Canadians will understand this headline when they hear news of the shocking outcome of yesterday's election in Massachusetts.To the astonishment of nearly every and the dismay of Barack Hussein Obama, a little-known Republican state senator, Scott Brown, rode an old pickup truck and a growing sense of unease among independent voters to an extraordinary upset when he was elected to fill Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat.
Mr. Brown defeated the state's attorney-general, Martha Coakley, by a decisive margin. Coakley had been expected to win easily in a traditionally Democratic state, in spite of being more humorless than Hillary Clinton and even more patrician than John Kerry. But she blew it!
To explain the headline to Americans, it is the strapline to an old commercial for a certain brand of tea, available only in Canada. Pity! The Republican victory in Massachusetts, you see, was achieved with the support of a fledgling populist group styling itself the Tea Party!
In a campaign that rang all the right (and I do mean RIGHT) bells with Massachusetts voters, the Tea Party candidates ranted and railed against bailouts, handouts, reckless spending and more taxes. They kept pounding home the theme that the US government has grossly overreached itself and is out of control.
Now I ask my Canadian friends, why haven't you got a party in Canada standing up to say those same things? Don't you think the Canadian government and your provincial governments are guilty of the same profligate spending and egregious attempts to have the government control every aspect of your lives?
A similar message was preached a few years ago by Alberta's Reform movement. But the Reform Party got co-opted into the Conservative Reform Alliance Party (CRAP) and the promise of limited, back-to-basics government vanished like snow after a chinook.
A poll just before the Massachusetts election showed that 58% of Americans supported the principles of the Tea Party. In Massachusetts, the silent majority has spoken at last. When will it happen in Canada?
Click here to read "Tea Party rattles America's educated class".
Footnote: The online edition of the Boston Herald had a better headline: "Scott Brown bags it!"
Charlie K. from Oklahoma writes:
ReplyDeleteAs a liberal Democrat, I was disappointed in the Massachusetts results, but that's politics, I guess. It'll swing back the other way next election, would be my guess.
The USA, like most countries and most people, resists change. For some odd reason, there are many of our citizens who go ballistic when universal health care is mentioned. What is being proposed is far from universal health care, but the opponents are yelling and screaming about "socialism" and "the government taking over everything". I've seen people come close to frothing at the mouth over the fear of health care reform. You'd think they'd be begging to get it.