More than one revolution got its start in Massachusetts

In 1962 John F. Kennedy was President, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, the first WalMart opened in Rogers, Arkansas, John Carson took over as host of the Tonight Show and Ted Kennedy was elected United States Senator from the state of Massachusetts.

In 2008 President Obama carried the state of Massachusetts by 800,000 votes, a 26-point margin of victory, 62% to 36%. According to Gallup's exit polling in 2008, independents, which made up 40% of the electorate, favored the Democratic candidate by 17 points, 57% to 40%. During the Brown/Coakley race, Rasmussen's last poll before the one that counts had independents favoring the Republican by 48 points, 71% to 23%.

Had you told any reasonable political analyst, had you told anyone with a modicum of political knowledge that a Republican had a chance to win the Senate seat that for forty-seven years had been occupied by the "Liberal Lion" Ted Kennedy, you would have been laughed out of the room. And yet here we are and it's worth taking a minute to consider how we got here and reflect on the importance of political "independents" in our electoral process.

It is my opinion that President Obama was elected largely by independent and moderate Democrat voters drawn to the candidate's promise of running a transparent, non-partisan government. After six years of some of the most rancorous and mean-spirited political discourse in our nation's modern political history, the American people wanted a change. They wanted a candidate who was willing to reach across the aisle and work with his opposition, taking the "bit from column a, bit from column b" approach to government.

However, once elected Obama took a hard turn to the left. Angrily lecturing his opposition, closing them out of pressing negotiations and pushing an agenda seemingly more intereted in moving this country closer to European socialism than restoring a disenchanted public's confidence in a shaken economy and agressively waging a winning war on Islamic extremism. Many of those who voted for the President, particularly independents, must feel as though they were sold a bill of goods but there was no way to measure that sentiment... until now.

Brown's win tonight proves unequivocally that the United States of America is not interested in a slow march toward socialism and will not suffer disingenuous politicians leading them along said path. The Democrats ignore this message at their own peril.

P.S. - The Big Win tonight is that Obama-care is officially dead. If the Democrats try to use reconcilliation or delay seating Senator Brown in order to pass this bill they will suffer a political backlash the likes of which this nation has never seen and lock themselves out of power for generations.