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.

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Prior to last night, we could have all agreed that President Obama had one undeniable and great skill; the man could deliver a speech. His national political career, after all, had been launched with a speech, at the Democrat Party Convention in 2004. More than that though, his entire political history–and trajectory–can be mapped by speeches. When his primary campaign for the Presidency was sputtering, a rousing speech at the Iowa Democrat’s Jefferson-Jackson Dinner created the momentum he needed to win that state’s pivotal caucus. When inflammatory video of his long-time pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, surfaced and threatened to derail his campaign, a well-received speech on race allowed him to turn away the controversy.  A Will.I.Am video riff of one of Obama’s speeches was such a potent piece of political propaganda that even I developed a bit of a man-crush on the One.

Obama seemed to have a gift for perfectly capturing the tone and mood of the public. It may seem a tired cliche now, but his speeches did much to inspire the hope people attached to his candidacy. Even rather vague or pedestrian phrases seemed to soar in his gifted hands. I had accepted it as a given that, if his political fortunes were ever down, Obama would be able to reverse his troubles by pulling just the right speech from his rhetorical bag of tricks.

No more.

Obama’s State of the Union address last night was not just overly long and dull, it was totally tone-deaf politically. Coming on the heels of a political upset in Massachusetts, with deteriorating poll numbers and anxious members of his own party, Obama badly needed a home-run to change the political dynamics. He struck out.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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In the wake of a stunning political result in Massachusetts, it’s time to assess the future Scott Brown dictates for health care, the market, the Democrats, and the country. It’s the third week of January 2010, and here’s the latest edition of Coffee and Markets, a weekly podcast from The New Ledger on politics, policy and the marketplace with Francis Cianfrocca, brought to you by BigGovernment.com.

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You can subscribe to the podcast by following the links above, and if you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Dan McLaughlin: Seven Lessons of the Brown Bombshell

WSJ: Obama Scales Back Health Care Plans

Paul Krugman: Obama Wasn’t The One We’ve Been Waiting For

Take a listen to Barney Frank saying “God didn’t invent the filibuster.”

Remember way back in 2003 when the Republicans were looking to rewrite the senate rules so the Dems couldn’t filibuster judicial nominees?

Partisan disagreement over judicial nominations is so intense that senators couldn’t even agree on the title of Mr. Cornyn’s hearing: “Judicial Nominations, Filibusters and the Constitution: When a majority is denied its right to consent.”"The title suggests that [the hearing] may be intended to turn up the heat rather than cool things down,” said Sen. Russell D. Feingold, Wisconsin Democrat, who warned that any effort to change Senate rules “will be met with stiff resistance.”As with the country’s actual nuclear arsenal, there is a form of mutually assured destruction here, too.The only thing holding Republicans back from breaking the filibuster this way is knowing that the same weapon will be used against them someday in the future when the roles are reversed. “The old bears in the Senate want to preserve their ability to filibuster the Democrats in the future,” said one key Senate aide, who also stressed that such a maneuver would only be used to break filibusters involving executive nominees.”If the Democrats take back the Senate — God forbid — the first 10 things they bring up will be anathema to us but they’ll say [forget] you, we have our 51 votes.”

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The Chicago Tribune reassures its readers – White House: Mass. ‘messages heard’

And what were those messages?

Axelrod said: “You know, I’ll let others assess responsibility. I think the main thing that we saw in Massachusetts was the same sense of concern on the part of middle class folks about the economic situation, about their wages being stagnant, about jobs being lost, about their economic security that’s been in jeopardy.

“And this is something that predated the big recession that we’re going through,” the president’s chief political advisor said. “And that’s something that we have to pay a great deal of attention to. It is the focus of this president’s attention at all times. And we have to convey that.”

Translation: Coakley lost because the people of Massachusetts share the same concerns as the President; They all hate Bush, even if they don’t know it.

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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.”

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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.

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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.
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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.

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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.

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Martha Coakley’s campaign team began leveling charges against DC Democrats as it became increasingly apparent the wheels had fallen off her campaign wagon well before Election Day.  DC operatives, including those in the White House, of course, couldn’t withhold return fire.  Politico reports:

And in private conversations, Hill sources say White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has blamed Coakley, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Democratic pollster Celinda Lake for failing to see Brown’s surge in time to stop it.

Coakley advisors, meanwhile, say DC operatives stepped in too late, so the blame lies with them.  A memo, obtained by Politico, said in part:

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

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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.

From Kansas City Star:

The Massachusetts secretary of state is discounting reports of voter irregularities in the state’s Senate special election.

A spokesman for Secretary of State William Galvin said Tuesday two reports of spoiled ballots could not be verified or found to be widespread.
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