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C-dub wrote:

aardwolf wrote:Will he be the next President?

He was a state senator. In a blue state. By 2012 he will have served a partial term as a US senator.

Isn't that the current requirements for President?

Could be. Could be.

Does anyone else recall hearing or reading the Obama was approached by the DNC or other senators or someone to run for the presidency because they didn't want Hillary to be president?

NRO's Robert Costa interviewed Scott Brown strategist Eric Fernstrom who revealed something from their internal polls which no pundit to my knowledge has observed.

The key issue for Massachusetts voters was not healthcare or spending. It was national security and the treatment of enemy terrorists. If the White House polls bear this out, Eric Holder's decisions on trying the terrorists in civilian courts and the botched handling of the Christmas underwear bomber should mean a shake up in the Department of Justice and Homeland Security.

Is there room under the bus for Holder and Napolitano?

On the issues, "people talk about the potency of the health-care issue, but from our own internal polling, the more potent issue here in Massachusetts was terrorism and the treatment of enemy combatants," says Fehrnstrom. Health care, he says, was helpful in fundraising, but it was the campaign's focus on national security in the final week that he believes helped to give voters another issue to associate with Brown. [Emphasis supplied.]Plus, he says, Brown supported the Romney health-care plan, so he couldn't "be painted as a ‘just say no' Republican, but could articulate a message as a ‘just start over' Republican."

Even removing those two officials, however, which seems essential to get independent (and women ) voters back onboard, would hardly be enough I think to persuade them that this President and his party really get it. They are, it seems to me, wedded to a feckless series of policies which will cost them dearly at the polls.

h/t:jmh

Update: Rosslyn Smith adds:

Brown followed through on this theme of national security in his victory speech when he stated to cheers that tax dollars should pay to protect us, not pay their lawyers.

Among the many lessons for other Republicans in Brown's victory is that both parties have been losing voters to the ranks of independents because office holders in both parties have ignored the voters in favor of their own agendas once in office. Brown promised Massachusetts voters he would be independent. I think most voters consider that to mean that he'll listen to those who elected him more closely than he will listen to party bosses and lobbyists in Washington, DC. He didn't say he'll always agree, but that he'll listen and he won't sell his vote to party bosses for special favors.

The other lesson is that we need never apologize for keeping our own citizens safe. Andrew McCarthy notes that while the Bush Administration had sound policies on defense and counterterrorism, it refused to defend them vigorously. As McCarthy states:

Scott Brown went out and made the case for enhanced interrogation, for denying terrorists the rights of criminal defendants, for detaining them without trial, and for trying them by military commission. It worked. It will work for other candidates willing to get out of their Beltway bubbles.

Yes, the Left will say you are making a mockery of our commitment to "the rule of law." MSNBC will run segments on your dark conspiracies to "shred the privacy rights of Americans." The New York Times will wail that you're heedless of the damage you'll do to "America's reputation in the international community."

The answer is: So what? The people making these claims don't speak for Americans - they speak at Americans, in ever shrinking amounts. If you're going to cower from a fight with them, we don't need you. Get us a Scott Brown who'll take them on in their own backyard. And he'll take them on with confidence because he knows their contentions are frivolous - and he knows that Americans know this, too.

BOSTON – In an epic upset in liberal Massachusetts, Republican Scott Brown rode a wave of voter anger to defeat Democrat Martha Coakley in a U.S. Senate election Tuesday that left President Barack Obama's health care overhaul in doubt and marred the end of his first year in office.

The loss by the once-favored Coakley for the seat that the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy held for nearly half a century signaled big political problems for the president's party this fall when House, Senate and gubernatorial candidates are on the ballot nationwide.

More immediately, Brown will become the 41st Republican in the 100-member Senate, which could allow the GOP to block the president's health care legislation and the rest of Obama's agenda. Democrats needed Coakley to win for a 60th vote to thwart Republican filibusters.

The possible loss of a U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts has Democrats on edge 3,000 miles away in California, where party activists fear a GOP upset today could trigger a conservative wave and swamp health care reform and the 2010 midterm elections.

"Regardless of the outcome ... this should be a gigantic wake-up call to the Democratic Party - that we're not connecting with the needs, the aspirations and the desires of real people right now," said San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.

With Republican Scott Brown poised to defeat Democrat Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts race to succeed the late Edward Kennedy, Democrats at the annual Martin Luther King community breakfast in San Francisco were buzzing about the impacts of such an upset: an end to the party's 60-vote supermajority and a possible mortal blow to the health care legislation championed by President Obama.

Ripple effects

But Democrats also considered the ripple effects on coming elections in the nation's most populous state.

"We better get our act together - and quickly," Newsom said. Voters "are so angry. They don't feel that we're paying attention to their needs, in terms of their jobs, and what's going on at the grassroots, in their neighborhoods."

With just 10 months until the 2010 midterm election, the mayor's remarks underscore how the Brown-Coakley race has set off alarms in Democratic-leaning California, which is holding two high-profile elections this cycle.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, a three-term Democrat, faces a re-election challenge - with three Republicans vying to defeat her: former Rep. Tom Campbell, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and Assemblyman Chuck DeVore of Irvine.

Boxer polled no more than 46 percent of the vote against any of the three in a Rasmussen Poll released Friday.

And with GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger termed out, former two-term Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown will face one of two wealthy GOP challengers: former eBay CEO Meg Whitman or state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner.

Worse than a canary

For Boxer, a favorite Republican target, a GOP win in Massachusetts would be a particularly dark sign representing "not just the canary in the coal mine," said Wade Randlett, a leading Silicon Valley fundraiser for Obama. "It's the flock of dead ravens landing on the lawn."

But Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, speaking to reporters Monday, expressed confidence in Boxer - and in Democrats' prospects in California. She insisted that - whatever the outcome - the results today will in no way represent a repudiation of the Obama administration, especially on the matter of health care reform.

"Certainly the dynamics will change depending on what happens in Massachusetts," she said. "But it doesn't mean we won't have a health care bill."

Still, "if Brown wins, then Tea Party supporters will smell blood in California," said Joe Wierzbicki, coordinator of the Tea Party Express, a conservative organization that counts roughly a quarter of its 353,000 supporters in California.

"This would be a sign that the momentum in general is in the direction of the Tea Party movement," he said.

Key differences

There are, however, key differences in party demographics in the two states. While Massachusetts Democrats hold a 3-to-1 registration lead over Republicans, more than half of that state's voters are registered independent.

In California, 45 percent of registered voters are Democrats, 31 percent Republicans, and 20 percent decline to state.

Boxer, unlike Coakley, has run three Senate races - and her office said Monday that she had raised more money than ever in the fundraising period that ended in December. (The figures are to be released today.)

"What happens in Massachusetts in January doesn't predict what is going to happen in California in November," said Boxer campaign manager Rose Kapolczynski. "We're taking nothing for granted."

But "if Brown manages to win, I certainly think that will encourage the supporters" of DeVore, the more conservative GOP Senate candidate, Kapolczynski said. "If the national Tea Party movement engaged ... that could dramatically change the Republican primary."

Going forward, Pelosi said Democrats will continue to pound "Main Street" issues, while Republicans will continue to represent the insurance companies, the wealthy and Wall Street.

American voters will be reminded "the Republicans in Congress ... weren't for Social Security, they weren't for Medicare," she said.

But Newsom said the Republican resurgence in Massachusetts suggests "there's real intensity and fervor out there, as represented by the Tea Party" activists expressing anger at government spending and at job losses.

"This is real," he said. "At our own peril, we dismiss these tea parties as ... some sort of isolated extremism. ... It's not."