"What has [Scott] Brown done for us?
He just administered a stunning 'Tea Party Republican' thrashing to the 'Kennedy Liberal Democrats' in Massachusetts -- with Obamacare front and center as the core issue at hand. That's what. Forget any other spin you hear -- that is what just happened. That Brown did not stress the party or the term 'tea party' does not matter. His issues were right off of the tea parties' posters and out of the official GOP platform manual. Sure, Martha Coakley ran a horrible campaign. But Democrats win safe seats with horrible campaigns all the time. Brown ran a great campaign, but good candidates lose uphill battles all the time in places like Massachusetts. And no, MS-NBC, this was not a Tip O'Neil 'all politics are local' referendum on potholes and such. Thanks to big government liberals, no politics are local anymore. Not even an obscure congressional district known as NY-23. Every single seat may now hold the key to Washington's ability to reach into the homes and wallets and lives of every American for any reason they deem necessary. And that's what this was about, with health care as the key issue but only one of many concerns about intrusive government." --columnist C. Edmund Wright
"On December 16, 1773, several dozen colonists in Boston, angered by King George's financially ruinous tea tax, took action into their own hands. Dressed as Mohawk Indians, they snuck onto 3 British tea ships and dumped over 300 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. That revolt was said to have sparked the American Revolution. Last [Tuesday] night, the state of Massachusetts was the site of yet another revolt, only this time it was Attorney General Martha Coakley, the Democratic Party, and President Obama, health care and health care reform that were thrown into the drink, following the stunning election of Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate. Yet on the eve of the election, the White House suggested ... that they would not moderate the president's policies, but in a fit of madness akin to King George's, would double down and strike a more combative tone. I have a feeling that over the next few days, the White House will want to ... amend their remarks. ... In response to the tea party protest, King George passed the 'Coercive Acts,' which was every bit as punishing as it sounds. Will King Barack respond to the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts with moderation and scrap health care or with madness and shove a coercive bill down America's collective throats?" --columnist Brian Doherty
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"The stunning upset in Massachusetts should send shock waves through the Democratic Party nationwide. The people have spoken, yet again, with the election of Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate and as such, have soundly rejected the leadership of the president and the Democratically-controlled Congress. The elections in Virginia and New Jersey this past November should have been a wake-up call for Democrats. Democratic candidates were defeated because the people thought the candidates, like the leadership of the Democratic Party, were out of touch with the needs of the citizenry. While Republicans focused on the economy, job creation, deficit reduction and responsibility, Democrats were bogged down -- almost exclusively -- on health care, blaming Bush and defending their failed economic policies. ... The Democrats set forth an agenda that was 180 degrees opposite of what needed to be done and what the American people wanted to see done. The Democrats manufactured a 'crisis' on health care, when we have an honest to goodness economic crisis and recession -- the worst since the Great Depression. ... The American people are more than disappointed with the 'change' they got this past year and are worried about their future and the condition of the economy. But it's not over, the people will continue to let their frustration be known this coming November in the midterm elections." --Georgetown University professor Bradley Blakeman
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"Democratic cocooners will tell themselves that [Martha] Coakley was a terrible candidate who even managed to diss Curt Schilling. True, Brown had Schilling. But Coakley had Obama. When the bloody sock beats the presidential seal -- of a man who had them swooning only a year ago -- something is going on beyond personality. That something is substance -- political ideas and legislative agendas. Democrats, if they wish, can write off their Massachusetts humiliation to high unemployment, to Coakley or, the current favorite among sophisticates, to generalized anger. That implies an inchoate, unthinking lashing-out at whoever happens to be in power -- even at your liberal betters who are forcing on you an agenda that you can't even see is in your own interest. Democrats must so rationalize, otherwise they must take democracy seriously, and ask themselves: If the people really don't want it, could they possibly have a point? 'If you lose Massachusetts and that's not a wake-up call,' said moderate -- and sentient -- Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, 'there's no hope of waking up.' I say: Let them sleep." --columnist Charles Krauthammer
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