Thousands of people attended the Scott Brown People’s Rally in Worcester at Mechanics Hall yesterday. It was a powerful experience. The momentum of this campaign is amazing. If you haven’t seen it yet, watch this clip from the event.
THEN GET OUT AND VOTE TOMORROW! Tuesday, January 19, 2010. Polls are open from 7am til 8pm.
And this from the Scott Brown campaign:
Great column from Jonah Goldberg on the opportunity the Republican Party has to fix its recent mistakes. From the Houston Chronicle:
This is one of those rare moments when the conventional wisdom in Washington is right. The Democrats are poised to have a bad year; the only argument is over how bad it will be. And that question rests on whether or not the Republican Party crafts an agenda voters will support.
Now comes the hard part: seizing the opportunity. The GOP’s troubles over the last decade have a lot to do with the fact that Americans didn’t stop liking what the Republican Party is supposed to deliver. They stopped liking what the GOP actually delivered.
As a conservative who cares more about policies than partisan success, I would hate to see the GOP abandon conservative policies in order to be more popular. That would be like Domino’s listening to critics and then deciding to get into the Chinese food business. Indeed, by my lights, that’s what George W. Bush tried to do with his “compassionate conservatism.” He surrendered to liberal arguments about the role, size and scope of government on too many fronts.
Moreover, abandoning conservatism would be silly. According to Gallup, Americans identify themselves as conservative over liberal by a margin of 2-1, the same proportion as just after 9/11.
So what would a GOP-turnaround recipe look like? For starters, I’d look to young political chefs like Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. He’s been the leader in attacking “crony capitalism” — the corrupt merger of big business and big government, a hallmark of the Obama administration. For too long Republicans confused supporting big business with supporting free markets, when big business is often the biggest impediment to fair competition. Other fresh new ingredients would almost surely include pro-family tax policies and the de-linking of legal and illegal immigration as interchangeable terms.
Ted Kennedy’s senate seat is no longer assumed to go to whatever Democrat is running. Among the most motivated voters, who are usually the only ones to show up during a winter election, Scott Brown is now polling tied or slightly ahead of Martha Coakley. From Public Policy Polling:
Buoyed by a huge advantage with independents and relative disinterest from Democratic voters in the state, Republican Scott Brown leads Martha Coakley 48-47.
And here’s an insider view of the Brown operation from blogger, Legal Insurrection. This blogger came from Ithaca NY to be part of this race.
From the moment I arrived until I left about 5 hours later, the atmosphere was electric. I had not expected the frenzy of phones ringing, people walking in the door to write checks, dozens of people making calls to voters, and generally ebullient mood.
Those of you who follow this blog know that I am a big supporter of Scott Brown. So I claim no neutrality. And you can believe me or not when I tell you that there is an air of excitement and movement which is beyond belief.
They are out of lawn signs and bumper stickers. Completely. Nothing left, but people kept calling all day wanting to find out where they could get them. I was told it has been this way for days.
I made calls. I won’t get into the details of their phone operation, but let me say I was impressed with the computerized sophistication. I can say that the number one concern expressed by voters I spoke with and from what I heard from other callers, was jobs and the economy. The small sample I saw bears striking resemblance to what happened in Virginia and New Jersey; it’s still the economy, stupid.
There also was a lot of animosity surrounding the announcement that the Democrats would delay Brown’s certification if he won. People were calling in about that issue, and it was brought up on phone calls by the voters (the issue was not on the call script).
The attempt to delay certification has the potential to be a defining issue in the campaign because it crystallizes in voters’ minds everything that is wrong with politics.
For those of you who haven’t followed the news, the Dems are threatening to delay Brown’s certification in the Senate so he won’t be able to be the 41st vote that will stop universal health care dead in its tracks.
Ah the games our politicians play. Sad, really. And the voters, even in the people’s republic of Massachusetts, have had enough of that.