You have got to be kidding me.
The Democrats lost an election last night. OK, that sucks. We can acknowledge that. But the general freak-out occurring in all quarters and coming from all directions is completely unwarranted.
So let me spell out the nuts and bolts effect that Scott Brown's victory last night will have.
- The Republican victor now holds the 100th most senior position in a body of 100.
- The Democratic majority went from 19 (because I refuse to count Lieberman) to 18.
- The Democrats lost a so-called supermajority that was only theoretical to begin with because, let's face it - we never could count on Lieberman to deliver that 60th vote anyway. Not without giving up a pound of flesh in exchange for his vote.
The supermajority was never anything but an illusion, so let's stop mourning the loss of something we never really had to begin with, shall we?
You know how the Republicans dealt with this when they experienced a tough election in 2006, and again in 2008? By ignoring it and moving on. You didn't see the kind of defeatism now on display from people who should know better. Nor did we see them make statements expressing support for making it more difficult to achieve their goals. Nor did we see them offering an opening to the opposition to get organized and prepare to defeat their initiatives.
When faced with the outright loss of control of both bodies of Congress, the worst President this country has ever had said that he'd heard the message, and then he kept right on doing whatever he wanted. I never thought I'd ever catch myself saying this, but George W. Bush's actions in 2006 hold a lesson for us.
Bush treated the loss of his party's majorities in Congress like he'd just gone over a speedbump. We're acting like a reduction in our majority from 19 seats to 18 is the political equivalent of hitting a brick wall at 70mph.
And why? Because we lost a single Senate seat to a charismatic Republican who worked his ass off to get votes, and who - let's be perfectly honest - was far more deserving of the victory than his Democratic opponent who was not just an untalented campaigner but a lazy one as well.
We should acknowledge that it sucks to have lost Ted Kennedy's seat like this and move on. Folks, this isn't even a speedbump. I'm not even sure this is a mosquito hitting the windshield.
What the voters of America should be waking up to today is a Democratic majority calmly and rationally saying "We understand that there is a lot of anger out there. We understand that people are frustrated and anxious. But we are trying to accomplish a set of goals to fix what's wrong, and we want to be very clear about what those goals are." Etc., etc.
Instead, the voters of America are waking up to Democratic leaders in full panic mode, backtracking on the things that they've been working to accomplish, falling over themselves to "move back to the center" (whatever that means), and showing the voters of America that in times of crisis (and not even an actual crisis, but a political crisis in which nobody is at risk of being injured or killed!), the Democrats can be counted on to act like scared children.
The deafening silence from the President isn't exactly helping us right now, either.
It's not our positions that are going to be a problem in November. It's this. It's the Chicken Little act we're putting on now. It's scrambling around to say what you think people want to hear, instead of doing what we know will help those people out in the midst of generally bad conditions for ordinary Americans out there.
We're in power at a time when things are bad. Real bad. But if we were confident that our policies were the right ones on Monday afternoon, why on God's green earth are they suddenly out of favor just because a huge majority in one chamber of Congress just got clipped by one?
Calm down. Breathe. And after you accept that Ted Kennedy's seat is now going to be supporting the butt of a Republican who wants to destroy everything that Ted Kennedy ever worked for, go to work. Call your Democratic Congressman and Senators and ask them to keep doing what they've been doing to get HCR passed. To get a jobs bill passed. To get regulation of the financial markets passed.
Because the bottom line is that the loss of one seat is not worth panicking over. It's not worth risking further destruction at the hands of the Republicans over.
Peace.