It's Your Principles, Stupid

The polls have closed, the votes are counted, and Massachusetts voters have sent the “Scott heard ’round the World”. All day long, pundits have been giving their assessment regarding why Scott Brown would win. All day long, too many of these pundits have proven that they still have not learned to listen to the clear message being sent by the American people.

Like rats fleeing a sinking ship Democrat pundits have been blaming Coakley for running a failed campaign. While it is true that the path to victory checklist laid out by her strategists probably did not include insulting Catholics and Red Sox fans, to blame a Democrat for losing in the bluest blue state in this environment is a convenient oversimplification. Further, it is incredibly insulting for the political class to dismiss the voters as being that petty.

For their part, Republicans who argued that it is not about Coakley’s gaffs offered up disturbingly similar alternative explanations. Mitt Romney speaking on Fox news said it was:

Overwhelmingly an outpouring of support for Scott Brown and his vision”.

No, it is not about Scott Brown. Or his vision.

This election result is not about personality it is not even about policy. It is more.

It is true that the poll numbers began the dramatic swing the more the Democrats in Congress pushed the health care bill. Brown was down 9% before the Senate passed the bill. As the Democrats pushing the bill made shocking statements like “they need any bill’ or in the case of Obama advisor David Axelrod opponents of the bill are “insane,” Coakley numbers continued to shrink.

Health care reform policy was the backdrop. It would be fair to stop there and say the voters rejected the policy of health care reform. I believe it goes a step deeper.

If Massuchusetts voters looked beyond the personalities and were troubled by the policy of health care, did those blue staters who embraced universal health care in their state, suddenly reject the idea of universal health care done by their fellow Democrats in Congress?

I believe the voters rejected the operating principles of the Reid, Pelosi, Obama oligarchy. Just as Republican voters lost faith in their leaders for the bloated spending, Democrats and Independents have looked with horror at the principles dominating this Congress that said any health care bill is a good bill. They were shocked when taxing “Cadillac” plans suddenly did not include union Cadillac plans. Most of all they were dismayed that all of these discussions were occuring not in the transparent way, on C-SPAN that candidate Obama had promised, but behind closed doors in smoke filled rooms–probably not cigar smoke, but clove or “medical marijuana” smoke filled rooms. The voters found this disgusting.

So was this a victory for Republicans?

Before the GOP celebrates the personality of Brown, or the victory for moderates or begins believing the GOP is back, they need to consider that the same body politic that now distrusts the Democrats is the body politic that reviled the GOP just 14 months ago.

The Democrats have lost three major battles because the voters saw the incongruity between the stated policies and the actions. Similarly, they rejected Republicans in 2008 because the Party, my Party, dominated by moderates calling themselves “fiscal conservatives,” grew entitlement spending, war spending, and deficits in a way that contradicted their public pronouncements. In short, both parties suffer a huge credibility gap. The American public has not so much rejected personalities or even policies, they have rejected the lack of principles.

So now begins a new race. A race for credibility. The Party that hears the voters and regains the trust of the American people will be in control in 2011.

The first step to regaining trust begins with an apology. I have heard a number of hapless GOP incumbents make statements like “we probably spent a little too much”, or “we should have said ‘no’ a little more”, or “except for the war on terror, we only grew Federal spending by 5% on an annualized basis before factoring in inflation,” blah blah blah. Just once I want to hear a Republican leader say this: “Yes, we spent like (pick your metaphore) a. drunken sailors, b. college girls with a new credit card, c. lotto winners on Rodeo drive, and you took the credit card away from us, you were right, and we are sorry.” The emphasis needs to be on a heart felt, full out mea culpa apology. Admit you did a terrible job carrying out the duties we elected you to do! Admit it, dammit! You overspent. You were wrong. You need to own up to it.

If the GOP will do that, and beg for another chance, we may be able to save this Country from the economic collapse driven by the leftists elected by the reaction to the wayward Republicans. They need to swear to cap the spending, cut failed programs and guarantee that they will shrink the federal government back to its Constitutional limits.

If they do that, we just might have a chance to leave this country just as our forefathers left it for us-better.