I’m sitting here this evening watching the CNN election returns on the Massachusetts Senate race. You know the one to fill the late Ted Kennedy’s seat. And to my amazement – the Democrat lost!  How could this be –OMG!!!.

I am just a guilty as any other intellectual leftist that thought the election in Mass was not much more than a formality.  The Tea Party wackos were not going to have any effect on this race!

Sorry ol’ timer… wrong again.

Republican Scott Brown successfully heaped fears of big government, excessive costs, huge tax increases and “nationalized medicine” on Mass voters… and it worked.  Never mind that many of the trappings of the healthcare package were formulated from very successful state insurance commissions and statutes. Never mind that much of the core principles of the healthcare bills – both House and Senate – were those that Ted Kennedy fought for – for decades.  And never mind that both Republican and Democratic controlled congresses have tried to get many of these same laws enacted.

His challenger made absolutely no attempt to give this information to the public. And, Massachusetts is the Insurance Company capital of the U.S.  The Lobby money was absolutely intense.  And yet Obama and the Democrats fiddled.

Brown was effective because Democratic leadership – including Obama – thought that their liberal base would follow their lead. They did not have to educate anyone on the workings of the proposed legislation.  There was no need for the Party to combat the Insurance lobby’s ad campaign.  Not to mention the Right Wing’s scare campaigns – led by crackpots like Limbaugh and Beck – had no chance of swaying the savvy intellectual left.

Right.

If there is one thing that is always going to be true in politics – its that if you ignore someone long enough they will flip on you.  From lobbyists to constituents, it is a political law of nature.   They will switch to the Nazi party if it treats them with respect. I’d keep this from Lieberman.

Obama may be the best communicator since Reagan. But he has not instilled that ‘fire-side chat’ type of trust that you had with Regan or even Roosevelt.  He never quite developed that ‘connection’ to the average American that we all thought he embodied back in 2008.

Most representatives and senators vote however they are told to vote by the party brass. They blindly follow in hopes of getting a treasure trove of support for their next election. There are a few however who think for themselves.  Not getting at least a few independent thinking members of the opposition on board with your policies is usually a recipe for failure.

I truly believe that the Left was so enamored with their sweeping victories in 2008, that they became incongruous persecutors of Republican ideals.  Pelosi and her ilk felt so sure of their superiority that they failed to maintain the essence of the election. That essence was “HOPE”.  They’ve took it away by making a partisan mockery of the problems before us.  They have not tried to keep the hope alive. They needed constant communication with their constituents to inform, educate and solicit feedback. They closed the door and made their deals amongst themselves – sans Republicans, C-SPAN, et al.  The vision of hope, blurred beyond all recognition, was waiting to be resurrected.

And a Republican did it.

So, as one of my favorite mentors would say, my Democratic friends: “We have been presented with an opportunity”.  Not to be viewed as a setback but rather an awakening (imagine if Democrats had not considered this until the mid-terms!).  The Democratic Party has been given a slim chance of resurrecting that which was. The message of hope. A change in the way we face problems and develop solutions.

Mr. Obama… The ball is in your court.  A change in congressional leadership may be in the offing.  But, more to the point, you need to spend time with the American people. News conferences (you remember those) , Q&A sessions (where you do not control the ‘Q’ only the ‘A’ – and try to shorten the ‘A’… boring!), and some good old ‘debates’. Yea, debates. You need to take some of the Republican leadership on – in a public forum – and debate the facts of stimulus, healthcare reform, financial reform, foreign policy… you name it. The time to take your view of government to the people is not ONLY during a political campaign anymore.

Oh, by the way – if you do not have a good argument for the debate at hand… it’s probably not a good position to keep.

We are in the “Information Age”. I thought you Mr. President, of all people, would know that. And keep this in mind, Mr. President, we voted you into office not because we wanted more government – we wanted better government.

Better start ‘informing’ or your whole agenda will be out the window right along with the hope we are losing…

JB

Dwyer, D. (2010). Article: Republican Scott Brown Defeats Democrat Martha Coakley in Mass. Senate Race; ABC News; Retrieved January 19, 2010 from:  http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/republican-scott-brown-defeats-democrat-martha-coakley-massachusetts/story?id=9602776

Babington, C. (2010). Analysis: GOP win forces review of Obama’s mandate; Associated Press; Retrieved January 19, 2010 from:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/19/AR2010011903444.html