StefanClaypool.com

Yeah, I think it’s that time.

Scott Brown’s electoral victory is nothing less than the single most cataclysmic electoral event of my lifetime, and yes, I’m including Obama’s election in 2008.  The pendulum of national politics swings back and forth between Republicans and Democrats with some regularity, and despite the fervor that surrounded Obama during his campaign, he was still ultimately another Democrat who won a small but decisive majority in a national election.  Scott Brown, on the other hand, ran a quixotic campaign in the bluest of all blue states, and literally came out of nowhere two weeks before the election to claim victory.  No one was prepared for this, especially not Martha Coakley, who seemed content to twiddle her thumbs until her preordained coronation.  The implications of Brown’s victory are far-reaching, and will doubtlessly have a tremendous impact on the national debate between Right and Left, the legislative process, and the Obama presidency.  It will be seen, justly, as a referendum on the direction the country has taken under President Obama, and moderate Democrats who were already leery of being associated with the party’s Left wing will begin to hedge their bets (as Evan Bayh has begun to do).

In short, a tremendous night, and one with huge implications.

UPDATE: It begins!

So we have a health care “reform” bill that 61% of Americans don’t want passed; that liberals hate because it amounts to a massive subsidy for private insurance companies; that conservatives hate because it allows the government to expand its reach into an already heavily-regulated industry; that doesn’t lower the cost of health premiums; that will increase the federal budget deficit in a time when it has already surpassed the legal limit; that will not fully cover the forty-five million Americans who don’t have health insurance; that will force individuals to buy government-approved health insurance under penalty of imprisonment (for “tax evasion”); that will fund abortions with taxpayer money; that will cut Medicare benefits to seniors; and that will transform health care conceptually from a purchased good to an entitlement.  It is a tragically flawed bill, a poorly-conceived, poorly-executed rush-job that does more harm than good, and no one is satisfied with it.

No one except Barack Obama.

On October 2, 2009, the U.S. unemployment rate hit a twenty-six year high at 9.8%.  Real unemployment is somewhere closer to 17%, and the country has now been hemorrhaging jobs for twenty-one consecutive months.  Despite President Obama’s reassurances and Vice President Biden’s insistence that the stimulus package passed earlier this year is working “beyond [his] wildest dreams,” it is obvious that the White House’s plan has gone horribly awry.  Not that such a development should surprise anyone – after all, did you really expect a novice politician with two years experience as a Senator and no legislative victories when he announced his candidacy could possibly enter office ready to govern? But what is surprising is the President’s staunch refusal to recognize the realities before him, and his insistence on continuing to govern as a celebrity in chief.

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When Barack Obama was elected the 44^th President of the United States, it was because voters believed that he was the herald of a new kind of politician, one that thrived on optimism, sensibility, and competence.

Oops.

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This column was originally posted at The D.C. Writeup.

Wednesday night’s Very Special Episode of the Barack Obama Show has come and gone, and the most memorable thing about it was an interruption by an unruly member of the audience. The President’s Historic Game-Changing Speech is beginning to look like just another in a long line of pointless rhetorical exercises.

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