By Charlie Meyer:
“He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy.” - Monty Python, “Life of Brian”
Nearly 40 years ago, after Senator George McGovern lost the 1972 campaign to Tricky Dick Nixon, there were many bumper stickers that proclaimed: “Don’t blame me, I’m from Massachusetts.” Dubya, however, probably had an adviser to help him spell “Massachusetts.” I hope America doesn’t pay for this failed, incompetent campaign by the Massachusetts Democratic Party. Ted Kennedy and Tip O’Neill are probably spinning in their graves.
I’m certain many of the Tea Party mob were nursing GOP elephant-sized hangovers, gloating over their supposed ascendancy to relevant power and political influence. Before my pals on the Right start sculpting the President’s political tombstone, making a data point a trend on its own has all the scientific and statistical validity of Pat Robertson claiming Haiti suffered that earthquake as the result of the Haitians’ pact with the devil. Ole Pat, the Televangelist wannabe politician, is proof that the Almighty in the heavens above has a sense of humor. This special election is not the “Second Coming” you hear about in church.
Brown, despite roaming his state in a pickup truck and casual clothes, is a State Senator, and has been in politics for quite some time. The sheepskin on his wall says “Juris Doctor”, from the Jesuits of Boston College; he’s a lawyer. While there are plenty of attorneys out there who seem at public glance as if they are “a few cans short of a six-pack,” the rigors of law school and practice does tend to weed out the stupid and the lazy. Brown is no dummy. This isn’t a remake of the Frank Capra classic “Mr Smith Goes to Washington.” As far as I know, actor Jimmy Stewart never posed scantily clad for Cosmo. He ran a folksy, effective campaign, whereas Martha Coakley and the Massachusetts Democratic Party treated this as a “marking time” exercise similar to a lazy, rich heir waiting for Dad to croak and collect the fat inheritance surely waiting for them. Voters know when a candidate is not campaigning; Martha Coakley lazily held out the card f! or too much of the campaign, and Brown reached out and took it. No matter that weighty national issues, such as a much needed overhaul of health care, need to be done, Brown campaigned to get the prize. Martha is probably being urged to change her last name to “Croakley.”
Years ago, I was slinging gin and Guinness in a Capitol Hill Irish saloon (“An airplane hangar with personality” as one newspaper put it.) with a short bartender who kept a milk crate ready so he could reach the top rows of liquor bottles. The hospitality trade in D.C. is populated by more than a few folks doing bar and table engineering when their party was out of the Oval Office. In 1993, the vertically-challenged barkeep lamented that Daddy Bush didn’t campaign hard enough to earn another term at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Same problem in present-day Massachusetts. If you don’t campaign to win, don’t be surprised if your election night party becomes a wake.
I think Mr. Brown would not have the same outcome here. “Senator Beefcake”, from a semi nude photo spread in Cosmopolitan in his earlier years, would have killed his campaign here. After all, we had a “tempest-in-a-teapot” here because some folks took offense to a local beauty salon’s billboard. I usually sport a hairstyle that looks too much as if I woke up with my fingers in the wall socket, or to give folks the impression that my dating schedule is far busier and exciting than it is, but I highly doubt the salon business gets many calls from their female clientele stating: “make me a frumpy two-bagger.”
I have, in this column, jerked chains on both side of the aisle, when I felt they needed to do their jobs better. We have important business to be done in this nation. Hard work and tough decisions need to be made, even if the other party wants to stick their heads in the Tea Party sand, hoping that Adam Smith’s ghost and the “free marketeers” will tend to the needs of a nation while we take a siesta. The Republicans couldn’t be happier if the meaningful change we elected President Obama to do fell impotently by the wayside. This is politics, even if a candidate sports a “populist” costume and demeanor.
The sky is not falling, but this is a wake up call to the Democratic Party. As your local high school athletic program boosters say: you have to “be in it to win it.” Martha deserved to lose this campaign due to political incompetence, but I hope the rest of the nation doesn’t pay the price when it comes to work on vital needs, such as meaningful health care reform, as a result.
Driving a pickup truck doesn’t make you a farmer or working man. It will be interesting to see how Mr. Brown’s populist facade fits the Senate chamber. Politics aside, there’s the work of a nation that needs doing. It seriously needs to be done.
By Stephen Smoot:
A year ago we faced dark days indeed. The barbarians stormed the outer ramparts in 2006 and drove relentlessly towards our inner stronghold of political conservatism. We chose a champion to lead us, a grizzled veteran of many a campaign. He struggled mightily in the fall of 2008, then surged late. Just when he looked to gain momentum and seize the day for the right the champion was cut down at the knees by the economy. We watched as they drove into our last strongholds, wiped out our garrisons, and sent us on the run. They marched in triumph, declaring a mandate, and pushed ahead with their plans to impose their will. Only a year ago the Republican movement at the national level looked fragmented, lost, frightened, and even overawed. Questions abounded as to whether the party could survive, especially as some malcontents advocated for a leaner, meaner third party or at least bitterly attacked GOP leaders at every level. In the past few months America ! and the world witnessed the amazing revival not just of American conservatism, but of the Republican Party itself. Scott Brown’s victory demonstrated serious discontent with left wing Democratic ideology and a renewed fighting spirit from Republicans.
Last fall we saw a victory in Virginia which, frankly, was to be expected. Virginia remains a conservative commonwealth. New Jersey surprised the country a little more, being a solidly if not monolithically Democratic state. Massachusetts shocked everyone, except those actually paying attention. Brown ran an essentially conservative campaign in a place where that political stance is considered a derogatory term. He took head on the Obama/Pelosi/Reid signature issue of left wing government directed health care reform. Turns out that even Massachusetts fears skyrocketing debts, burdensome costs to state government, and oppressively high taxes! Brown won a seat that some media Democrats almost thought was Ted Kennedy’s by feudal right.
Scott Brown and his campaign deserve the credit for victory, believing in him when no one else took the campaign seriously. However this victory also belongs to the Republican Party. When Brown gained traction, it stepped in quickly and spent efficiently and judiciously. It contributed $500,000, compared to the national Democrats pumping in of over two million. That does not count the taxpayer financed last minute desperation move of shipping in a president with waning popularity. All Obama accomplished was to add to his repertoire of Middle America bashing. Who could forget his comment about rural Americans clinging to guns and religion out of fear? In Massachusetts he bashed pickup trucks. Obama really should not be allowed anywhere without his teleprompter.
Give Democrats credit as well. They deserve it for the manner in which they have run the country over the past year. Americans voted for Democrats because they believed in the old Democratic Party and its focus on traditional jobs. The stimulus passed last year only included a comparative pittance for maintaining roads, bridges, and other infrastructure projects. Meanwhile they tried to pass laws and follow policies with a determination to destroy coal mining and severely restrict what manufacturing we have left in America. West Virginia Democrats have blasted the president and Congress for their unwillingness to focus on issues that their party used to find important, like working people.
The health care reform issue basically killed what momentum the Democrats had last year. After promising transparency and a new approach to government throughout 2008, they used secret meetings, backroom maneuvering, and old time machine politics style deals to try and secure what they wanted. When that failed, they used Chicago style ruthlessness, threatening punishment to wayward Democrats in Congress who dared to question the inconsistencies between left wing promises and Congressional Budget Office predictions of rising debts and taxes. We even saw sitting members of Congress defend the anti-American proposal that Americans who opted to not buy health care should be fined. And if they do not pay their fines, then what? Be thrown in jail for choosing to not purchase a commodity? Voters in the most liberal state in the Union told Obama and Pelosi that enough was enough. They did not vote for that kind of change. Brown never claimed that America did not need reform ! in health care. He said time and time again that we did not need what Congress and the president want to shove down our throats. Massachusetts agreed.
Does Brown represent a shot across the bow or a hole in the side of Democratic ambitions? It depends on how they deal with their slowly sinking ship. Some proclaimed that the Democrats must move more aggressively to the left and go full speed ahead. They ignore the hole in their boat at their own peril. Republicans cannot sit on their hands, especially on health care. They need to take their ideas on tort reform, portability, small business pools, and other initiatives that will reduce costs and expand coverage without raising taxes or debts to the people as soon as possible to gain the advantage in the debate. Waiting for the ship to sink won’t work. Fire another torpedo of pragmatic, workable alternatives into its hull and send left wing policies to the bottom of the political ocean.
