"Let me be as clear as I can. There is no way in hell we're going to
elect a Republican to Ted Kennedy's seat. Period."
So said the man who finished second in the Democratic Massachusetts
primary held to fill the seat occupied for 47 years by the late Sen. Ted
Kennedy. State Attorney General Martha Coakley won the primary.
Republican state Sen. Scott Brown once trailed her by 30 points in the
polls.
On Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010, Brown defeated Coakley by 5 points. This
astonishing Republican win in Massachusetts is a flat-out repudiation of
President Barack Obama.
This is now strike five. In 2008, Obama carried New Jersey and Virginia.
Last year, he unsuccessfully stumped in both states for Democrats in
gubernatorial races. Democrats previously held those seats. He twice
flew to Copenhagen, once to lobby for the Chicago Olympics and later to
get a meaningful international deal on "climate change." Both times, he
came home empty-handed. Now comes Massachusetts. Try to explain that one
away.
Massachusetts had not elected a Republican senator since 1972. Its
10-seat House delegation is wall-to-wall Democrats. Obama, in 2008,
carried the state by 26 points. Registered Democrats in Massachusetts
outnumber registered Republicans by more than 3 to 1.
What happened? One, Obama. Two, the Democratic filibuster-proof Senate
supermajority. Three, a party led by like-minded lefties.
But ObamaCare is ground zero. Brown campaigned against it and promised
he'd try to stop it. The unpopular legislation would mandate that
everyone carry health insurance. It would force insurance companies to
accept those with pre-existing illnesses. It would tax — or, if you
prefer, fine — employers for not providing health insurance and
individuals for not having it. It would exempt union members from a tax
on their employer-provided plans but force nonunion members with similar
plans to pay it. Nebraska would get its new Medicaid costs exempted in
perpetuity. Louisiana would receive $300 million in goodies.
ObamaCare, according to Obama, promises both deficit neutrality and
eventual cost savings. Right. And the legislation ignores the fact that
most Americans have and like their current health insurance.
The Democrats misread the country's mood. They misunderstood why they
won in '08. They thought that Obama's election and their gains in
Congress meant not just receptiveness, but an eagerness to embrace a New
Enlightenment. They believed that people really want to tax "the rich,"
to redistribute wealth, to punish success.
So Obama set sail to grow government — to use tax dollars to create
"green jobs," to tackle "climate change" with onerous regulations on
businesses. He showed the world his un-Bushness by apologizing for
America's alleged past arrogance and by employing a kinder, gentler
approach to what we once called the War on Terror.
He called the passage of the partisan "stimulus" bill necessary to
prevent unemployment from reaching 8 percent. It is now 10 percent. The
bill promised to "create or save" millions of jobs. Instead, it created
embarrassing headlines about money going to nonexistent ZIP codes and
about spending hundreds of thousands of dollars per "created or saved"
job. Brown called for tax cuts and criticized Obama's stimulus plan.
The Obamacrats bailed out insurance companies, car companies and banks.
Bank bailout recipients rang up huge profits, repaid the government
ahead of schedule and then dealt themselves big bonuses. People looked
at all the Wall Streeters in and/or advising the administration and
wondered, "Why did they need our money in the first place?"
The Boston Massacre dooms ObamaCare — at the very least its current
incarnation. It pulls the country back from the brink of this costly,
irreversible leap into collectivism. Oh, sure, Democrats have procedural
maneuvers to pull it off. But after this wake-up call, let them try.
Gone are "cap and trade" and a second spendthrift ''stimulus package,"
as well as an attempt at "immigration reform" — even as our borders
remain scarily porous. With Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and
interest on the federal debt on automatic pilot, ObamaCare was a pillow
pressed over the face of the country.
Former Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean, representing the
left-left wing of the left-wing party, says Massachusetts means that
Democrats should turn further left. Does he know that only 26 percent of
Massachusetts voters think RomneyCare, their own version of ObamaCare,
is effective?
Dean thinks Democrats wussed out on providing a health insurance "public
option" and calls the bill a sop to greedy "special interests." Dean is
obtuse. Other Democrats will trade ideology for self-preservation. They
will reflect and redirect or suffer the consequences.
As for the late Sen. Kennedy, his death opened a seat that guarantees
the defeat of ObamaCare 1.0. Kennedy's death, therefore, stopped this
wide-ranging health care "reform."
And America now has a new lease on life.
