(Chuck Muth) – Barack Obama winning the presidency in a 50-50 country after a dozen years of GOP screw-ups is NOTHING compared to Republican Scott Brown winning Teddy Kennedy’s former U.S. Senate seat in rock-solid blue Massachusetts yesterday. Now THAT’S change we can believe in!
Turns out it’s absolutely OK to be the party of “no” when saying no is the right thing to do.
Make no mistake: Yesterday’s stunning loss by Democrat Martha Coakley was a stinging rejection of President Barack Obama and especially his health care policies. As Politco reports this morning:
“Scott Brown's opposition to congressional health care legislation was the most important issue that fueled his U.S. Senate victory in Massachusetts, according to exit poll data collected following the Tuesday special election.”
That, despite Obama personally going to Boston two days before the election in a last-ditch effort to save Coakley and his agenda.
Seems the nation – rocked by unemployment, a recession of historical proportions, and an enemy who hides his weapons in his underpants – is now suffering serious “buyer’s remorse” over electing someone to the White House with no real world experience dealing with the real world regardless of how light-skinned he may be or whether or not he speaks using a Negro dialect.
Indeed, by a huge margin, Massachusetts voters collectively joined Rush Limbaugh in expressing hope that Obama fails in his effort to shove government-run health care up our keisters. They hope Obama fails in spending our nation into bankruptcy. They hope he fails in his efforts to extend Miranda rights to underpants bombers.
Oh, and by the way: Sen.-elect Brown signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge.
Which brings us to Nevada Republicans, especially those in the state Assembly.
When you’re in the minority and can’t stop the opposition, stand on principle and vote in lockstep opposition to the opposition – as Republicans have done in opposing ObamaCare, additional bailouts and the stimulus package.
That kind of philosophical and partisan solidarity gave voters a clear and unambiguous distinction for voters in Massachusetts yesterday between Democrats and Republicans. As such, even Democrats in one of the most Democrat of states gave an electoral win to Republicans.
Can you imagine what would have happened this coming November in Nevada had all of the Republicans in the state Assembly voted as a bloc against all of the taxes and increased spending and expanded government promoted by Speaker Barbara Buckley and the Democrats?
What if Assembly Republicans had stuck together as the party of “no” and opposed the billion dollars worth of higher taxes and higher spending?
Instead, half of the Republicans voted the way a limited-government fiscal conservative should vote and half of the Republicans voted with the Democrats. That’s what Ronald Reagan would call pale pastels, not bold colors.
And what if Senate Republicans – who had it in their power, thanks to the Gibbons Tax Restraint law, to stop the billion dollars worth of tax and spending increases – had actually voted as a bloc to block the billion dollars worth of tax and spending increases?
What if they had backed up their limited-government, fiscally conservative fellow Republican governor instead of stabbing him in the back by cutting deals to bust his budget with the Democrats?
Ah, what might have been.
But there’s still hope.
First, there’s gonna be at least one, and probably two, special sessions between now and next November.
Maybe Nevada Republicans ought to look at the success national Republicans have enjoyed by holding the line on government expansion as a bloc in Congress and what that turned out to mean yesterday in Massachusetts.
Maybe Nevada Republicans ought to look at the fact that taking tax hikes off the table by promising not to raise them if elected IN WRITING provides an electoral advantage, even in Massachusetts.
So maybe some Nevada elected GOP legislators should do some deep soul-searching and rediscover their “inner Reagans” and get back to voting like Republicans rather than voting like Democrats.
Maybe Nevada’s elected GOP legislators should spend less time locked behind closed doors with Democrats scheming on how to raise taxes and spending and more time behind locked doors with the likes the Nevada Policy Research Institute and the business folks over at the Keystone Corporation.
Secondly, you can’t beat somebody with nobody….and in this regard conservatives are as much to blame as Republicans in Nevada right now.
There will be a TON of vulnerable Democrats on the ballot next fall, in addition to NINE “open” state Assembly seats where the incumbent Democrat has been term-limited out of office. Where are the tea party candidates to run for these seats? Where are the Ron Paul candidates? Where are the Glen Beck candidates?
Of the nine “open” state Assembly seats, I haven’t heard of even ONE Republican running, let alone a credible, viable Republican. And why aren’t more RINOs and moderates in Republican dstricts being challenged in primaries.
On the other hand, we have a ton of solid conservative first-time candidates running for U.S. House and Senate seats who can’t/won’t win.
Would somebody other than me please tell Rob Lauer, Ed Bridges, Craig Lake, Bill Parson, Robin Titus, Chuck Kozak and Terry Suominen that we NEED them in the Nevada Legislature and that they should consider running for one of those winnable seats instead of tilting at congressional windmills this year.
And would somebody please tell Mike Wiley that his village is missing their idiot and he should return home immediately.