Scott Brown’s win is obviously great news that is worthy of celebration. For conservatives, especially after watching the nation embrace a media-created fraud like Barack Obama and make him president with 60 votes in the Senate, seeing Brown win was like suddenly finding an oasis in the desert that has been the political landscape for most of the past three years. Discovering this spring of hope, in of all places, Massachusetts and in the vaunted “Kennedy” seat certainly makes the thirst quenching aspect of this event all that much more satisfying.
Ok, now that I have acknowledged this remarkable moment, it is time for a reality check.
What strikes me most dramatically is that, given the absolute perfect storm of events in play here, how in the world did Brown fail to win even 52 percent of the vote?
Yes, obviously I know this is Massachusetts and I know he trailed by 20 points just a couple of weeks ago, but let’s consider some basic facts.
First, Republican governors are actually pretty common in the state and the current Democrat in that office is incredibly unpopular.
Second, this was a special election, which allowed all of the political attention as well as money from outside the state (much of it from fired up conservatives who would ordinarily have been distracted by many other campaigns) to be focused on just one race. In this case, due to an incredible quirk in timing, an unpopular health care bill was essentially on the ballot in the very state that would benefit from the bill probably less than any other.
Third, independent voters really hate one-party rules and Massachusetts has lots of those. Many of them clearly voted for Brown as a way to send a message to Obama by effectively putting some restrictor plates on that fancy filibuster-proof sports car he has been recklessly driving around. This anti-monarchy sentiment actually turned the “Kennedy legacy” issue into a real burden for the Democrat (even if Ted’s son had actually known their candidate’s first name).
Fourth, Brown is not just a good candidate, he is so ideal that there is no way his win can possibly be duplicated around the country. Unless of course Republicans have a sable full of experienced, properly accented, locally educated, hunky male candidates with perfect names who drive trucks and whose wives are local newscasters but who are portly enough where their husband’s good looks don’t turn off females voters (the John Edwards effect) and whose daughters are American Idol contestants who star on local college basketball teams. Good luck with that Michael Steele. Sarah Palin is clearly very fertile but even she couldn’t possibly populate a master race of populist Republican candidates fast enough to fill the need.
Fifth, it is almost literally impossible to imagine a worse race being run by the Democratic candidate. She went out of her way to insult Red Sox fans (twice), Catholics and everyone with a spell-check on their computer. She was boring, overconfident and uninspired. And yet, she still lost by less than 5 points. What exactly would it have taken for her to lose by double digits? Stealing Ted Williams’ frozen head, sticking a Yankees hat on it and going lawn bowling with it in Boston Commons?
Sixth, the Haitian earthquake took almost all of Martha Coakley’s natural allies in the news media away from Massachusetts at exactly the time she needed them to descend on Boston to dig up some dirt on Brown. Does anyone really believe that if the quake hadn’t hit that the national media wouldn’t have unleashed Palin-like hell on Brown once they realized he was a legitimate threat? When is a Republican ever going to get a “pass” like that again?
Finally, Brown’s win probably sets Obama up for future success. If the president plays his cards right and gets lucky at all with the economy, Brown preventing him from socializing our health care system and taking much of the fire out of the fear of a run away Congress (which will likely be further reduced with more Democrat losses in November) will actually be a blessing in disguise for Obama. It seems to me that, unless Obama and his team are complete idiots (still a possibility) that Brown’s win will effectively help the president get re-elected on the very same day in 2012 when Brown is likely soundly defeated in his own bid for re-election.
John Ziegler is currently a documentary filmmaker who most recently released a movie on the 2008 election called, “Media Malpractice… How Obama Got Elected and Palin Was Targeted.” He has also been in radio talk show host in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Louisville and Nashville. Ziegler has written two books and has appeared live on numerous national television shows including the Today Show, The View, Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC.