On the MA Senate Race

From Glenn Reynolds (the Instapundit):

SO, BROWN WON. This is big news; while the White House is still in the healthcare bunker, things like Jim Webb’s move for a “suspension” until Brown is seated suggest that Democrats in Congress, being closer to the front lines, have a better idea of what’s really going on. We may still see something called “health care reform,” but it seems much less likely that it’ll be anything like ObamaCare, and if they do somehow ram ObamaCare through they’ll see anger that’ll make the Massachusetts special election look like a cakewalk.

But while Scott Brown could get elected as the anti-Obama figure — and while others will be able to pull that off in the fall — the GOP needs to be sure that it doesn’t just look like it’s lining up for its turn at the trough. Polls show that most Americans want smaller government, even with fewer “services.” Running on a platform that money’s better kept in voters’ own pockets, rather than handed over to special interest logrolling and vote-buying, will work: If it’ll work in Massachusetts, it should work pretty much anywhere. It is a fashionably-gloomy line among some on the right to say that the country’s too far gone in statism and the government-handout parasite culture to support such an approach — but again, if you can make it with this in Massachusetts, you can make it pretty much anywhere.

There is no doubting that Brown's win is big news on the electoral front, but if the GOP is going to expand on the victory, they will have to learn the lesson about smaller government that Reynolds points out. Whether they do so or not remains to be seen, but given past performance of the GOP in the past six years, I wouldn't bet the farm on it.