...I am basically sick about this...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/us/politics/18massachusetts.html?_r=1&ref=us 

Here are the lessons the Massachusetts legislature is teaching the entire state.  Be ready, because they are not lessons that you should want to learn. They are embarrassing lessons that should not be taught.

1. The Kennedy name in this state is of more importance than any kind of political or legal justice.  I used to hang a poster of JFK in my bedroom for a while when I was younger, and I had no idea why. I voted for Ted Kennedy more than once, and I have no idea why.  The result may have been correct - Ted Kennedy as my Senator may have been something I personally benefitted from, as well as the entire state, and maybe the country, but the problem is that nobody ever asked for proof.  We can only hope Ted is the last of the Free-Ride Kennedy's. The best thing to happen to this state is that no Kennedy is running for his seat. They would be underqualified, overhyped, and ultimately elected into what is arguably one of the 100 most important jobs in the country.  Being a Kennedy in Massachusetts writes the type of free pass that we all dislike in every other instance. 

2. When our morals are challenged, and we have to stand up for either what we believe in our heart is right, OR what we think will selfishly serve us the best, in this state, we will choose the one that serves own our selfish purposes, rather than the one that is right.  When things get hard, we go the easy route.   In 2004, we defiled justice by stealing the right of the Gov. to appoint a Senator away from Romney.  Dems. talk now as if in 2004 there were no big choices to be made, they act as if it were an easier time, which it may have been, where any old fool could be a Senator, and, if the situation arose, we could go Senator-less for an extended period of time. No biggie, only in a few wars around the globe and we only were developing a one-of-a-kind State Health Care Law. But again, no biggie, we can go without. As long as a Republican isn't Senator.

Fast Forward to 2009, and it is clear that nobody really believed that.  Bravo for them, right? Wrong. This is partisan bullshit at it's most pure and disgusting form.  They were wrong in 2004, and they are wrong in 2009. How can they be wrong both times, you ask? Well, because you are stuck in the mentality that the result is what is important, rather than the process.  It all comes down to honesty, and being real.  The Dem. majority lied to themselves in 2004, and they lied to us.  They put us all in a bad situation that could have resulted in Massachusetts having 1/2 a voice in the Senate.  And now, here we are.  We let Kennedy stay in office until his death, nearly a full year after he was basically incapable of sipping soup, never mind battle through Health Care debates, Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a financial collapse and the election of a (potentially) Life-Changing President. 

Kennedy died, and our morals were challenged.  Do we stick to the laws that we selfishly allowed our legislators to change?  Or do we change the laws, again, to serve our selfish needs?  Well, that one is easy, we do what is wrong, and we change the law.  Again, the result is a positive one, I think. Having 2 voices is what we need the most. But I believe we have needed 2 voices for a long time, and Kennedy hasn't been able to give a voice in his state for months.

3. Above all else, your party is all that matters, and do not question it's authority. Mike Dukakis is our solution?  He may be a great man, and he may have been a great President (21 years ago!), but how could he be the most qualified person to be Senator? You are telling me there isn't a Selectman or State Senator that isn't prepared, willing, hungry and altogether fired up to do work for the people of Massachusetts?  The "authority" of the state of Massachusetts not only wants to defile the laws our State, playing Gipetto the public's Pinocchio, but they also want to appoint a figurehead.  They want to appoint a false dignitary, Harshbarger, another Kennedy, Dukakis?! What!?!?

The greatest thing that has happened to me, in the section of my life that is political, is to see this Health Care debate unfold in this country.  The Democrats entered this debate like the 2001/2002 St. Louis Rams.  They had all the weapons, the House, the Senate, the President.  The Rams were a juggernaut, so fired up and prepared to do damage in the Super Bowl to the lowly Patriots.  But the Patriots rallied and battled. By any means necessary.  The Republicans are reminding me a lot of the Patriots in that Super Bowl.  All of a sudden the game was over, and the world was shocked. How did they do it? How did they win?  Well, they organized and streamlined. They fought together, they probably even cheated, but they won.

This debate on Health Care didn't need to be a debate. The Dems. lacked a game plan. Confusing vocabulary, the inability to even win over their own party, and an altogether too-tight time line put Obama in a situation where, before he knew it, he was on his heels.  From the start this was a moral argument, and that right there, is where we lost.  There is no bravery in politics anymore - the idea of putting out a moral argument for a large-scale social program is so foreign to the public, and especially those who vote, that our leaders aren't expected to be brave anymore.

All it would have taken was a passionate speech that would have rallied the People.  The Blue Dogs were able to be Blue Dogs because their constituents weren't motivated to care.  Obama was able to get the majority of this country to see him as a Rock Star, as a motivational genius who also was capable of leading our country out of war, into greatness, and ultimately to a place where, morally, we could feel like we had returned as a Global Power.  But then he flat out chickened out.

He needed to stand in front of America and tell them, "This is our country, people. We talk every day about defending ourselves from terrorists, keeping ourselves safe at home, yet we deny millions of people around this country the ability to lead healthy lives. We demolish families with the precision of nuclear weapons by allowing a sick mother with cancer to die because she doesn't have the 'right' kind of job, and the 'right' kind of coverage. This isn't the America I was born into, and this isn't the America our children should grow up in.  We need to offer stronger leadership than that, this will not stand."

And then, THEN, he needed to back that up, and keep forcing it down people's throats.  But that isn't what happened. They went into prevent Defense, they let the Republicans lead the moral argument - of which there is really none besides greed - and even Dems. started believing in the rhetoric. The court of public opinion drove this debate, and ultimately put us where we are, on the verge of a Health Care bill that will not change the lives of a statistically significant % of the people, and out those it will effect, there is argument as to whether or not it will even effect them positively.

Obama quit on us, he simply didn't treat the opposition with the respect it deserved, and he let them jam rhetoric down our throats. He made the argument confusing, and unclear.  But what he really did was he allowed the public - the people of America - to stand up and be heard in opposition of his plan.  He is smarter than us, as a collective. He needed to hear our concerns, and then squash them. He needed to take into account what Blue Dogs and Doubters and Birthers, and those who interrupted town halls had to say, and then outsmart them. He didn't. He quit on us.

And now here we are, a defeated Party in the Majority, have you ever seen that before? The Democrats are lacking the ability to speak from a place of morality on the Health Care debate, and lacking morality in practice on the Massachusetts "Pick-A-Senator" debate.