I'm writing this before the results are in from Massachusetts (except, perhaps, in Chris Matthews' head), and for my purposes here, the result tonight doesn't matter.
Whether Coakley pulls it out or whether Brown wins in the end, I think we're heading into the start of a brutal political season that has the potential to make 2008 look like a pleasant Sunday stroll in the park, and we underestimate our opponents at our own peril.
If we take one lesson away from Massachusetts, it should be this:
There is no such thing as a safe seat right now.
Yeah, Coakley was a lousy candidate. We'll be hearing that story for weeks. But Laura Clawson's quite right to point out that Scott Brown was a very good candidate, by 2010 standards. He brought the tea partiers and the GOP establishment together behind him, and if the hubris of my Republican acquaintances is any indication, he gave them a taste of what victory might feel like after the smackdown we administered to them in 2008.
But you know what? It's not going to be easy for them, either. They're still fighting on a platform of "no," and that can only go take them so far before the same angry moderates who are now turning on us start turning on them, too.
We can still win them back -
IF we waste no time getting the strongest possible candidates in place for November.
IF we treat every race like we're ten points behind, from day one.
IF we not only get some sort of health care bill passed, but can make the case that it's a good thing for America. President Obama told us in Boston on Sunday that he wants that fight. It's time to get started.
IF we get cracking on the other pieces of the agenda, especially a jobs bill. If there's any discernible message in the anger flowing out of Massachusetts, it's that both sides appear to be doing nothing. The Republicans really are doing nothing, and want to keep it that way. We just look like we are.
IF we begin setting up the case that a GOP minority of 40 or 41 votes is still a minority, and that the filibuster is undemocratic and deserving of abolition. A Brown campaign to "be the 41st vote" doesn't work when you need 51 to win, and we still have 59.
IF we pay attention to the downticket statehouse races that will determine redistricting after the 2010 cycle.
This is a marathon, and we need to be prepared to keep leaving it all on the road, from now straight through to 2012 (and beyond, too.)
And another thought I meant to add before posting this: if we can keep our heads about us and our energy up, I still think we win in the long run, for one simple reason: we believe in the process. At heart, the message coming from the right at the moment is a destructive one - "all government is bad and out to get you, and we want to tear it down." That may resonate in the short term, but it's not conducive to working patiently within the system to making it better. The moral arc of the universe is long, etc...