More than anything else, it was the foolishness of the far left that harpooned Martha Coakley in Massachusetts. Independents broke big for Scott Brown, and his own internal polling showed that national security issues like civilian trials for al-Qaida thugs and the president's seemingly soft approach on terrorism in general helped Brown to a smashing victory.
President Obama, of course, is a big loser along with Coakley. His trip to Massachusetts last Sunday was gutsy, but foolish in hindsight. Voters in a very liberal state simply rejected his request to elect another liberal. The president lost face and power and has to know it.
Now, Obamacare is in great jeopardy, cap and trade is dead, tax increases will not happen and liberal policies across the board are on the run. All of this is the fault of the far left, a group led by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and a number of radical journalists. Brown should send these people fruit baskets.
As Obama acknowledged on Wednesday, the same voter dissatisfaction that swept him into office gave Brown a Senate seat. But why are voters so disenchanted after only one year of the Obama administration?
The short answer is: ideology. With the exception of Afghanistan and firing drones at terrorists, Obama has governed far to the left.
He is allowing the Democratic Congress to spend a record amount of money, and that may lead the USA into bankruptcy. He is trying to engineer a government takeover of the health care industry. He is affording heinous terrorists captured overseas full constitutional rights. He is attempting to tax corporations and wealthy Americans any way he can. In addition, he entertains uber-left guys like George Soros at the White House. He gives radical unions like the SEIU tax breaks while most other unions don't get them. He fails to criticize Pelosi and Reid when they hide their health care negotiations from C-SPAN, even though candidate Obama openly promised such negotiations would be public. If this isn't far-left governance, I'm Hugo Chavez.
And do you know what? Independent-minded Americans don't like it. Just look at the polls. Twenty percent of Americans describe themselves as liberal. So you figure the far left is less than half of that. In addition, radical-left media outlets like MSNBC and Air America are failing. Yeah, Al Franken won in Minnesota, but that was an anomaly. Today, he'd lose big.
If Obama wants to avoid the fate of Jimmy Carter, he must move quickly to the center. He must
- get tougher on terrorism,
- rethink the health care deal so Americans can understand it,
- and stimulate the economy with targeted tax cuts, not massive government spending.
With his power waning quickly, Obama has no time to lose.
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