Who would have thought that a special election in Massachusetts would be the end of the Obama regime and a retreat from the "change that you can believe in" that was voted in just a year ago?
Media "gas bags", Democratic "moderates" and no small number of propagandists for the corporate right are proclaiming this new political reality in the aftermath of the special election in Massachusetts won by Republican Scott Brown.
Less is said about the Coakley campaign failing to practice Tip O'Neill's cardinal rule that "all politics is local" or that Coakley put all her money and eggs in a December primary, leaving her few resources and a general election plan that wrote off Brown as just another GOP patsy. In this case the better candidate with the "I'm mad as hell" message won. No matter that behind the pick up truck and neighborly image is a guy with six properties, including one in Aruba, who probably never met a Wall Street financier he didn't like.
Before the Rahm Emanuels in the Obama White House try to resurrect the Democratic Leadership Council formula of having Democrats move to the right, President Obama and the national Democrats should heed the "wake up call" of AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.
