I guess the Democrats really should have been surprised by the election in Massachusetts.
I mean, after all, that US Senate seat had been held by liberal Democrat Edward Kennedy since 1962.
And Massachusetts is one of the bluest states in the Union.
I'm not gonna lie. I didn't think Republican State Senator Scott Brown could get more votes than Democrat Attorney General Martha Coakly.
I was telling co-workers during the day Tuesday that all those polls didn't mean a thing and if the race was too close to call, Coakly would win. I couldn't have been more wrong.
But with the advantage of crystal-clear hindsight, it kind of makes sense.
I think lots of people are just tired. Mainly, I think they're tired of the economy dragging along. And they're tired of joblessness. Even people who have jobs know somebody who doesn't. And most people who have jobs aren't 100 percent sure they will continue to have a job.
I think lots of people feel like the government isn't doing a whole lot about it.
There was that stimulus thing last year, but that really wasn't about creating jobs. That was more about funding existing government programs. If there was road work to be done, it's not like the highway department ran out and hired a bunch of people.
It just gave the existing workers something to do. It staved off some layoffs, to be sure, but it's not like the stimulus created a bunch of jobs.
On top of that, when the government started bragging about how many jobs the stimulus created, a cursory glance at the reports showed that they were largely bogus.
Back in October, Associated Press reported a Colorado company said it created 4,231 jobs with the help of President Obama's economic recovery plan. The real number was more like 800.
A child-care center in Florida said it saved 129 jobs with the help of stimulus money. It didn't. It just gave its existing employees pay raises.
So most people got the sense that the stimulus thing was a bust.
Add to that the fact that a bunch of Wall Street types - bankers and investors - got bailed out and then paid themselves handsome bonuses and you've got the potential for some simmering populist angst.
And then, amidst all this economic turmoil and ineffective economic policy comes health care.
The president and his Democrat colleagues in Congress devoted an entire year to coming up with a health care plan that couldn't even attract a single Republican vote in the US Senate.
And they were determined to get it passed no matter what the cost.
They cut deals in the hundreds of millions with certain states and not others. They cut deals with unions so their health plans wouldn't be taxed while other, non-union plans would be.
And they did it all behind closed doors even though the president said repeatedly it was all going to be out in the open.
And all the while this was going on, the president, while still popular as a person, was losing it in the polls as a policy wonk.
By December, his and the Demos' health care proposal was polling in the mid 30s percentage of approval.
See, I just don't get that. If you know something is that unpopular, why keep trying to force it on the American people?
Even President Bush wasn't that crazy. He did lots of things that I didn't like - No Child Left Behind, prescription drug benefit, go-it-alone wars. But you know what? Most Americans weren't against those things. Even with the Iraq war, it took years before it became unpopular with a majority of Americans.
The Iraq war, as unpopular as it became, was still polling at 31 percent approval as recently as last December.
So you have the Iraq war and President Obama's health care plan polling within a few percentage points of each other.
Could you imagine the president coming on TV and talking about how wonderful and necessary and great for us the Iraq war is?
Yet that's precisely what he did with health care.
I don't think Americans are generally against health care reform. I think they're against this particular brand of health care reform which creates a giant bureaucracy and injects all manner of government influence into the health care market.
Americans just didn't like that. And it was as if Washington wasn't listening to the American people. They just kept trotting out in front of the camera and telling us how great it was. They knew better than we did what was was best for us. It just made them seem out of touch and arrogant.
Then along comes the pickup-driving Brown guy and he says just that. Washington's out of touch. Our elected officials aren't listening to us.
He portrayed himself as one of us - not one of them. And he vowed to remain one of us even after he became one of them. He ran on a platform to bring "change" to Washington.
It was brilliant. It touched a nerve. Well, more like a million nerves.
It was interesting to hear our own Indiana Democrat US Senator Evan Bayh's take on Brown's win.
Bayh told ABC News, "It's why moderates and independents even in a state as Democratic as Massachusetts just aren't buying our message. They just don't believe the answers we are currently proposing are solving their problems. That's something that has to be corrected."
And this:
"The only way we are able to govern successfully in this country is by liberals and progressives making common cause with independents and moderates. Whenever you have just the furthest-left elements of the Democrat party attempting to impose their will on the rest of the country - that's not going to work too well."
Really, Sen. Bayh? Then why in the world did you vote for the health care bill?
I sent Bayh an impassioned e-mail. I told him that intuitively, anecdotally, through polling - by any measure - the vast majority of his constituents were against the Senate version of the health care bill. I told him he would be held in the highest regard if he voted the will of his constituents - no. I implored him to be a statesman instead of a partisan politician. I got no response.
He voted yes.
I hope Republican Mike Pence decides to run. Politico.com is calling the race winnable for the Republican.One final thought. Some bloggers and Web sites are saying that Brown might just be a great presidential candidate in 2012.
Opponents are saying that's ludicrous. The guy has no experience.
Hmm. Let's see. Quick political quiz.
Can anybody name a person who served as a state senator, was elected to the US Senate and ran for president after only two years?
Hint: He was intelligent, articulate, a great orator, ran a brilliant campaign of "change" and got elected.
