Why the Democrats took a thrashing in Massachusetts

Well, he did it. In yesterday’s special election, Republican State Senator Scott Brown easily knocked off the heir apparent to the U.S. Senate seat that had previously been held by a member of the iconic Kennedy family for the better part of six decades – in the most heavily Democratic state in the union no less.

Senator-elect Brown ran a brilliant, hard charging campaign while his lackluster opponent gave the commonwealth and the nation a primer in how to lose an election in the most efficient manner possible. But while the gap in the quality and competence of the two candidates was wider than Boston Harbor, the real reasons for Brown’s amazing victory lie in the nation’s capitol, not in Massachusetts.

For a year now the Democrats have held unfettered power in Washington with their overwhelming majority in the House of Representatives and filibuster-proof 60 votes in the Senate. But what did they do with that power? Try to ram a monstrosity of a health care bill down the collective throat of the American people even as they were screaming at the top of their lungs that it was an unwelcome government intrusion into one-sixth of the entire U.S. economy.

President Obama and the Democrats in Congress made the grave mistake of interpreting their massive victory in the 2008 elections as a mandate for a radical shift to the left. It was nothing of the sort. When the electorate sent the Republicans packing in 2008 it was a clear repudiation of the massive spending and mis-management they had presided over during the Bush years, not a stand against conservative policies. In response to this false mandate,  the Dems shifted so far to the left that they ended up in Siberia.

The Democrats chose to ignore the ever-louder warnings of the masses while spending their entire bank of political capital on health care and a highly unpopular and extremely ineffective “stimulus package” instead of concentrating on improving the economy and getting the unemployed back to work. Bill Clinton hit the nail on the head when he famously said “It’s the economy, stupid“, but somehow that lesson was lost on his Democratic successor.

Even worse, Obama made the inexplicable decision to try virtually all the terrorists we capture in the act of trying to kill us in Federal Court instead of in military tribunals where they so obviously belong. Now, instead of being forced to sing like canaries about their accomplices and future attacks, they are read their Miranda rights and provided with lawyers at our expense. We the people don’t appreciate that one bit!

The irony of all this is that Mr. Brown’s virtual landslide win yesterday is actually a gift from God for the Democrats. Why? Because it provides them with an ear-piercing wake-up call to change their ill conceived ways before it’s too late for them to salvage any amount of respectability and power whatsoever come November.

This year’s Congressional elections are going to be horrendous for Democratic candidates  regardless of whether they wise up or not, but if they keep trudging down the same road that just cost them what was arguably the “safest” seat in the entire Senate, they just might be in for an electoral bloodbath. After all, a party with unfettered power can quickly learn that the American voter holds the ultimate veto power.