Let’s revive an old slogan
[NOTE: for those who weren’t around back then, the slogan on the T-shirt refers to the following: in the 1972 election, Massachusetts was the only state (along with DC) that didn’t vote for Nixon, but went instead for McGovern. During and after Watergate, you saw a lot of bumper stickers in Massachusetts that read, “Don’t blame me, I’m from Massachusetts!”]
[ADDENDUM: I just listened to Brown’s speech; it showed what a natural he is. He exudes strength, sincerity, intelligence, humor, and is also at the same time very much a regular guy (except with model good looks).
Can’t believe the Republican Party got so lucky. Note, though, that in his speech he was careful to mention neither party by name. That’s quite a trick in an acceptance speech.
Smart man, with good political instincts.]
From Michelle Malkin…
Brown has won the race and Coakley has conceded, and there are more long faces at MSNBC than at an aardvark convention.
–
Holy sh*t. He won.
VICTORY!! It’s sweet.
Celebrate tonight.
Tomorrow the struggle against Obamacare, Cap and Trade, and Obamanomics goes on. It will be a bit easier with Scott Brown in the ranks.
CAN YOU HEAR US NOW!!!!!!!
working night shift in busy er in georgia-
just checked the results-
we all just let out a HOOORRAAAYYY!!!
and got back to work-
i am sure Mr Brown will do great work for his state and the country, thank you Yankees!
There’s no way to blame others for the result of the election. there is a great implication of the result of the poll. Let it be that way! its over! we’ve got to move on!
Yes, there are PATRIOTS in Massachusetts. And not just the Tom Brady kind.
Yay! Way to go Mass and neoneocon!
only, this may lead to losing more friends… oh well,
tonite we celebrate! congrats
Mark @ Israel Says:
The saying is a political joke with historical significance. In 1972, Massachusetts and Washington DC were the only places that went for McGovern during the Nixon landslide. The saying came about during the Watergate hearings which led to Nixon’s resignation.
That is what “Don’t Blame Me. I’m From Massachusetts “referred to. The object of scorn in that saying was originally Nixon. Now it refers to ∅bama. It is said in glee, or perhaps schaudenfreude.
Gringo, thanks, I needed the context, too.
Congrats!
I started to worry, though. SO much might go wrong, now. The way John relayed (in previous thread), or in some other spin Dems will be laboring at.
Yes—I thought I didn’t need to explain the reference that the T-shirt slogan was making, but I forgot that 1974 was a very long time ago. In the 1972 election, Massachusetts was the only state (along with DC) that didn’t vote for Nixon, but went instead for McGovern. During and after Watergate, you saw a lot of bumper stickers in Massachusetts that read, “Don’t blame me, I’m from Massachusetts!”
Hmmm—I think I better add that to the post.
I was thinking of sending the t-shirt to my Yellow Dog Democrat sister-in-law, as her hometown went 2-1 for Brown, but she’d probably throw the shirt back at me. Or start on how it was all Dubya’s fault.
I’m wearing a brown T-shirt tomorrow in honor of Brown’s election. Let’s hope he’s as good as he looks!
Re the 1972 election: It was in that election that I realized that my political instincts were WAY off. Everyone I knew voted for McGovern. That’s when I discovered I belonged to a special breed–the Lakefront Liberal, as we were known in Chicago. Our opposition were known as the Hard Hats.
I’ve come so far in the past few years. I’ve even worn a hard hat. And my friends and family are still stuck in Lakefront Liberal Land. Sigh.
However, I recently made a new friend who just joined the NRA. She plans to learn to shoot a gun. I would join her, but I’m not very coordinated, so I’ll take my chances without a gun. I’m reading up on self-defense methods, one of which includes using wasp-spray.
I guess I’m OT now, so I’ll end this comment with the observation that yes we can still save our glorious republic against the socialist/fascist thieves. Even Mayor Daley knows he can’t raise many more taxes without causing another huge flight out of Chicago.
Roger Ebert twitter:
“Massachussetts to Teddy Kennedy: “F–k you.”
http://twitter.com/ebertchicago/status/7970312048
Man, that is funny. He’s taking it pretty hard…..
Wow…. I’ll bet Chris Dodd has little scotch-scented tears rolling down his face right now.
Ahh, I will sleep well tonight. Let’s see how our business tax vote goes in Oregon next week.
Austrailian headline:
“Obama loses Kennedy Seat”
http://tinyurl.com/yaxr8a6
Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Indiana, told ABC News:
“There’s going to be a tendency on the part of our people to be in denial about all this,” the centrist Democrat said, but “if you lose Massachusetts and that’s not a wake-up call, there’s no hope of waking up.”
Hope and change on the horizon!
re: Roger Ebert twitter….
…he says that like it’s a bad thing…
Gray says :
No….there has definitely been a wake up call at least among the people. They woke up and saw clearly that Scott Brown was their best shot at getting honest, conservative leadership in DC to fight against the theft-in-progress enacted by our federal government.
Will the politicians wake up? More of them will, surely. They aren’t all mindless, liberal, plastic, post-op zombies like Pelosi. If enough of the dems are wise they will see this as an opportunity to scuttle the dead weight of entitlement/tax bills and instead move to the center. That side of the political spectrum, however, seems more well endowed with crafty intellect and sorely lacking in sagely wisdom. A sad ironic discepancy but one that belies the fault at the heart of liberalism: intelligence without wisdom.
For now my family and I will celebrate. Tomorrow will be back to the real world. No matter how much you push truth and wisdom in the face of a liberal they will still insist on intellectualization and idealogical fantasies of “social justice”. Ughhh!
I think we have to consider the possibility that Ted Kennedy (Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, but please not to his legacy!) held that seat not on the strength of his policies but on the deep roots of seniority.
If so, Rudy Gullianni’s decision not to run for the Senate from NY may be a very wise move. You want to elect the youngest Senator you can. The Byrd and Thurmond principle, you might call it.
The GOP needs to take statehouses now. The strongest presidential candidates are found in the gubenatorial crop.
We also have serious Constitutional problems, problems that can only be fixed if the Right can take and hold both Congress and enough State Legislatures. The Bill of Federalism would go a long way toward fixing things, though it would create other problems (no FDA, no NIST). I’d add an ammendment allowing a supermajority of states to delegate such powers to Congress for a limited time, with the funding mechanism specified by the State acts that delegate the powers.
The new senator delivered a nifty acceptance speech (which will be quoted, I predict) in future discussions of presidential candidates.
Talking of eloquence and presidents, your allegedly eloquent President says, “Everybody can run slick ads. Forget the truck, everybody can buy a truck.” He appeared to be using everybody as if it were the same as anybody. (Unless he really did mean that everybody can buy a truck, which I find hard to believe.)
From Australia, I ask: is this a common solecism–rather like the American practice of using lay to mean lie–or is it unique to Mr. Obama?
Congratulations to Senator-Elect Scott Brown. My hat is off to the Massachusetts voters. Texas may not have to secede after all!
Maybe they will wake up. Maybe they will realize sedulous people won’t stand for having an unreasonable amount of their earnings confiscated and given to those who won’t hold up their own part of the load.
Maybe. We’re still dealing with human nature.
Live and learn. I once would have laughed at the idea that one day I would sit down to watch election returns and find myself unable to stop grinning when I found out the Republican had one.
Lots of mourning on my Facebook this morning that “health care reform is dead.” No, it’s not. That particular bill is probably dead; if the Democrats have any instinct for self-preservation they will let Brown take his seat right away.
What’s dead is a bill that no one has fully read, that gives “byzantine” a new meaning, and that even its proponents admit has lots of flaws that we’ll have to work out later.
It showed something about this administration that as far as I can tell no one even thought to start off with a few reforms, such as allowing small businesses to pool their insurance and permitting insurance sales across state lines. That would have been the way to start; we could then figure out what was and was not working and go from there.
But this administration is, I regret to say, a lot more about aggrandizing its power than actual reforms. Once I would have been surprised at this but I finally figured out that to the left (I exclude centrist liberals like Bayh) authoritarianism isn’t an anomaly, it’s inherent.
WOW! There really IS a Santa Claus!
Now more seriously – does anyone know of any good BBQ recipes for pig wings????
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Whew, what a night. Like old home week here at Casa Reprobato! Lenny Clarke, Doug Flutie and James Montgomery. Mass defections (no pun intended) and a decisive victory.
Are we looking at the next President?
Not only is this a referendum on the Obama administration and Congress by and large, but it’s also a referendum on Sarah Palin. Sometimes we invent or read-into someone who we wish was more than they are, when they are not, and this is hubris too.
It’s a good day in Massachusetts, isn’t it?
Scott Brown actually had the stones to warn President Obama not to visit Massachusetts. (Sorry, I’m having trouble finding a link.) But Obama came anyway, and thereby made the election a referendum on him. My guess is that Sen. Brown is too much of a gentleman to say “I told you so” to the President… but I’ll bet he’s tempted!
Now the Democrats, who have been screaming for months about the desperate need for 60 votes in the Senate, will have to try to pass legislation with a majority of ONLY 59 to 41. Boo freakin’ hoo. As my eldest girl — no Republican, she! — commented last night: “If the Democrats can’t pass a bill without at least one or two Republicans, then it’s probably a bad bill in the first place.”
(By the way, if anyone is interested in the T-shirt Neo showed, it seems to be here.)
– – – – –
Promethea: I’d advise you to go ahead and learn how to shoot a gun. You’ll be under the guidance of an instructor; there’s nothing to fear. If you then choose not to defend yourself with a gun, you’ll have that choice… but it’ll be more of an informed choice.
But you might surprise yourself. You might even enjoy going to the range, shooting at paper targets and improving your scores; many people do. Personally, I think that you’d need a lot more coordination to defend yourself without a gun than with one… but go take that firearm-safety course and see for yourself.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
nyo Says:
January 20th, 2010 at 9:07 am
Not only is this a referendum on the Obama administration and Congress by and large, but it’s also a referendum on Sarah Palin.
JESUS CHRIST!!!
You simply could NOT pass up a chance to get in a cheap shot at Sarah Palin, regardless of what the post and thread was about.
–
Whether or not one intends to own a gun, joining the NRA is a good idea. It rattles liberals and it supports an organization which protects your right to have a gun.
Obama has done wonders for gun and ammo sales.
What amazes me is that McGovern’s and Dukakis’s political managers are still making serious money as political experts.
Historical note: after the 68 convention they picked McGovern to rewrite the delegate selection rules. And the nominee in 72 was … wait for it … wait for it … McGovern! An ethical angel manipulated the delegate rules to see he got nominated. In the party of Richard J. Daley. Whooda thunkit!
The first year I could vote in a presidential election was 1972 and I voted for McGovern. Ever since then, whenever I think about it, suicide has been an option.
E.M. Crotchet Says:
January 20th, 2010 at 2:50 am
. . .
Talking of eloquence and presidents, your allegedly eloquent President says, “Everybody can run slick ads. Forget the truck, everybody can buy a truck.” He appeared to be using everybody as if it were the same as anybody. (Unless he really did mean that everybody can buy a truck, which I find hard to believe.).
No, this is just Obama.
Although of supposed superior intelligence (obviously why his academic records are sealed; it would be so demoralizing to see a level we could never attain 🙂 ), as with most narcissists, he’s not nearly as smart as he thinks he is.
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Brown ran as a populist independent, despite the “R” next to his name. Who knew driving a truck in MA was so popular? 🙂
The Tea Partiers are going to be emboldened by Brown’s win, even if Brown tried to distance himself from the movement. Look at what’s happening in Florida. The Tea Partiers favorite in the FL U.S. Senate race, Marco Rubio, has crushed Charlie Crist in every straw poll taken.
Background for you who aren’t from New England. Massachusetts is very much a blue state, but that is regional as well. Boston, Worcester. and a few of their suburbs are overwhelmingly blue. The Cape Cod and Islands vacation areas are overwhelmingly blue. Western MA is essentially Southern VT/NYC escape hatch (but, I repeat myself). Notice also, Seven Sisters colleges and Little Ivies. The rest of the state is much more independent, even red in places. Think of all those stories about Yankee Fahmahs in NH and VT from years ago. That’s central MA as well. Lots of libertarian instincts.
That may also reveal to you how strongly Republican VT and NH went blue over the last 40 years, and why upstate NY is still red. Two cultures. The domestic immigrants overwhelmed us in numbers at first, but maybe we can still turn them around.
From Australia, I ask: is this a common solecism–rather like the American practice of using lay to mean lie–or is it unique to Mr. Obama?
An excellent question–an awkward phrase; it is not a common solecism; I noticed it as well, but there is a subtext.
(With Obama, it’s not about what he says, but what the “second narrative” is.) It reads like this:
“Everybody (running for office) can run slick ads. Forget the truck, everybody (running for office) can buy a truck. (as a gimmic)”
By “everybody”, he means everybody in his political class vs the “nobodies” in America. It is a “Kinsley Gaffe”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsley_gaffe
Obama’s repeated references to Brown’s truck were dripping with condescension. It is much like his derision of people who cling to guns and religion. Obviously, lots of regular people got the message, whether or not they had a truck.
Brown one-upped Barry when he suggested he might drive that truck to Washington for Obama to see.
“JESUS CHRIST!!!
You simply could NOT pass up a chance to get in a cheap shot at Sarah Palin, regardless of what the post and thread was about.”
Apparently our friend did not hear the palinisms that were peppered throughout Brown’s speech, did he?
Also,
Mr. Assistant,
I take issue with your comments about the various political geographies in Massachusetts. If you take a look at the results from last night you will see that much of the South Shore and Cape Cod were very much in the red, indeed, my state representative from Cape Cod is one of those lonely Republicans on Beacon Hill. My Congressman, Delahunt, is the most conservative of the cabal in Washington – an exceedingly low bar to jump over, I know.
The South Shore area, while purple in the past few years, is traditionally a Republican area. If the Democrats keep up the nonsense I think that it will return to its roots.
To add on to what AVI said, I’m always amazed when I hear folks talk about Massachusetts being nothing but liberals. “Trucks, guns” etc. Hey, every home in my old neighborhood had at least one shotgun in it. Our’s certainly did. Trucks?, I learned to drive in a 53′ Chevrolet out in the fields as soon as I could reach the pedals. Of course we had trucks, and used them as well. Until I was in high school there were more cows in town than people. Every family had men that served in the military, by choice, and sense of duty. Much of New England the same. Over on Michelle Malkin’s page there is an excellent graphic of the state and how the voting went down in blue and red. For the uninformed, have a look. Where it’s blue is where the money is almost exclusively, (aside from the urban areas of S.E., Boston, Brockton, Worcester, Springfield etc.) and those folks aren’t really sweating in these times, you can believe it. While the family farms, fishing, small town business have been all but destroyed completely, there’s still plenty of Yankee spirit left in the bones that has nothing to do with Volvos, Birkenstocks and Obama.
And wouldn’t it be lovely if Brown is – really truly is – what he seems? A mixture of points of view, not a tool of either party, not beholden and not indebted, just a regular guy (as you say) who says what he means and actually will do what he said he would do, someone with points of view and a sense of humor and a sense of balance and a sense of fair play? Let’s hope!
turfmann, I was not precise, and you are correct. When I said vacation areas of the Cape, I was thinking mostly of the outer, P-Town, area, plus the islands. Barnstable County is certainly also a vacation area, but I think of that as more mixed.
As to the South Shore, my father-in-law is a Roosevelt Democrat from Scituate who will never vote for a Republican, and he has mentioned a few times that his area, despite being the Irish Riviera, has too many Republicans for his taste.
Very soon this website will be famous amid all blogging users,
due to it’s good posts