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Tags: pundits | react | brown | victory

Pundits Voice Amazement at Brown's Shocking Win

By    |   Tuesday, 19 January 2010 10:36 PM EST

Tobe Berkovitz, Boston University professor of communications and politics, tells Newsmax: "Sinclair Lewis and Frank Zappa both used the title, 'It can't happen here.' With apologies to both, it did happen here. The voters of Massachusetts added the crown jewel to the Republican off-year trifecta of wins in Virginia, New Jersey and now the bluest of the blue states, Massachusetts.

"This was the Ted Kennedy seat. Now it is the 41st Republican seat in the Senate. In a time of hyperbole, it is impossible to exaggerate the titanic implications of the Scott Brown victory.

"The 2010 elections are off and running, and the Democrats are dazed at the post. The voters of Massachusetts didn't yell, 'I'm mad as hell' – they screamed it. Every Democrat up for election in 2010 should be scared, very scared."

Wall Street Journal online commentator John Fund tells Newsmax: "Obama's agenda is 70 percent dead ... The House [is] unlikely to pass Senate [healthcare] bill.

The GOP's model to follow: "Pace themselves, block healthcare, prepare both grand principles for fall and a list of micro initiatives to make average American lives better."

Larry J. Sabato, University of Virginia Center for Politics, told Newsmax: "If the White House and the Democratic leadership want to find a way to ram healthcare reform through, even with Brown, they can do it. The question the Democrats should ask, though is whether this is the wise move. Humility in the face of voter unhappiness, a demonstration that the party is listening and adjusting to it, is far better than a display of arrogance and legislative sleight of hand."

Fox News commentator and best-selling author Dick Morris tells Newsmax: "It certainly is the revisiting of the shot heard 'round the world, which was originally made in Lexington and Concorde, Mass. … that absolutely was what happened tonight.

"A shot was fired that will be heard around the world. The most liberal seat in the most liberal state went Republican. And it didn't go for a squishy Olympia Snowe Republican. It went for a real Republican."

"It marks the last bill Obama is ever going to pass of any consequence, except for bipartisan stuff. This is the end of the Obama ascendancy, because he has so systematically alienated the 40 Republicans, that now that there are 41, none of them is going to give him the right time of day.

"And this really marks the end of Obama's attempts to reshape the United States. He'll try, but he won't succeed."

Veteran GOP strategist and consultant Roger Stone tells Newsmax: "[Brown's win] is a victory beyond conventional wisdom or belief.

"Obama's victory in 2008 was clearly not a repudiation of conservatism or an endorsement of big government.
"To elect a Republican to Ted Kennedy's seat, in the bluest of blue states, shows us how disgusted swing voters are with the administration. Obama pull his full prestige on the line by visiting Sunday, and now he tells us if Brown gets less than 60 percent it's a loss. Does the president really think Americans are that stupid? This is just the beginning of the tsunamis that will sweep 2010. But they will not reach full strength until 2012."

Nevada political analyst Jon Ralston, regarding the impact on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's re-election campaign, tells Newsmax: "It is bad news. [It is] very unlikely he will retire. If healthcare goes down, he is in big, big trouble."

David Gergen, former presidential adviser, on CNN: "This will be the vote heard 'round the world. It's going to have an enormous impact on Washington. I think it will have ripple effects even in American foreign policy. …This was also a message to Washington. The people of Massachusetts, the bluest of blue states, do not like the direction Washington is taking."

Richard A. Viguerie, chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, tells Newsmax: “Scott Brown’s election to the Senate is another example of the energy and passion that has been brought to the Republican Party in the past year by new conservative leaders.

“Brown’s victory would not have happened without the leadership of tea party activists, talk show hosts, bloggers, and others using the Internet. These new conservative leaders are forcing backbone and spine into the old and tired Republican Party leaders, who in early 2009 were afraid to publicly disagree with or challenge President Obama and his agenda.

“This conservative Republican Senate victory in Massachusetts would not have been possible 25 years ago before the new and alternative media – talk radio, cable TV, Internet, bloggers, etc.

“The next battleground for these new conservative leaders against the establishment big-government politicians will be in Republican and Democratic primaries. These new conservative leaders are gearing up to challenge the political establishment regardless of party.”

© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.


InsideCover
Tobe Berkovitz, Boston University professor of communications and politics, tells Newsmax: Sinclair Lewis and Frank Zappa both used the title, 'It can't happen here.' With apologies to both, it did happen here. The voters of Massachusetts added the crown jewel to the...
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2010-36-19
Tuesday, 19 January 2010 10:36 PM
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