Unless you've been visiting another planet, you know that Massachusetts just held a special election to fill the Senate seat vacated by Ted Kennedy. And, unless you've been watching CNN or MSNBC, you know that the outcome of that election is a pretty big deal.
Consider this for a moment. Scott Brown, a relative unknown – a Republican, no less – wins a seat that had been held by Democrats since before I was born. Did I mention this happened in Massachusetts, the bluest of the blue states? This is huge.
Left wing pundits will dismiss the outcome, claiming that Brown's opponent, Martha Coakley, was not an appealing candidate, made a lot of gaffes, and in general ran a poor campaign. That all may be true. What they don't tell you is that historically, a cardboard cutout with a “D” behind its name has a better chance of election, in Massachusetts, than the most attractive of Republican candidates. Of the 12 current members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation, guess how many are Republicans. The answer is one...if you count Senator-elect Scott Brown. Did I mention how huge this is?
Brown's campaign was successful, because he campaigned against the runaway train of hard-left, tax and spend legislation that has been pushed on the American public for the past year. He promised that he would be the 41st vote against Obamacare and other hard-left agendas. He campaigned for change. If the word change sounds familiar, that's because it was the theme of the 2008 presidential election, too.
That's what voters were looking for in President Obama - the allure of “Change we can believe in.” That's what swept him into office. What voters got was more of the same; much more. With an Obama White House and Democrat-controlled Congress, we've only seen more arrogance, more partisan bickering, more sleazy back room deals, and more hard ball Chicago-style politics. As voters found out in 2009, the change they so eagerly anticipated isn't always the change they really wanted.
Barely a year has passed and change, once again, is what voters seem to be clamoring for. Or, maybe it could be said the American people are suffering from buyer's remorse. New Jersey, Virginia, and Massachusetts are but the first wave of that sentiment. Besides, voters always seem to enjoy a divided government; they love to have a system of checks and balances. Two divergent viewpoints, requiring a little give-and-take, tend to keep things a little more centered.
One of the most effective governments, in recent memory, was that of President Bill Clinton and a Republican-controlled Congress. I've never been a Clinton fan, but it's hard to argue that the combination of that left-leaning administration and right-leaning Congress actually got a lot of things – good things – accomplished. By necessity, they kept each other honest and kept the agenda where the vast majority of American people live – center-right.
That same Republican Congress, however, working with a Bush administration, eventually lost their way, forgot why voters sent them to Washington, abandoned their core values, spent like drunken Democrats, and voters summarily dismissed them. Voters were seeking change in 2008, but to triple or quadruple the spending and debt was not what they had in mind.
Change, again, is coming in the 2010 elections - not necessarily back to the so-called “failed policies of the past eight years,” and certainly not the so-called “change we thought we could believe in.” It's clear America is looking for change that will bring real fiscal discipline and restraint, and strict adherence to the Constitution - not just talk of it. Americans believe in paying their fair share, but also believe that they know better how to spend their own money than the government. Americans are seeking the freedom and control to make the decisions – for better or worse – that affect their own lives, without an all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful nanny state trying to care for them from cradle to grave.
Unless and until politicians grasp those concepts, change inevitably will remain the theme of all future elections, and politicians will find themselves stuck in the revolving door of change.
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Unless you've been visiting another planet, you know that Massachusetts just held a special election to fill the Senate seat vacated by Ted Kennedy. And, unless you've been watching CNN or MSNBC, you know that the outcome of that election is a pretty big deal.
Consider this for a moment. Scott Brown, a relative unknown – a Republican, no less – wins a seat that had been held by Democrats since before I was born. Did I mention this happened in Massachusetts, the bluest of the blue states? This is huge.
Left wing pundits will dismiss the outcome, claiming that Brown's opponent, Martha Coakley, was not an appealing candidate, made a lot of gaffes, and in general ran a poor campaign. That all may be true. What they don't tell you is that historically, a cardboard cutout with a “D” behind its name has a better chance of election, in Massachusetts, than the most attractive of Republican candidates. Of the 12 current members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation, guess how many are Republicans. The answer is one...if you count Senator-elect Scott Brown. Did I mention how huge this is?
Brown's campaign was successful, because he campaigned against the runaway train of hard-left, tax and spend legislation that has been pushed on the American public for the past year. He promised that he would be the 41st vote against Obamacare and other hard-left agendas. He campaigned for change. If the word change sounds familiar, that's because it was the theme of the 2008 presidential election, too.
That's what voters were looking for in President Obama - the allure of “Change we can believe in.” That's what swept him into office. What voters got was more of the same; much more. With an Obama White House and Democrat-controlled Congress, we've only seen more arrogance, more partisan bickering, more sleazy back room deals, and more hard ball Chicago-style politics. As voters found out in 2009, the change they so eagerly anticipated isn't always the change they really wanted.
Barely a year has passed and change, once again, is what voters seem to be clamoring for. Or, maybe it could be said the American people are suffering from buyer's remorse. New Jersey, Virginia, and Massachusetts are but the first wave of that sentiment. Besides, voters always seem to enjoy a divided government; they love to have a system of checks and balances. Two divergent viewpoints, requiring a little give-and-take, tend to keep things a little more centered.
One of the most effective governments, in recent memory, was that of President Bill Clinton and a Republican-controlled Congress. I've never been a Clinton fan, but it's hard to argue that the combination of that left-leaning administration and right-leaning Congress actually got a lot of things – good things – accomplished. By necessity, they kept each other honest and kept the agenda where the vast majority of American people live – center-right.
That same Republican Congress, however, working with a Bush administration, eventually lost their way, forgot why voters sent them to Washington, abandoned their core values, spent like drunken Democrats, and voters summarily dismissed them. Voters were seeking change in 2008, but to triple or quadruple the spending and debt was not what they had in mind.
Change, again, is coming in the 2010 elections - not necessarily back to the so-called “failed policies of the past eight years,” and certainly not the so-called “change we thought we could believe in.” It's clear America is looking for change that will bring real fiscal discipline and restraint, and strict adherence to the Constitution - not just talk of it. Americans believe in paying their fair share, but also believe that they know better how to spend their own money than the government. Americans are seeking the freedom and control to make the decisions – for better or worse – that affect their own lives, without an all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful nanny state trying to care for them from cradle to grave.
Unless and until politicians grasp those concepts, change inevitably will remain the theme of all future elections, and politicians will find themselves stuck in the revolving door of change.
