on the American people.

This bill would raise taxes.  It would cut Medicare by half a trillion dollars.  It would be unfair to our veterans.  It would destroy jobs, and run our nation deeper into debt.  It is not in the interest of our state or country – and as your senator, I will insist we start over.

I will work in the Senate to reform health care in the right way, the honest way.  No more closed-door meetings behind the scenes. No more arrogant party leadership.  We can do better, and as the 41st senator I’ll make sure of it.

In health care, we need to start fresh, work together, and do the job right.

On the question of taxes, my opponent this week endorsed yet another tax increase.  She summed up her whole approach by saying, quote, “We need to get taxes up.”

She has it exactly wrong: We need to get job creation up, and taxes down. I will work in the Senate to put government back on the side of people who create jobs – and as John F. Kennedy taught us, that starts with a tax cut for the American people.

As a lieutenant colonel and 30-year member of the Army National Guard, I will keep faith with all who serve, and with our veterans, too.  I will work in the Senate to defend our nation’s interests and to keep our military second to none.

In our debate, my opponent insisted that there are no longer any terrorists in Afghanistan.  Maybe the president can pull her aside today and explain the basics: There are still many terrorists in Afghanistan, Martha!  They are at war with the United States, and for the safety of this nation we must defeat them

As an attorney, I believe that our Constitution and laws exist to protect this nation – they do not grant rights and privileges to enemies in wartime. In dealing with terrorists, our tax dollars should pay for weapons to stop them, not lawyers to defend them.

Raising taxes, taking over our health care, and giving new rights to terrorists is the agenda of a new establishment in Washington.  And they think you’re on board with all of it.  They think they own your vote.  They’re sure they can’t lose.  But on Election Day, the Bay State will set them straight.

We are witnesses, you and I, to something historic.  We have run a race never to be forgotten.  We are in a cause that deserves all that we can give it.  In these final forty-eight hours, let us see it through to victory.

All along, I have counted on the goodwill and support of independent-minded people like you, and never more than right now.  I ask for any help you can give, and above all for the honor of your vote.

In return, I make this pledge to you and to every citizen of Massachusetts: If I am entrusted with the people’s seat, I will give everything that is in me to be a good and faithful senator, and to make you proud.

Thank you all very much.

Beyond a pleasing sight for the heart, what would Ted Kennedy’s seat going Republican really mean?

A lot.

First, there would be the psychological effect.

On Democratic donors — it would discourage them from opening their checkbooks. On Republican donors — the impact would be electric in kindling their interest and generosity. On Democratic incumbents seeking re-election — it would make the beaches and golf courses that await them in their Florida retirement homes (and the lucrative lobbying jobs in Washington) infinitely more attractive. On Republicans considering running for the House and the Senate — it will help them see the truth: That their time is at hand! (It might even help our esteemed Party Chairman Michael Steele, realize that we can capture both houses this year!)

But in the Senate itself, it would really signal the end of Obama’s legislative dominance. He’ll probably be able to pass health care either by Democratic dithering in certifying Brown’s election or by ramming through the bill while he’s en route to Washington on the shuttle.

But, beyond that, the prospects of getting 60 votes on the remaining items in Obama’s legislative agenda: cap and trade, union card check, and immigration reform would slip away with the Massachusetts result.

He cannot govern through reconciliation (passing bills with 51 votes by pretending they are just budget bills). If it were that easy, why would Harry Reid have worked so hard – and so successfully – to bribe Senators Landrieu (D-La), Lincoln (D-Ark) and Nelson (D-Neb)? Why would he have caved in to the demands of Connecticut’s Joseph Lieberman and discarded the public option much to the chagrin of his House colleagues?

A victory for Scott Brown would represent the Gettysburg of the Obama Administration – its high water mark, its tipping point.

But even more corrosive for Obama and the Democrats is the knowledge that nobody is safe from Republican assault. If the GOP can win a Senate seat in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts, it can win anywhere, anytime, against anyone. Long term Democratic incumbents from largely Republican districts would have to rethink their loyalty to Reid and Pelosi. Particularly in the House, it will be ever more difficult to round up majorities for Administration bills. Politicians will start running for cover and hiding in the cloakrooms.

Democrats will try to spin their defeat by blaming their candidate, Martha Coakley, for not campaigning hard enough. They will say that they lost because their base did not turn out and that the solution is to pass ever more radical legislation in the hopes of rekindling their fervor. But losing Massachusetts, on top of Virginia and New Jersey, will convince even the most loyal Democrat that the handwriting is, indeed, on the wall.

For all of these reasons, please make an effort today to telephone or e-mail any friends, family or colleagues you know in Massachusetts to urge them to come out and vote for Scott Brown. There is so very much at stake!

co-written with Eileen McGann

Wait, what was that? Did Martha Coakley actually say that? Yes she did.  Here is the quote for those who have not heard or read it,

“You can have religious freedom but you probably shouldn’t work in the emergency room.”

She was saying that about devout Catholics on Boston’s WBSM to Kevin Pittman. But it is not where she said it, or to whom she said it. It is the words she chose to use.

Where to start? The sheer arrogance is mind boggling.  Is she so full of hubris that she thinks that everyone in Massachusetts from Uxbridge to Cambridge agrees with her? This is what she says off the top of her head in an interview? This sentiment is so close to the surface of her consciousness that it spills out under routine questioning? How does one pick from such a plethora of goodies that Martha has given us during this campaign.

As a devout Catholic who benefited from medical care at Mayo Clinic’s Saint Mary’s Hospital, I have to say I am more than a little insulted. The matter-of-factness of Coakley’s anti-Catholic statement suggests that she is a bigot. Is that the image a candidate for Senate anywhere really strives for? What kind of hell is it working on her press staff? Her press people had to be dying of embarrassment and frustration. How does one excuse such blatant tactlessness?

So why does Martha Coakley believe she could get away with making such thoughtless statements?  I doubt she has had a real conversation about religion–or anything–with someone who disagrees with her in years. She is the kind of woman who lives in an echo chamber. All she hears is what she believes. It is easy for her to blurt out something like an anti-Catholic statement, because she honestly believes most people agrees with her. That has to be at least part of the reason why she would say something so insensitive. Plus, with a compliant media, she’s probably rarely been called out on anything she said in the past.

She is clearly out of touch. Along with living in her leftwing echo chamber, she has lost any connection to the people who would be her constituents, e.g. the folks outside Fenway Park. How could such a clueless politician get elected Attorney General? Her record as a DA and AG is beyond any logical explanation. But, that’s just the beginning of her problems.

Her statement that all the terrorists were out of Afghanistan was laughable. But, this latest smear against Catholics? It is hard to imagine a more ridiculous candidate. Is Martha Coakley looking to be the female Michael Dukakis?

Martha Coakley comes off as a person who has no idea how she looks to others. Her reaction to the Meehan kerfuffle was cold. She stood impassive while one of her aides attacked a reporter. Perhaps her reaction to the knock down is more indicative of her character than her words. What’s most fascinating is that she seems clueless that she made a complete fool of herself.

I have questions for her: If the terrorists are not in Afghanistan Martha, where are they now? Do you think the Taliban qualify as terrorists or are they just the poor misunderstood denizens of some sort of Hindu Kush Pandora? What about Catholics?

I thank you for stating we have a right to our religion but this issue about emergency room work…How do you come up with that idea? If you were looking for attention well then you got it. I do not think it is the type of attention I would want if I were running for the U.S. Senate.

In the end Martha Coakley is the gift that keeps on giving. Her gaffes rival any of Joe Biden’s in breadth and depth of stupidity. Biden has had years on the national stage to accumulate his impressive amount of gaffes. You’ve almost matched him in a matter of days. That has to be a record.

One in five democrats in Massachusetts is going with Scott Brown.

That’s bad enough.

Now there’s more bad news for democrat Martha Coakley…

Scott Brown is holding a press conference at 4:00 PM EST. (From contacts in Massachusetts) He may sue the Democratic Party for using his picture on ads as a UPS driver.

Red Mass has the document:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACT: Felix Browne
January 16, 2010 617-335-8333

MEDIA ADVISORY FOR TODAY

Dan Winslow, counsel for the Scott Brown for U.S. Senate campaign, will hold a media availability to announce the filing of a criminal complaint against the Massachusetts Democratic Party regarding a recent mailing paid for and sent by the Massachusetts Democratic Party. Winslow will make a statement and take reporters’ questions at MassGOP Headquarters in Boston TODAY at 4:00 PM.

Massachusetts GOP Headquarters
85 Merrimac Street, 4th Floor
Boston.

Wow! Just WOW!

The Boston Herald reported on this Coakley ad earlier today—

UPS is not happy that the Democratic Party campaign pamphlet attacking Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown used the company’s slogan “What can Brown do for you?”

Evidently, Scott Brown is not happy about this either.

It looks like the Democrats will have to play defense… Can’t wait to see Obama on stage tomorrow.

Look for updates at Gateway Pundit.

UPDATE: It looks like it was the disgusting Coakley rape flyers that were sent out that the Brown Campaign is upset about:

UPDATE: Coakley Staffers crash Brown Press Conference!

UPDATE: Oh my… The criminal complaint is against the Democratic Party for their awful abortion mailings.

The Washington Times posted video from the press conference:

Dan Winslow, Brown campaign counsel, spoke to reporters about the campaign’s filing of a criminal complaint against the Massachusetts Democratic Party regarding a recent mailing paid for and sent by the Massachusetts Democratic Party.

It’s not the first time they’ve filed charges…..
The Scott Brown Campaign filed charges against the SEIU in December.

It seems the Democrats have the art of poor taste down to a science.  Who else would think to use an image of the World Trade Center, destroyed by terrorists in 2001 because the towers were a symbol of American greed, to attack a Republican candidate over Wall Street “greed?”

According to Politico, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee ran an ad against Republican Scott Brown, accusing him of opposing a “plan to crack down on greed and corruption.”

Just when I think the Democrats can’t stoop any lower to retain the seat of the former champion of socialized medicine, they sink to using the tragedy of the World Trade Center.  But not in a way to say that Martha Coakley will stand up to terrorists - oh no, instead its used to exemplify what they see as the worst of America.

It goes to show even with being in power, the Democratic Party is bankrupt of ideas to help America.  After all, why wouldn’t Martha Coakley run on Ted Kennedy’s legacy of enacting socialized medicine?  Perhaps because even the voter of Massachusetts don’t want it?<

Or why doesn’t she run on the “success” of the stimulus or even propose a second stimulus?  Perhaps even the voters of the bluest state in America see it’s a sham?

As the Democrats, SEIU and others on the left get more desperate, their tactics and arguments get more pathetic.  Regardless of what happens in Tuesday’s election, they’ve already lost.

Wednesday will mark the first anniversary of the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama — who began his Presidency, as nearly all new first-term Presidents do, high in the polls. At that time, Obama’s approval ratings were, in fact, in the stratosphere. In the last twelve months, however, they have fallen further and faster than those of any President since polling began; and, and, as developments in Massachusetts suggest, his party is now in danger of suffering in November an historic defeat — which is likely to rival its fate in 1938, 1966, and 1994 if the Democrats do not, as I believe they may, do even worse. In a poll released on Thursday, the National Journal reports that half of the adults sampled responded that, if new Presidential elections were held right now, they would vote against Barack Obama, and less than a quarter of those questioned indicated that they would vote to re-elect the President. It is an appropriate time in which to pose this question: Why have Obama and his supporters fallen so far and so fast?

We must, I think, begin before the beginning. The Obama campaign was predicated on a fraud. With a skill that was breathtaking, Barack Obama managed during that campaign to signal to the left within the Democratic Party with a wink and a nod that he was their man and that he meant business — that he really intended to “transform” America. To those in the middle and on the right who are ashamed of the nation’s historic sins in matters of race, he offered absolution, and he promised that the penance that they would have to perform after leaving the confessional would not be harsh. He was not, he said, a tax-and-spend liberal.

I was not taken in. Late in 2008, after reviewing the page proofs of Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift, I persuaded my editor to allow me to add the following to the book:

Once again, as in the 1920s, rational administration has failed us. As on that other occasion, the Federal Reserve Board and the Department of the Treasury pursued over an extended period under more than one administration an easy-money policy bound in the end to give rise to “irrational exuberance” in the markets and to a bubble followed by a catastrophic decline in prices and a collapse of the credit markets. And, to make matters worse, we responded to this set of circumstances precisely as we did on that earlier occasion — by electing a president and choosing a Congress intent on dramatically increasing the scale and scope of the administrative state.

Our new masters have ample room for maneuver. They have it in their power to deepen the economic crisis and worsen our distress in the manner of Hoover and the younger Roosevelt. By instituting a second New Deal, as they would very much like to do — by sharply raising taxes on fossil fuels, dividends, and capital gains; by targeting the earnings of the well-to-do; by confiscating our 401(k)s and IRAs and substituting government retirement accounts at fixed interest; by pursuing protectionism, expanding the regime of programmatic rights, and forcing workers into labor unions — they can discourage investment, curb entrepreneurship, reduce foreign trade, and decisively slow economic growth, or even bring it to a lasting halt, while offering to those consigned to the dole thereby a dependence upon the generosity and good will of an all-encompassing state. Just how ambitious and ruthless they will prove to be on this occasion, just how far in the next few years they intend to hustle us down the path we tread, remains as yet undetermined.

The only thing that is crystal clear is the direction of our drift and the nature of the threat we face. Walter Lippmann’s warning is as apt today as when he issued it in 1937 — for “the premises of authoritarian collectivism” are once again, as they were then, “the working beliefs, the self-evident assumptions, the unquestioned axioms” behind “nearly every effort which lays claim to being enlightened, humane, and progressive,” and hardly anyone today “is taken seriously as a statesman or a theorist who does not come forward with proposals to magnify the power of public officials and to extend and multiply their intervention in human affairs.” Like the younger Roosevelt, our new leader poses as a secular Messiah; his minions believe, as did the progressives of an earlier time, that “there has come into the world” in recent times “some new element which makes it necessary for us to undo the work of emancipation” achieved by our forebears and “to retrace the steps men have taken to limit the power of rulers”; and in the ranks of our compatriots they will find many prepared to sacrifice self-reliance and personal independence for a promise of security no government can keep. The hour is, indeed, late.

Of course, many were fooled — some of them putatively on the right. Christopher Buckley and David Brooks come first to mind, but they were by no means alone. Many of the libertarians whom I have encountered in the last year fell prey to Bush-Derangement-Syndrome and, in their fury, stayed home on election day, voted for a third party, or even supported Obama. Nothing, they thought, could be worse than John McCain.

To be fair, they could have been right. On the domestic front, McCain seemed feckless, and Obama could have governed from the center. He could have put off his radical agenda. He could have concentrated, as Franklin Roosevelt did in his first term, on turning the economy around. He could have pledged to extend the tax cuts passed under George W. Bush. He could have introduced a temporary cut in the portion of the payroll tax paid by employers to make it worth their while to hold onto veteran employees with valuable knowledge and skills through the economic storm.

The Republicans would have played ball. In the early months of the Obama administration, they were in a sorry state, and they were perfectly willing to get on the bandwagon. In early May, Jeb Bush met with Mitt Romney and House Republic Whip Eric Cantor and emerged from the meeting to urge that Republicans put Reagan behind them. “You can’t,” he explained, “beat something with nothing, and the other side has something. I don’t like it, but they have it, and we have to be respectful and mindful of that. So our ideas need to be forward looking and relevant. I felt like there was a lot of nostalgia and the good old days in the [Republican] messaging. I mean, it’s great, but it doesn’t draw people toward your cause.”

Had Obama moved to the center, had he made good on his promises regarding bipartisan government, the Republicans would have provided him with cover. Instead, however, he adopted the strategy forecast in his prospective chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel’s notorious remark in November, 2008 that “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”

To make matters worse, the new President chose to leave the details to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid — who crafted a so-called “stimulus” bill designed to loot the country for the benefit of constituencies associated with the Democratic Party; and, while employees in the private sector were laid off or relegated to part-time work, the federal government hired and hired, gave massive salary increases to those already on the payroll, and even set aside two billion dollars for “community-stabilization” organizations — which is to say, for the criminal conspiracy called ACORN.

No less on point, Pelosi and Reid gave way to resentment and sought revenge on their Republican colleagues. In the “stimulus” bill, there were numerous earmarks for Democrats but few, if any, for Republicans. At the time, it would have been easy to secure a modicum of Republican support. Hopeless and hapless, the Republicans were virtually begging to be bought. In November, 2008, they had seen what they took to be the future, and many of them wanted to be a part of it. But Pelosi and Reid denied them the opportunity, forced them into opposition, and guaranteed that those within their ranks who were inclined to articulate a principled critique of the bill would get a hearing nationwide.

No one anticipated the Tea-Party insurrection. But they should have. It is, after all, one thing to steal and enrich one’s supporters. That is, sad to say, an age-old Congressional practice. It is, however, another thing to do so on so massive a scale and in so transparent a fashion at a time when so many are facing exceedingly hard times. It did not help that President Obama was inclined to appoint tax-evaders to high office and that the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee in the House and the chairman of the Banking Committee in the Senate were known to be crooks. The American people can be fooled but not by skulduggery as obvious as what we have seen.

Obama’s economic advisors can hardly have encouraged him to believe that shoveling money into the hands of his supporters would actually cause the economy to rebound. Christina Romer and Larry Summers have track records as academic economists that strongly suggest that they understand the defects of Keynesian economics. They may, however, have predicted that there would be a sharp economic rebound in any case (as there usually is in such circumstances), and the President may have calculated that he could use such a rebound as a cover for an attempt to “spread the wealth around.” In fact, however, on the job front, thanks to the uncertainnty that he has created, things have gotten markedly worse, and the “stimulus” bill is widely recognized as what it is: grand larceny.

The Tea-Party insurrection nonetheless caught the Republican Party flat-footed; and, even after the initial eruption, the Republicans were slow to recognize its importance. Thus, when the Obama administration began agitating for what the Democrats call “healthcare reform,” there were Republicans eager to get on board. It took the explosions at the town halls in August to get Charles Grassley, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and the like to recognize that it was not Obama and the Democrats that they had most to fear.

Everything that has happened since then regarding the healthcare bill has reinforced the suspicions directed at the Obama administration. As the polling data makes clear, the American people do not want healthcare rationing; they do not want to gut Medicare; they do not want a middle-class tax increase under any disguise; and they find the special deals — Gatorade, the Cornhusker Kickback, and the like — cut by particular Senators and Congressmen reprehensible. If, as is reported, President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Senator Reid have agreed to exempt union members and others in favored categories from the 40% excise tax on high-priced health insurance while imposing it on those outside constituencies favored by the Democrats and if, at the insistence of the unions, they have also recast the bill as a tool for driving non-unionized construction firms out of business, there will be additional hell to pay.

I could go on and on. Remember the auto-industry bailout and the fashion in which Barack Obama defrauded the bondholders to the advantage of the United Auto Workers? Have you heard about the manner in which Tim Geithner set up an opportunity for insider trading on the part of the fine folks at Goldman Sachs?

The Democrats have played every trick in the book, and they have done it in broad daylight. If Scott Brown is elected to the Senate in Massachusetts on Tuesday, as I think he will be, and if, under these circumstances, the Massachusetts Secretary of State delays certifying the election so that Paul Kirk can once again vote for cloture in the Senate on the healthcare bill, as is apparently the Democrats’ contingency plan, it would be par for the course. After all, the Democrats in the Massachusetts legislature changed the law and put off the special election so that Paul Kirk could be appointed in the first place.

We live in a remarkable time. I cannot think of any moment in American history in which a President and a political party have squandered an opportunity as promising as the one afforded Barack Obama in November, 2008. Had he chosen a more moderate course, had he reined in the radicals in control in the House and the Senate, had he focused on the economy, had he insisted on transparency, had he ruled out corrupt bargains, had he scrupulously kept the promises he made during the campaign, he would have reinforced the sense of those who voted for him that he was a man who could be trusted; and later, relying on their confidence in him, he might have accomplished much of what he wanted.

As things stand, Obama has given the Republicans the opportunity of a lifetime. It is as if he, Pelosi, Reid, and their associates conspired to convince the American people that the Democratic Party is “a small group” of women and men intent on concentrating “into their own hands an almost complete control over other people’s property, other people’s money, other people’s labor – other people’s lives.”

These are words that Franklin Delano Roosevelt deployed in 1936 against those whom he called “economic royalists.” When the American people are persuaded that such a claim is true, as they have been on the eve of every electoral realignment in our history, they turn on the putative perpetrators with a vengeance.

Mark my words. In November, we are going to witness an electoral earthquake. What is slated to happen in Massachusetts on Tuesday is merely an anticipatory tremor. I just hope that the Republicans have the wit to capitalize on this opportunity.

Wednesday will mark the first anniversary of the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama — who began his Presidency, as nearly all new first-term Presidents do, high in the polls. At that time, Obama’s approval ratings were, in fact, in the stratosphere. In the last twelve months, however, they have fallen further and faster than those of any President since polling began; and, and, as developments in Massachusetts suggest, his party is now in danger of suffering in November an historic defeat — which is likely to rival its fate in 1938, 1966, and 1994 if the Democrats do not, as I believe they may, do even worse. In a poll released on Thursday, the National Journal reports that half of the adults sampled responded that, if new Presidential elections were held right now, they would vote against Barack Obama, and less than a quarter of those questioned indicated that they would vote to re-elect the President. It is an appropriate time in which to pose this question: Why have Obama and his supporters fallen so far and so fast?

We must, I think, begin before the beginning. The Obama campaign was predicated on a fraud. With a skill that was breathtaking, Barack Obama managed during that campaign to signal to the left within the Democratic Party with a wink and a nod that he was their man and that he meant business — that he really intended to “transform” America. To those in the middle and on the right who are ashamed of the nation’s historic sins in matters of race, he offered absolution, and he promised that the penance that they would have to perform after leaving the confessional would not be harsh. He was not, he said, a tax-and-spend liberal.

I was not taken in. Late in 2008, after reviewing the page proofs of Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift, I persuaded my editor to allow me to add the following to the book:

Once again, as in the 1920s, rational administration has failed us. As on that other occasion, the Federal Reserve Board and the Department of the Treasury pursued over an extended period under more than one administration an easy-money policy bound in the end to give rise to “irrational exuberance” in the markets and to a bubble followed by a catastrophic decline in prices and a collapse of the credit markets. And, to make matters worse, we responded to this set of circumstances precisely as we did on that earlier occasion — by electing a president and choosing a Congress intent on dramatically increasing the scale and scope of the administrative state.

Our new masters have ample room for maneuver. They have it in their power to deepen the economic crisis and worsen our distress in the manner of Hoover and the younger Roosevelt. By instituting a second New Deal, as they would very much like to do — by sharply raising taxes on fossil fuels, dividends, and capital gains; by targeting the earnings of the well-to-do; by confiscating our 401(k)s and IRAs and substituting government retirement accounts at fixed interest; by pursuing protectionism, expanding the regime of programmatic rights, and forcing workers into labor unions — they can discourage investment, curb entrepreneurship, reduce foreign trade, and decisively slow economic growth, or even bring it to a lasting halt, while offering to those consigned to the dole thereby a dependence upon the generosity and good will of an all-encompassing state. Just how ambitious and ruthless they will prove to be on this occasion, just how far in the next few years they intend to hustle us down the path we tread, remains as yet undetermined.

The only thing that is crystal clear is the direction of our drift and the nature of the threat we face. Walter Lippmann’s warning is as apt today as when he issued it in 1937 — for “the premises of authoritarian collectivism” are once again, as they were then, “the working beliefs, the self-evident assumptions, the unquestioned axioms” behind “nearly every effort which lays claim to being enlightened, humane, and progressive,” and hardly anyone today “is taken seriously as a statesman or a theorist who does not come forward with proposals to magnify the power of public officials and to extend and multiply their intervention in human affairs.” Like the younger Roosevelt, our new leader poses as a secular Messiah; his minions believe, as did the progressives of an earlier time, that “there has come into the world” in recent times “some new element which makes it necessary for us to undo the work of emancipation” achieved by our forebears and “to retrace the steps men have taken to limit the power of rulers”; and in the ranks of our compatriots they will find many prepared to sacrifice self-reliance and personal independence for a promise of security no government can keep. The hour is, indeed, late.

Of course, many were fooled — some of them putatively on the right. Christopher Buckley and David Brooks come first to mind, but they were by no means alone. Many of the libertarians whom I have encountered in the last year fell prey to Bush-Derangement-Syndrome and, in their fury, stayed home on election day, voted for a third party, or even supported Obama. Nothing, they thought, could be worse than John McCain.

To be fair, they could have been right. On the domestic front, McCain seemed feckless, and Obama could have governed from the center. He could have put off his radical agenda. He could have concentrated, as Franklin Roosevelt did in his first term, on turning the economy around. He could have pledged to extend the tax cuts passed under George W. Bush. He could have introduced a temporary cut in the portion of the payroll tax paid by employers to make it worth their while to hold onto veteran employees with valuable knowledge and skills through the economic storm.

The Republicans would have played ball. In the early months of the Obama administration, they were in a sorry state, and they were perfectly willing to get on the bandwagon. In early May, Jeb Bush met with Mitt Romney and House Republic Whip Eric Cantor and emerged from the meeting to urge that Republicans put Reagan behind them. “You can’t,” he explained, “beat something with nothing, and the other side has something. I don’t like it, but they have it, and we have to be respectful and mindful of that. So our ideas need to be forward looking and relevant. I felt like there was a lot of nostalgia and the good old days in the [Republican] messaging. I mean, it’s great, but it doesn’t draw people toward your cause.”

Had Obama moved to the center, had he made good on his promises regarding bipartisan government, the Republicans would have provided him with cover. Instead, however, he adopted the strategy forecast in his prospective chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel’s notorious remark in November, 2008 that “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”

To make matters worse, the new President chose to leave the details to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid — who crafted a so-called “stimulus” bill designed to loot the country for the benefit of constituencies associated with the Democratic Party; and, while employees in the private sector were laid off or relegated to part-time work, the federal government hired and hired, gave massive salary increases to those already on the payroll, and even set aside two billion dollars for “community-stabilization” organizations — which is to say, for the criminal conspiracy called ACORN.

No less on point, Pelosi and Reid gave way to resentment and sought revenge on their Republican colleagues. In the “stimulus” bill, there were numerous earmarks for Democrats but few, if any, for Republicans. At the time, it would have been easy to secure a modicum of Republican support. Hopeless and hapless, the Republicans were virtually begging to be bought. In November, 2008, they had seen what they took to be the future, and many of them wanted to be a part of it. But Pelosi and Reid denied them the opportunity, forced them into opposition, and guaranteed that those within their ranks who were inclined to articulate a principled critique of the bill would get a hearing nationwide.

No one anticipated the Tea-Party insurrection. But they should have. It is, after all, one thing to steal and enrich one’s supporters. That is, sad to say, an age-old Congressional practice. It is, however, another thing to do so on so massive a scale and in so transparent a fashion at a time when so many are facing exceedingly hard times. It did not help that President Obama was inclined to appoint tax-evaders to high office and that the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee in the House and the chairman of the Banking Committee in the Senate were known to be crooks. The American people can be fooled but not by skulduggery as obvious as what we have seen.

Obama’s economic advisors can hardly have encouraged him to believe that shoveling money into the hands of his supporters would actually cause the economy to rebound. Christina Romer and Larry Summers have track records as academic economists that strongly suggest that they understand the defects of Keynesian economics. They may, however, have predicted that there would be a sharp economic rebound in any case (as there usually is in such circumstances), and the President may have calculated that he could use such a rebound as a cover for an attempt to “spread the wealth around.” In fact, however, on the job front, thanks to the uncertainnty that he has created, things have gotten markedly worse, and the “stimulus” bill is widely recognized as what it is: grand larceny.

The Tea-Party insurrection nonetheless caught the Republican Party flat-footed; and, even after the initial eruption, the Republicans were slow to recognize its importance. Thus, when the Obama administration began agitating for what the Democrats call “healthcare reform,” there were Republicans eager to get on board. It took the explosions at the town halls in August to get Charles Grassley, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and the like to recognize that it was not Obama and the Democrats that they had most to fear.

Everything that has happened since then regarding the healthcare bill has reinforced the suspicions directed at the Obama administration. As the polling data makes clear, the American people do not want healthcare rationing; they do not want to gut Medicare; they do not want a middle-class tax increase under any disguise; and they find the special deals — Gatorade, the Cornhusker Kickback, and the like — cut by particular Senators and Congressmen reprehensible. If, as is reported, President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Senator Reid have agreed to exempt union members and others in favored categories from the 40% excise tax on high-priced health insurance while imposing it on those outside constituencies favored by the Democrats and if, at the insistence of the unions, they have also recast the bill as a tool for driving non-unionized construction firms out of business, there will be additional hell to pay.

I could go on and on. Remember the auto-industry bailout and the fashion in which Barack Obama defrauded the bondholders to the advantage of the United Auto Workers? Have you heard about the manner in which Tim Geithner set up an opportunity for insider trading on the part of the fine folks at Goldman Sachs?

The Democrats have played every trick in the book, and they have done it in broad daylight. If Scott Brown is elected to the Senate in Massachusetts on Tuesday, as I think he will be, and if, under these circumstances, the Massachusetts Secretary of State delays certifying the election so that Paul Kirk can once again vote for cloture in the Senate on the healthcare bill, as is apparently the Democrats’ contingency plan, it would be par for the course. After all, the Democrats in the Massachusetts legislature changed the law and put off the special election so that Paul Kirk could be appointed in the first place.

We live in a remarkable time. I cannot think of any moment in American history in which a President and a political party have squandered an opportunity as promising as the one afforded Barack Obama in November, 2008. Had he chosen a more moderate course, had he reined in the radicals in control in the House and the Senate, had he focused on the economy, had he insisted on transparency, had he ruled out corrupt bargains, had he scrupulously kept the promises he made during the campaign, he would have reinforced the sense of those who voted for him that he was a man who could be trusted; and later, relying on their confidence in him, he might have accomplished much of what he wanted.

As things stand, Obama has given the Republicans the opportunity of a lifetime. It is as if he, Pelosi, Reid, and their associates conspired to convince the American people that the Democratic Party is “a small group” of women and men intent on concentrating “into their own hands an almost complete control over other people’s property, other people’s money, other people’s labor – other people’s lives.”

These are words that Franklin Delano Roosevelt deployed in 1936 against those whom he called “economic royalists.” When the American people are persuaded that such a claim is true, as they have been on the eve of every electoral realignment in our history, they turn on the putative perpetrators with a vengeance.

Mark my words. In November, we are going to witness an electoral earthquake. What is slated to happen in Massachusetts on Tuesday is merely an anticipatory tremor. I just hope that the Republicans have the wit to capitalize on this opportunity.