It might be a bit too premature and over dramatic to use such terms, but it is not very difficult to make the case that what happened yesterday in Massachusetts is not some isolated election anomaly, but part of a burgeoning nationwide American political revolution.
Since Republican Henry Cabot Lodge was defeated by a young, upstart politician named John F. Kennedy in November of 1952 and left office in January of '53, at least one of Massachusetts' two U.S. Senators has been a Democrat. Two years after JFK was elected to the Presidency in 1960, his brother Ted Kennedy assumed the seat and owned it until his death last year.
The other Massachusetts Senatorial spot was won by Paul Tsongas for the Democrats in 1979. He was succeeded in 1985 by ultra-liberal John Kerry, and so the Democrats have had solid control of both U.S. Senatorial seats from Massachusetts for a generation. In what has to be a stunning, bitter, ironic defeat for the Dems, the seat virtually owned by the Kennedy's and controlled by liberal interests for over a half century was lost yesterday.
In the special election held yesterday to replace the deceased 'Lion of the Senate', 50-year old Scott Brown was chosen by the previously reliable voters of Massachusetts to become the first Republican U.S. Senator to represent the commonwealth in three decades.
It is that very idea of previously 'reliable' voters rising up and throwing out the candidates presented by their political party, particularly the Democratic Party at this time, that leads to the notion that there is something more brewing here than simple dissatisfaction in local politics.
A year ago today, Barack Obama was sworn-in as the 44th President of the United States. The first minority to hold the office, Obama was elected after a campaign that promised to "fundamentally change America" in his very own words.
It has become abundantly clear in the ensuing year that what Obama and his ultra-liberal congressional leaders, U.S. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi from California and U.S. Senator Harry Reid from Nevada, consider 'Change' is very different from what the vast majority of those who elected him expected.
The majority of voters are generally 'centrists' who do not adhere to any political idealogy on a stringent basis in their daily lives. They may be generally conservative in nature, such as myself and most Republicans, or generally liberal, as most Democrats, but they begin to get very turned off when the far-end of either party begins to attempt to assert control over their lives.
The voters should have understood what Obama meant by his 'Change' because he was really no secret. By every measure he was the most far-left of the liberal Democratic U.S. Senators. His personal, educational, social, and political associations were all at least bordering on socialist and communist. He is certainly the single most politically progressive individual to ever hold the highest office in the land.
But the fact is that the majority of voters just didn't get it. They were wooed by Obama's dynamic public speaking ability and by a liberal-dominated mass media into buying into the notion that he would simply be a compassionate, intellectual alternative to lead a younger generation of Americans forward in a changing world.
Instead, what Obama did was almost immediately undertake a radical policy to have the federal government take over large swaths of American private industry. He and his political allies who are currently in control of Congress and the Senate have taken what was already huge public debt and driven it to irresponsible levels. This will undoubtedly lead to massive tax increases in the coming months and years.
Many people now believe this is an intentional attempt to collapse the American financial system and lead to complete government control of most or all sectors of public life including the financial, labor, health, educational, and media systems.
None of these actions are in compliance with the stated intent or the spirit of the U.S. Constitution or the traditional American precepts of self-reliance and independence. As the year has worn on, Americans finally began to sit up, take notice, and then stand up to be heard.
At what became known as 'Tea Parties' and at town hall meetings across the country, Americans let their elected officials and representatives of the Obama administration know that they were not happy with the direction in which the country was heading. Rather than pay heed to the obvious discontent fomenting among the people, the arrogant politicians plowed on with their plans, often publicly stating that they didn't care what the people want.
Then came the fall, and election season. In New Jersey, uber-rich, ultra-liberal incumbent Democratic Governor Jon Corzine was defeated by Republican Chris Christie. In Virginia, Republican Bob McDonnell ousted liberal Tim Kaine from the Governor's seat held by the Dems for eight years. The issues and personalities were indeed local, but in both instances reflected national opinions and trends.
For months now, almost every single reliable poll taken across the country has shown great dissatisfaction among the electorate with the programs and the policies undertaken by Obama and being plowed through congress by his lock-step Democratic Party cohorts. The polls are showing that the gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey were akin to tremors preceding an earthquake. What happened yesterday in the Massachusetts Senatorial election is the strongest in what is now a continuing series of these tremors.
What seems crystal clear at this point is that traditional American values are under attack, and Americans have had enough of both parties. Going forward, at least in the short term, it appears that no incumbent who ignores their electorate is safe. Americans don't want party politics as usual, they want people who will speak the truth to them, and who will respond to them. Either that, or the people will resort to the old political axiom of 'throw the bums out'.
This coming fall Americans will go to the polls all across the nation in what will be pivotal times for the future of the country. Will the United States continue to slide closer and closer to full-blown socialism by keeping the current liberals running the Democratic Party in control? Or will the American political revolution begun at the 2009 tea parties and town halls, carried into Virginia, New Jersey, and now Massachusetts, lead to a reclaiming of traditional America?
