It’s election day and there’s light snow in New England, but certainly not enough to keep the hardy and the motivated citizens of Massachusetts away from the polls.
Just three short weeks ago I didn’t think Scott Brown had a chance to win this thing. Then I started thinking he might, or that he at least might do well enough to put the scare into the Democrats who are pushing the execrable health care reform bill.
Then the polls started to tighten, and I thought it had become—not just a possibility, but a good possibility that he’d be competitive. Maybe, if there wasn’t a lot of cheating, if the protest voter turnout was good, if the stars aligned just right, he could even (gulp) win.
Now most of the polls have shown Brown as ahead, some by a little and some by a lot. But no one really knows who will turn out today; we’re in uncharted waters. And no one really knows how many votes the Democrats could manufacture, and how willing and able they are to do so.
And so I’m nervous. In some paradoxical way, the recent encouraging polls have made me more nervous, not less. Have they been manipulated to help the Coakley turnout and give Brown voters a false sense of confidence? I think Brown voters are tremendously motivated and Coakley voters much less so, but who knows how this all will go down.
All I know is that by tonight we’ll probably know who won, unless it’s really close.
And then, if the winner just happens to be Brown, the real fun would begin. What do I mean by “fun?” Every piece I’ve read indicates that the Democratic leaders have absolutely no intention of pulling back and heeding the message that the public is trying to send them.
No, apparently it will be full speed ahead with the health care bill; the only question is which one of the many convoluted machinations being considered will be the strategy de jour.
This is not a moment that causes the president or anybody who works for him to express any doubt,” a senior administration official said. “It more reinforces the conviction to fight hard.”
I’m not sure what form that hard fight will take ((see this for a list of possibilities). But the Brown campaign has made me think that there are an awful lot of foot soldiers on our side (which I like to think of as the people’s side—it’s Obama, Pelosi, & Reid v. The People). This is the sort of thing many of us are worried about:
If Obama were a liberal he would be advancing his agenda in terms of “the possible.” He would give and take with the opposition so as to get the maximum of what he wants while still building national consensus. But he is not a liberal at all. He does not recognize the opposition as “the honorable opposition.”
For him there appears to be no middle. And as I often am reminded, Freud said, “Every exaggeration carries within it the seeds of its own destruction.” But is the Scott Brown election going to be the start of a counter movement or is it the last stand of the opposition that is only going to be crushed by the full force of an Obama offensive.
Sadly, I no longer see any limit on the use of every means Obama and his allies are willing to engage in. SEIU thugs, limitless quasi-bribes to Senators, outright voter fraud, court rulings that ignore fairness and the law for the sake of partisan advancement. I suspect that Congress will ignore its precedents or make ad hoc changes in procedural rules to force passage of their agenda. And I have no faith in the Supreme Court to rule in other than partisan ways.
As I said, I will be nervous today, and fervently hoping that Brown will emerge victorious. A great deal is riding on this; perhaps more than has ridden on any other state election in history.
But whatever the outcome, the groundswell for Brown in a place like Massachusetts has shown how powerful this movement could become. Remember, whatever today’s outcome, this is just the beginning of our fight.
[NOTE: I moved this post to keep it at the top of the page.]
