January 22, 2010
Is Brown the new Red?

Posted at 12:56 pm, in: Elections
Tags: Bay State, Democrats, Massachusetts, Mitt Romeny, Obamacare, Republicans, Romneycare, Tea Parties

Everybody is all flustered with the election of Scott Brown to the “People’s Seat,” formerly known as “Ted Kennedy’s Seat,” up in the deeply blue Massachusetts. For some reason, I’m just not that impressed. And, why should I be? What do we really know about this guy? He’s going to stop the ridiculousness of Obamacare, for now, but what does this really mean for our country, in the long run? Republicans and conservatives alike need to stop treating him like he is their ” The One.” He’s not. Any Republican getting elected in liberal MA is, well, liberal. Only time will tell us how liberal he is, but robo-calls on his first night as Senator-elect for voters in Arizona to support the liberal John McCain is a bad indication for what the future holds.

He was swept into office claiming that he would be the 41st vote against Obamacare. MA voters are particularly sensitive to this issue as they watch the devastation being wrought by Romneycare, which many key aspects of Obamacare were based on. Medical costs in the Bay State are rising, private insurers are beign squeezed out of the market, and talk of rationing medical services has started. Romneycare also mandates individual citizens buy insurance or face a penalty, which was a major point of contention in Obamacare being recognized, and rightfully so, as grossly unconstitutional. Guess which MA state Senator voted for Romneycare? Yeah, that would be the man who campaigned as “Number 41.” Perhaps he has realized the error of his ways and doesn’t want the mistake he made as a state senator that has hurt the citizens of MA to be made at the federal level and inflicted upon the rest of America. But, without any bold statements admitting this prior mistake, that seems just tad doubtful.

The media and pundits, on every side, are misreading the Tea Party movement. This isn’t a conservative/Republican/liberal/Democrat movement. It’s the movement of average citizens feeling the federal government’s breath on the back their necks and responding with a loud and clear, “Get off me!” A lot of it is the feeling by average citizens, from all political stripes, feeling like they’re being ignored. For many, it is the feeling that these backdoor dealings, payoffs, and dead-of-night shenanigans aren’t in line with what we believe to be the “American way.” We were promised transparency and a new way of running things in Washington. We just didn’t realize that new way would be worse than the old, as is often the way it goes when we let the left conduct their experiments on America.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that Brown was elected if for no other reason than to stop Obamacare, upset the political landscape with the unexpected, and put a check on the Democrats previously unchecked power. Politics are my sport of choice and I can appreciate a good upset. No matter how liberal Brown turns out to be, there’s still some satisfaction just in seeing “Teddy’s Seat” go from blue to red. Not that I care for the Republican Party or their big-government spending ways, but I hope the red that seat has turned is more in line with the red of Republicans than that of Stalin and Mao Zedong.