Here's just a few items relevant to last night's "Massachusetts miracle."* Congressman Patrick Kennedy, son of the late Senator Ted Kennedy, likened the voters of his home state to blood-lusty Romans who eagerly watched Christians killed by lions.
As election returns came in Tuesday night, Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) said it's clear that voters wanted “a whipping boy” for all the lost jobs and foreclosed homes. “It’s like in Roman times, they’d be trotted out to the coliseum and the lions would be brought out,” Kennedy told reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday night. “I mean, they’re wanting blood and they’re not getting it so they want to protest..."
* In another interview, Patrick Kennedy passed on another delectable bon mot which expresses the sloppy approach that dominates Democrat lawmaking nowadays. Of the Senate's grievously flawed "health care" bill, Kennedy said, "There is only one guarantee — that if we don't pass something the notion of trying to put Humpty Dumpty together again is a real long shot. If you understand the legislative process, it's a lot easier to pass something and fix it later."
It's a bad bill -- a broken, unworkable, super expensive bill. But Kennedy and his fellow Democrats don't care. They just want to pass something! And they feel compelled to pass it in a hurry. In secret. And in open defiance of the will of the people.
* In a post at NRO's The Corner entitled "The Vindication of the Cambridge Cop and a Word of Caution for the GOP," Alvin S. Felzenberg has some insightful commentary (and very good advice) regarding last night's developments.
* From Tim Reid, writing in Washington for the Telegraph but before the Brown/Coakley race was decided):
When Barack Obama took the oath of office before a shimmering wave of humanity a year ago today with his approval rating at 70 per cent, he and the Democrats controlling Congress believed that history beckoned — and that they had the clout and popular support to shape it.
Yesterday the President and his party were scrambling to avoid losing Teddy Kennedy’s Massachusetts Senate seat — an unthinkable development even a month ago — and are bracing themselves for a bloodbath in congressional elections this November. It shows just what a debilitating first year they have suffered, and what a perilous 2010 beckons.
On that freezing but sparkling January morning 12 months ago, Mr Obama promised to usher in a new era of bipartisanship in Washington and to remake the American economy and the country’s social contract with a wealth of historic legislation that a Democratic-controlled Capitol Hill would send to his desk.
Today his approval rating has dropped to less than 50 per cent. Democrats are nervous and depressed. In November’s mid-term elections they will almost certainly lose their 60-seat, filibuster-proof majority in the Senate — if they have not already lost it by ceding the Massachusetts seat. Last night Mr Obama acknowledged the possibility of losing it.
In the House, it is likely that the party will lose between 20 and 30 seats, and could cede control of the lower chamber entirely. Such a notion appeared impossible a year ago.
Mr Obama remains personally popular, but his policies have unnerved many Americans who voted for him, in particular independents, whose support was critical to his election victory. In a poll this week, only 49 per cent of unaffiliated voters approved of Mr Obama’s performance: lower than any of his recent predecessors at this stage in their presidencies.
Voters are angry, restless and deeply disaffected with Washington. They are unconvinced that Mr Obama’s prescription of massive government intervention has succeeded in any area, except in exploding the federal budget deficit and leaving generations of Americans awash in national debt...
* From David Hogberg's Capital Hill post (Investor's Business Daily):
Meanwhile, J. Mark Wrighton, a frequent election commenter for IBD stories, thinks Sens. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Mary Landrieu, D-La., will have cover now to back out of their now-infamous political deals with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on health care. Wrighton, a professor of political science and associate dean the University of Southern Mississippi, said the following: "Brown’s election to the Senate has the potential to provide political cover for Senate Democrats pivotal in the healthcare debate. Brown's 41st vote against invoking cloture removes much of the pressure on red-state Democrats to vote for cloture. As the process unfolds, we may see some switching by those vulnerable senators who are currently associated with unpopular agreements to move the bill along."
Will Senator Nelson take advantage of this opportunity? See the Vital Signs post following this one for more on that matter.