.
By early afternoon on Tuesday, several hours before the
polls closed on the special Senate election in
Massachusetts, the Democrats had already thrown in the
towel and started throwing punches. At each other. There
was more finger-pointing among Bay State and Beltway
Democrats than in a
"Three Stooges"
marathon. More backstabbing than all of the
"Real Housewives"
combined.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs confessed that
President Obama was
"frustrated"
and "not pleased"
by the closeness of the race after his salvation mission
to Boston over the weekend. Operatives lashed out at
Democratic candidate
Martha Coakley`s
listless, gaffetastic campaign. Capitol Hill buzzed with
rumors that White House Chief of Staff
Rahm Emanuel
was blaming the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
and liberal pollster Celinda Lake for ignoring electoral
alarm bells.
In response, Coakley`s team
leaked a memo
blasting national Democratic brethren for failing to aid
them "until too
late." Another Democratic Party official
counter-jabbed to Politico
that Coakley had
"been involved in the worst case of political
malpractice in memory."
On the sidelines, Democratic Rep. Barney Frank took to
the airwaves to call for sabotaging Senate rules and
ending the filibuster in anticipation of losing the
magic 60th vote for the government health care takeover
plan. Democratic Rep.
Steny Hoyer
trotted out the old blame-the-GOP card—incoherently
arguing that
GOP candidate Scott Brown`s surge among conservatives,
independents and
once-reliable rank-and-file Democratic voters
in the deep-blue state of Massachusetts was a backlash
against Republican obstructionism.
"I think what the public is angry about is they see,
first of all, an opposition for opposition`s sake,"
Hoyer told reporters in D.C. If Democrats continue to
cling to that outer-space nonsense, the shock they will
suffer in the November 2010 elections will make January
19 look like a spa day.
As I write, the polls are still open. But win, lose or
draw, Brown`s surge is an unmistakable victory for Tea
Party activism. Online fundraising over the past few
weeks buoyed the campaign and put Brown in the national
spotlight. Buzz over a possible
"Massachusetts
Miracle" persuaded national Republican organizations
to belatedly transfer funds for phone and mail
get-out-the-vote operations targeted at independent
voters.
There was nothing particularly
"clever"
about Brown`s election strategy, as White House
senior adviser
David Axelrod
put it,
or "radical,"
as hysterical Massachusetts Democratic
Sen. John Kerry put it.
Brown ran a simple mainstream Republican campaign aided
by nationwide grassroots support. The
Tea Party movement
once derided as
"tiny" and
"fringe" reportedly filled Brown`s coffers with
small donations totaling $1 million a day for the last
week,
according
to TheDailyCaller.com. He didn`t have to solicit their
support. He earned it by reflecting the mood of
Massachusetts voters who have turned against the Demcare
scheme and its backroom deals.
An
Army National Guardsman,
Brown also drew sharp contrasts between his support for
a robust, proactive national security stance and
Coakley`s law enforcement approach endorsing
civilian trials on American soil
for jihadi suspects. Her cluelessness about the presence
of the Taliban in Afghanistan didn`t help her
soft-on-terrorism image.
In short, Brown ran on core issues of fiscal
responsibility, limited government and a strong national
defense, while appealing to a broader swath of voters by
emphasizing integrity, independence and a willingness to
stand up to machine politics. After a year`s worth of
Democratic
stimulus giveaways to cronies,
reneging on transparency pledges, and Cash for
(fill-in-the-blank) bailouts, voters have had enough of
the enablers and water-carriers.
Brown channeled the energies of taxpayers of all stripes
who are disgusted and angry—yes, ANGRY!—with the culture
of corruption in Washington. That is how Brown has
struck common ground with his insurgent
center-right-indie coalition: by stepping up to oppose
the Dems` plans to rig the game and undermine
representative government, instead of
sneering at "Teabaggers."
While a self-satisfied and entitled Coakley vacationed
or partied with D.C. lobbyists, Brown drove around in
his GM truck, shaking hands in the cold outside Fenway
Park—earning the scorn of Coakley and
Obama, who mocked Brown`s truck
six times at the Boston rally this weekend to the
delight of blue-nosed Democrats.
Rep. Frank
griped at the Coakley-Obama rally
that Coakley "let
it become a personality contest and that was a mistake."
The supreme irony in hearing Beltway Democrats snipe at
Coakley over her effete, out-of-touch attitude is that
their commander-in-chief at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
suffers the
same fatal flaws.
Exactly one year after Obama was inaugurated, the
Massachusetts meltdown mirrors the White House meltdown.
For the sake of their political survival, Democrats need
to stop promising change and start promising
self-correction.
COPYRIGHT
CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
Michelle Malkin
[email
her]
is the author of
Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists,
Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our
Shores.
Click
here
for Peter Brimelow`s review. Click
here
for Michelle Malkin`s website. Michelle Malkin
is also author of
Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild
and the just-released Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies.
