Do you remember the only state to vote for McGovern in 1972? The state that had the honor of being the only state not to blame for the debacle otherwise known as Richard M. Nixon? It was the state where every other car bore a "Don't blame me; I'm from Massachusetts" bumper sticker when Watergate hit the fan. I wanted one of those bumper stickers but I had a New Hampshire license plate.
My Pollyanna mother used to always tell me that everything evens out in the end. Well, I guess so! It took a while but Massachusetts just did to America what the rest of America did to itself in 1972. It has royally screwed our future, no thanks to a singularly badly run campaign by one Martha Coakley. Of course, there were the indirect contributions of "Democrats" such as Senators Ben Nelson, Max Baucus, Harry Reid, Blanch Lincoln, Mary Landrieu, ad nauseum, who have made it abundantly clear to the American people that their loyalties are only to the special interests bribing them to deliver multibillion gift packages to the insurance and pharmaceutical companies. With 2 drug company lobbyists (never mind health insurance lobbyists) for every single Congressperson, and $1.5 million spent EVERY SINGLE DAY by "health care" lobbyists to bribe the members of Congress, the rest of us don't have a chance. The Democrats, it turns out, are just as craven as the Republicans, less the revenge gene and spines.
So what did Tea-Bagger Scott Brown do? He's no dumby. He left the word "Republican" off all his literature and out of his speeches. Yes, you can fool most of the people most of the time. Massachusetts is one of few states to have a state health care system that the rest of us envy. For the people of Massachusetts to have replaced the venerable Ted Kennedy, whose main goal as a Senator was to get decent health care to the American people, with an anti-health care right-wingnut transcends depressing.
I am hoping for a miracle: 51 Senate Democrats locate their spines, tell the drug and health insurance lobbyists to go to hell, and pass, on reconciliation, a single-payer health care system with a heavy focus on prevention. Let the bloodsucking insurance companies die a deserved and natural death. I know; wishful thinking.