This has been an amazing week in America.  The United States Supreme Court upheld free speech in its ruling in the matter of a challenge to McCain-Feingold.  On Tuesday of this week, voters surprised the Democratic Party by electing Republican Scott Brown to fill the Massachusetts Senate seat left vacant with the death of Ted Kennedy in August of 2009.

With Brown’s election there are those who would declare Obama Care dead.  Others would tell you the Republican’s will be able to defeat Democrats all across the nation this year. I think both statements are extremely presumptuous to say the least.

First lets address Obama Care. I think it is ironic that the seat held by Ted Kennedy since 1962 is the one which looks like it is now going to stop the ball rolling on Government run health care.  Why?  I am glad you asked. It is ironic because Ted Kennedy pushed for government run health care for nearly his entire time in the U.S. Senate. Just when it looked like it was going to succeed, the voters in Massachusetts elected a Republican to fill the seat.

Second, lets address the victory itself.   I wanted a view from Massachusetts on what the factors behind Browns election where without the filter and spin of politicos.  I called my Brother who lives in Massachusetts and the following statements are his take on the election.

The Coakley campaign was poorly ran form the beginning.  It was an example of a person feeling entitled to the seat and running accordingly. They thought they had it in the bag. After all they believed the seat belonged to the Democratic party.  She spent to much time raising money in Washington instead of her home state.

Scott Brown ran an excellent campaign. As my Brother said, it takes a lot of guts for a Republican candidate to run black and white JFK clips with Brown finishing the remarks on lowering taxes, etc.  While Coakley was off hobnobbing with the Washington, DC elite, Brown was driving his old pickup around the state and stopping in at radio stations to visit.

One point my Brother made was that Brown never made his party affiliation an issue.  He ran a clean campaign focused on the issues important to the voters.  He didn’t attack his opponent but stayed focused on the peoples business. My fellow Republicans need to pay close attention to the fact he attracted independent and disgruntled democratic voters with his message. After all there aren’t a lot of republican voters in the state in the first place.

When the Secretary of State for Massachusetts made the statement that it didn’t matter if Brown won because he would be seated until Obama Care was passed it opened it made the voters mad.  It also gave Brown the opportunity to  stress  it was the peoples senate seat not the  democratic party’s.

Just how significant is the fact a republican won  Massachusetts Class II Senate seat? Since 1788, only four Democrats have been elected (others where appointed) to fill it.  The first was in 1851.  Then it was held by the republican Party until 1926. David I. Walsh held the seat from 1926 until his defeat in 1946 by Republican Henry Cabot Lodge in 1946.  Then in 1952 John F. Kennedy defeated lodge and held the seat until his election to the Presidency in 1960. Ted Kennedy was elected to the seat in 1962 and served until his death in August of last year. So it had been held by a Democrat since 1952 or 58 years.

In the end I think it would be a mistake to declare Obama Care dead yet. It would also be a mistake if the Republican party gets overly confident with the election of Brown.

When I was kid growing up on a farm in Kansas, I was told there where two things you needed to do if you killed a rattlesnake.  The first was to cut off its head and bury it because the fangs still had poison in them. The second was it didn’t matter what time of day it was you killed it, it wasn’t really dead until sundown.

The Republican strategist need to take the first part of that to heart. Let’s make sure we figuratively cut off the snakes head and bury it before we say we are home free.

When it come to Obama Care, it isn’t sundown yet.  We need to keep working to defeat it until it truly is dead.