Republican Senator from Massachusetts

In an interesting political development, my home state of Massachusetts, normally known for being one of the most (possibly the most) Democratic state in the country has just elected a Republican to the United States Senate to fill the seat held for over 40 years by leading Democrat Ted Kennedy. The Republican victory is being variously attributed to the Democratic candidate running a very poor campaign, and general dissatisfaction with the Democratic party as the US economy continues to do poorly and the national debt rises to more and more astronomically high levels.e

There was once a time when I would have been thrilled by this - I used to be a strong Republican who registered to vote in my first election so that I could vote for the doomed Republican candidate who was running against Ted Kennedy in an earlier election. The George W. Bush years gradually ended most of my faith in the Republican party, although I've never learned to particularly like the Democrats either. Ironically, I voted for the Democrat this time, who turned out to be just as doomed as the Republican candidate I voted for some 16 years ago.

This does not seem to bode well for the Democrats. I know that the Republicans are fondly hoping that Obama will turn out to be another Jimmy Carter - a president elected on an idealistic platform of "change" who proved to be ineffective and unpopular and who was replaced by a conservative Republican in a political backlash. I wonder if they will get their wish.