The lesson of Massachusetts? Anger

The electorate is increasingly restive, and it's not just about the Democrats.

Tim Rutten
LA Times
January 20, 2010

You can bet that political strategists in both parties will be parsing the meaning of the Massachusetts senatorial struggle for some time to come. If there was a slam dunk left in American politics, it should've been the Democrats' ability to easily retain a Senate seat they'd held for 57 years in what has become essentially a sea-blue state. Instead, they lost.

Given its importance in the issue of the moment, the Massachusetts vote is going to be analyzed as a referendum on President Obama's healthcare reforms. Increasingly, it does seem as if this first-year president made a profound strategic mistake by pressing forward on healthcare while simultaneously trying to contend with the worst global economic crisis since the Depression, exit one war in Iraq and gear up to fight another in Afghanistan.

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