Chasing the Rabbit: Official Blog by Author Steven Spear

Read the NY Times or listen to NPR and you would conclude a little known state senator won the Senatorial seat long held by Ted Kennedy due to the faults of Democratic contender, Martha Coakley.

Not so. Scott Brown made one promise to vote against ObamaCare.  People listened, believed him, and he rode to victory.

The “Martha blew it” interpretation completely misunderstands Massachusetts voters and the votes they cast this week.

First, let’s address the stereotype of Massachusetts–Taxachusetts, the People’s Republic, home of the ‘Moon Bats,’ and the like.

That image of tax and spend is so ingrained outside the state that our former governor, Mitt Romney, used it as a foil in his presidential campaign. He actually ran against neighbors, friends, and family. Go figure.

Of course, our Senators haven’t helped in the past, forgetting that every time they vote for another huge federal program, Massachusetts pays way more out than it will ever see in return.  The Big Dig was our revenge, but boy, we would do much better with a ‘take care of the home folks’ Senator like Ben Nelson any day.

Here is the truth.  Yes, our taxes are high, but largely because we invest locally–schools, police, fire, clearing the roads in the winter–that’s a big deal, and so forth.  By and large Bay Staters spend, but we want that spending on things we cannot do individually.

Furthermore, we want to keep things local.  Think about it. Our biggest city, Boston, is but 600,000 people. It seemed at times my high school in New York City had as many.

Pretty much everywhere else is The Town of This, the Town of That.  We’re really big into local self government.  If Newton wants to spend a ton on a fancy new high school, hooray for them.  It’s their money.  Let them do what they want.  We’ll do what we want in Brookline, Cambridge, Mansfield, Peabody, Andover, Wrentham, and so on.  It shouldn’t be some clown on Beacon Hill or Capitol Hill for that matter telling us where to put street signs.

So, what happened to Coakley?  A popular office holder got washed away in a wave of discontent.  It’s not clear the legendary Carl “Yaz” Yastrzemsky could have won on the Democratic ticket (though he probably would not have made the faux pas of labeling local hero, Curt Schilling a Yankee fan).

Bay Stater’s looked at Washington and concluded those clowns failed in the basics of maintaining the system–the financial system was rigged for insiders, the political system was rigged for insiders, and the whole thing came crashing down.  We were angry–the basics were fouled up–the equivalent of not keeping the roads cleared.

But, in the face of that, what did these characters do?  After mucking things up, they tried to take on ever more things best done locally–perhaps with some government facilitation to make sure practitioners are up to snuff, truth in advertising, no bait and switch, that sort of thing.  But to take control of one dollar out of seven?  No way.

Remember, for all the other issues, Scott Brown made one promise: To be the 41st vote against ObamaCare.  People heard that, believed it, and cast their votes accordingly.

To spin it any other way is quite wrong.

Don’t forget.  We had the first tea party at which we told some government big wigs to stick it.  It wasn’t that long ago, and things haven’t changed that much.

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