The big news in Politics this week is Scott Brown's Senate win in Massachusetts to replace Paul Kirk, who was named the interim Senator after Ted Kennedy died last summer.
Scott Brown is a Republican and no Republican has served as Senator from Massachusetts since 1978, which also happened to be the year I graduated from College. THAT was a long time ago.
So reading all the editorials and comments, both the Democrats and Republicans are claiming victory. The Republicans obviously because of the above drought in the MA Senate seats, as well as Martha Coakley's demise despite having a 30 point lead in the polls after the Primary back in December. That's difficult to squander in a liberal state in 6 weeks, but somehow she managed to do it.
But the Democratic side claimed victory because in their whacked thought process it meant that voters still wanted change, they just want it to happen faster. Some of the Democrats even think it means the Voters want Health Care Reform, even though Brown made tremendous headway in the polls when he started saying he would be the Senate's 41st vote and SPECIFICALLY vowed to stop health care reform.
Personally I think they are both wrong. I think it means the Independents will continue to control the elections. They didn't like the first Bush and voted in Clinton. They didn't like the first couple of years of Clinton and gave the Republicans control of both houses for the first time in 4 decades back in 1994. They voted the 2nd Bush in, and then turned on him and the Republicans in 2006 and 2008. And very quickly, they are starting to veer back the other way in November, 2009 and now 2010. We will see if it changes for the fall.
The only choices we have right now are Republicans and Democrats, but as we find as we go back and forth, neither party really cares about their constituents. Both parties know it, but they don't think the voters get it. It will certainly be interesting to watch the mobilization of voters who are fed up with the current system and see what they do in the fall. I'm hoping they vote significant members of both parties out, while leaving one party with only a small majority, and preferably a split of the two houses.
Stay Tuned....
