A cautionary look at Scott Brown’s victory

Who would’ve thought that someone with an “R” beside their name could win federal office in Massachusetts? If you had bet a C-note on Scott Brown’s chances before Christmas the taxman would be knocking on your door. And now a Republican fills the seat where the ever-errant Ted Kennedy parked his fat caboose for nigh on to half a century. Amazing!

Republicans are understandably euphoric. There is a joy and optimism not seen in the Grand Old Party since 1994. Early in the Obama administration I wrote that Democrats were repeating Clinton’s mistakes, which led to that Republican Revolution. It is beginning anew.

However, there is a problem with emotional highs; they wane. I hate to rain on the Republican parade, but a word of caution is in order. This game is far from over and the cause of limited government and individual liberty has a long way to go. With the Super Bowl around the corner a football analogy may be in order.

Your team trails 24-20 with time running out. They have the ball on their own one-yard line. On the first play from scrimmage they gain eight yards. That’s a good start. But cause for celebration? Not quite. They’re still ninety-one yards from victory. If your team thinks that their eight-yard gain is the ballgame they’ll go home losers just as surely as the sun rises in the East.

That’s about where we stand in restoring “a Republican form of government” (U.S. Constitution, Article IV, Section 4). If the Republican Party is the vehicle for attaining that goal--and that’s quite an "if"--then we have been pinned on our own one-yard line, our backs against the wall with no room for error, since the 2006 and 2008 elections. We got there because Republicans forgot the reason they were elected.

Republicans fumbled. They drank deep from the well of government excess, becoming intoxicated with the power that comes with spending other people’s money. They forgot, or chose to ignore, the party’s core beliefs. The Republican Party put itself, and the republic, on the one-yard line.

Electing a Republican in Massachusetts exposes vulnerability in the opponent, a window of opportunity that can be exploited. Scott Brown’s victory is a good start, an eight-yard gain. But not only do we remain ninety-one yards from pay dirt, we haven’t a first down yet.

Like I said, I don’t mean to sound pessimistic or belittle the significance of Brown’s win. Republican Senators from Massachusetts have become as rare as tripping over 20 pound gold nuggets. It’s just that there are far too many experts treating this gain as victory. It’s not.

Yes, it will derail the healthcare power grab for a season. But we remain a long way from restoring constitutionally limited government, from reasserting state’s rights, and from recognizing the value of the individual over the “collective good”. Complacency is a valid concern.

Voters have short memories and experts are less than, well, expert. George H.W. Bush’s victory in 1988, following eight years of Ronald Reagan, prompted “experts” to declare that Democrats would never again win the White House. Four years later we had Bill Clinton. In 2004 the “experts” declared the Democrat Party all but extinct. Two years later the Democrats took control of Congress.

In 2008 the Democrats gained the White House and extended their congressional majorities to quasi-authoritarian levels. Some “experts” pondered the end of the Republican Party. Other pundits said it would take fifty years for the party to regain its feet. But Republicans have fared well in recent special elections.

It appears that electoral winds are shifting toward Republicans. Is that a positive step? Or, does it merely mean that we may lose our liberty at a slower pace. Republicans had ample opportunity to scale back government and restore fiscal sanity between 1994 and 2006. How did that turn out again?

Certainly Scott Brown’s victory in the deep blue Bay State is a repudiation of the Obama/Reid/Pelosi agenda. But it is, at best, the opening play of what promises to be a long, hard drive. We’re still 91 yards from the winning score.