Interpreting Mass.

Let's dust off the Hoedown for a minute.


Tuesday saw "the impossible" happen: the Kennedy Senate seat in Massachusettes, Democractic for 57 years, went Republican. Scott Brown (R) pulled out a clear victory over Martha Coakley (D).


Pundits froth at the implications. Democrats wail and moan; Republicans strut and preen. The surface interpretation is that voters are fed up with Democratic Washington and have fired a shot at the bow letting the Administration know. Republicans are in then, right? Their agenda is preferred?


Not exactly. Tuesday's win was a big upset for the Democrats (Coakley was leading several weeks ago, or at least reasonably competitive), but not the sea change folks are making it out to be. To continue using nautical metaphors, it was a rogue wave, not the leading edge of a hurricane that will scour Congress of Democrats come November.


Voters are angry and fed up, but much of Tuesday's vote had to do with state politics. There were tax and corruption issues at play, and Brown was a charismatic alternative. Likewise, they can see nationally the failures of the Democratic leadership in DC as indication that maybe a supermajority in the Senate isn't a good idea. But that was second fiddle to local issues and personal magnetism. This is a storm in a bottle for Mass. Dems predominantly.


Republicans desperately want to think that their NJ and VA gubernatorial wins last fall and this big win mean great things come November. To be honest, Brown should not have won in Mass., no matter what your Democrat friends say about Coakley. It's a (D) state - almost more than any other in the Union - and a Republican win does indicate a lack of confidence in the "same old thing" - Democratic state shenanigans.


And after four years of Congressional control and a year of a Democratic White House to boot, the "same old thing" exists in more than just one state.


But anger can trump ideology, and Brown benefited from extreme voter anger and dissatisfaction over bungled, backroom health care chicanery, ballooning deficit spending, expanding debt limits, bailouts handed out like fliers on a street corner - big government, in two words. Voters did say no to that.


Does this reaction mean Obama's agenda is in trouble, that his "base" is rebelling? Eh, not really. If you see his base as the liberal side of the Democratic party, they are still quite loyal. Unhappy that there's no single-payer system yet, but still loyal. Moderate Democrats and independent voters are streaming away, as indicated in not only the three major Republican wins these last few months, but most major polls since mid-summer 2009.


All that aside, this means "epic fail" for Health Care Reform, and you don't have Republicans to blame. House and Senate Dems were too stubborn or cautious or ambitions (depending on your read) to use their SUPER MAJORITIES to just pass legislation, too divided over what should be in, too afraid of filibuster (like Dems can't frame that in the national media to make Republicans look cowardly and small).


Obama has moved the conversation already. Now it's the banks that are the culprits, and he will fight them until his knuckles bleed and the heavens crack...or until the news cycle moves on to immigration reform, green energy, entitlements, hobbits in the workplace....


-Erik