As I have written before, the massive blunder of Obama and the Democrats was to delude themselves into thinking the people had voted for them in the last general election when, in fact, they voted against George Bush and the Republicans. The next scenario to unfold will be for the lifelong political hacks in the Republican party to make the same mistake - to interpret the results of yesterday's vote in Massachusetts as a vote for them, rather than what it was - a vote against the Dems. In fact, 'Re-Elect Nobody" is the driving force these days, and the leadership of both parties should be very, very afraid.
To be sure, the good folks in Massachusetts were only too happy to do their part to kill Obama's health care travesty, with it's absurd back room deals to exempt labor unions from taxes, and to throw hundreds of millions of dollars at Nebraska and Louisiana to buy the support of their unprincipled statesmen. And it did not help the Dems that a guy wearing exploding Jockey shorts skated past the Department of Homeland Security a few weeks before the election, but make no mistake - the vote in Massachusetts was first and foremost about the economy and the policies of the last two administrations - the last five really.
In overwhelming numbers people see the economic collapse as the fault of the career inside-the-beltway politicians and the Wall Street financial community that has so thoroughly bought and paid for them. And they see the actions of Washington to fix the economcy as boondoggles to that same gang that caused the problem, rather than for the benefit of mainstream America. They are fed up with the academic elite who conjured up the philosophies that drive those two power bases and have so completely devastated main street and the American manufacturing base. And in all things economic, for all of their posturing, there has not been an iota's difference between the Republicans and the Democrats for nigh unto 30 years.
I published a piece called "Homozygosity - That's The Problem!" way back in March of last year with this map, showing the schools that have spawned our financial leadership over the last twenty years.
In that post I wrote, "So when a few of these eggheads get the notion that lean is just some factory fad, that outsourcing everything to China is a marvelous thing, that the Dow Jones is the only measure of the economy that matters, and that manufacturing is for the ignorant masses and that service is where the real future lies - in short, they all drink the same 'world is flat kool-aid' - well it really doesn't matter how much common sense to the contrary is coming from the heartland - NO ONE IS LISTENING! If you are in D.C. the only voices you hear are from the guys who sat next to you in the same college lectures, belong to the same tennis club you do, and drink the same brand of scotch you do at the same private club you belong to in Manhattan."
It is that very phenomenon that cost the Dems Massachusetts and Obama his beloved health care takeover. Woe be it unto the Republicans sitting at the next table over at the country club, hanging around with the economic thinkers from the same think tanks as the Dems who read this election - or the recent gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey - as a valdidation of themselves. The irate masses will toss them out as fast as they are tossing Obama Democrats out, and as mercilessly as they tossed the Bush crowd out last year.
The people of the United States want their manufacturing base back. They are fed up with financial services reigning supreme, with absurdly unfair trade policies that slant the table so heavily toward China as to make it near impossible for American companies to succeed, with trade imbalances that have sold our grandchildren down the river, and with a culture of arrogance in Washington that looks down its noses at the people who work for a tough living in America's factories.
It will be an interesting year, to say the least, as the life-long political hacks from both parties so completely out of touch with America fumble and stumble through 2010 trying to cope with the 'Re-elect Nobody' sentiment that is driving American voters. However it ends up, though, it will be good for manufacturing and good for the United States as the business owners, middle managers and production workers take their country back. And it will be amusing to see the over-dressed, over-educated, Washington crowd from both sides of he aisle who only understand America as an entity to be policy-wonked for their own benefit stagger dazed and confused out of office.