Barack Obama's Massachusetts miracle

Election Day finally arrived in Massachusetts and the results are nothing short of a miracle.

In one of the bluest of the blue states, (where Obama won by 61%), an unknown Republican managed to win "Ted Kennedy's seat" in the United States Senate.

Thank you, Barack Obama.

Even before the campaign was over, the blame game began and Democrats pronounced it all Martha Coakley's fault.  The long knives came out.

The Democrat finger pointing is important to note because they are essentially trying to absolve Congress and Obama from any and all blame for how this race played out.  They have been all over the place telling anyone with a microphone or TV camera that it had nothing to do with what was going on in Washington.  It was "all local" they say, which is the same spin we heard after the big Republican gains in Virginia and New Jersey two months ago.

Democrats are whistling past the graveyard if they don't realize that their biggest problem in this race wasn't a lazy candidate, but rather a severe reaction on the part of the public against an overreaching liberal agenda.

They're conveniently forgetting that Obama and Bill Clinton showed up to campaign for Coakley, and that other leading Democrats were all over TV and radio, showing up in mail boxes and on a multitude of pre-recorded "robo-calls".

And they're ignoring the fact that Scott Brown made a conscious decision to nationalize the race.  He looked into the cameras and promised voters that he would be the 41st vote in the Senate against ObamaCare.  And voters responded.

And if his resulting win isn't enough to credit that strategy, keep in mind that Obama avoided mentioning health care in his campaign appearance for Coakley.

The fact that Brown could even make this race close, much less actually win by five points, is all anyone needs to know about which way the political winds are blowing.  The question is, will Obama and the Democrat leadership take that to heart and back away from their more radical proposals, or will they press the pedal to the metal?

What's really incredible is how younger voters went in this race.  According to the Politico's Insider/Advantage poll, 18-29 year olds were supporting the Republican by 61% to 30%.  This is the same group of voters that Obama carried with 78% in Massachusetts and by 66% nationally.  That's a staggering switch.

All of which leads one to wonder whether the I-Pod and Facebook generation is getting a little put off by the Democrats push for the same old expensive, big government solutions to modern day problems.

And Independents have moved as well.  A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll had Obama down nationally over 20% among Independents since his high shortly after taking office.  According to the Rasmussen poll, Scott Brown took 73%.  Another tremendous switch.

There will be plenty of restless nights on the part of Democrats, especially those of the red or purple state variety.  But now it seems blue state Democrats will be losing some sleep as well.  They have to feel that if Republicans can be competitive and win in Massachusetts, then none of them are safe.

Many will suddenly decide they'd rather take that lobbying gig or that law partnership they've been offered.  Look for the pace of congressional retirements to increase.

If the lesson the Democrat leadership takes from this is to speed up things like ObamaCare, or keep Brown from being seated right away so they can get it passed, the reaction will be vitriolic.  If they think people are angry now, just wait.

The returns from Massachusetts are definitive proof that they badly misread the meaning of the 2008 election.

No matter how hard they try to shift the attention to a poor campaign by their own candidate, or even a good campaign by the Republican, it doesn't change the facts.  The bottom line is that it took Barack Obama to make the Massachusetts miracle possible.

There's a wave coming, and the Republican Party needs more candidates who know how to surf.