The Massachusetts Miracle

When Scott Brown defeated Martha Coakley for Ted Kennedy's Massachusetts Senate seat, the media ran with stories of a conservative upswing, a backlash against Obama, and a 2010 repeat of the 1994 GOP congressional take-over. No doubt, Republicans were elated and Democrats were distraught. Nevermind all of Coakley's blunders--it really was a huge upset and definitely signaled some serious shifts in public attitudes. But there is a very good chance that we'll look back at this as a miracle of another kind.

The Massachusetts upset will undoubtedly embolden Republicans to claim that Americans love their policies and they will continue to do everything to keep the Democrats from accomplishing anything, therefore basically shutting down the government for the next 9 months. With their new 41 seat minority in the Senate, they will now be able to filibuster anything they want, without the help of conservative Democrats. Given that this congress has already filibustered much more than any other congress ever has, I'm guessing that we ain't seen nothin' yet. I think we can anticipate GOP extremism like we've never seen before.

Combined with the fact that Democrats look as if they may finally be getting a clue (based on Obama and Biden's recent performances) and have begun to expose the Republican hypocrisy, I think the political picture may look a lot more balanced come November. I'm pretty sure that American's don't want to go back to the George Bush/Tom Delay days. And the GOP is doing their best to remind them of those days. When the dust clears in November, the American people will have realized that Republicans had effectively been able to stop the policies for which they had elected Barack Obama on, and I don't think that they are going to be too happy about it.

Without the Massachusetts miracle, the GOP would have continued to whine for the next year and Dems would likely have had significant losses in November. But I think we'll look back at that race and realize that it was a game changer of a kind that the media has entirely overlooked.