Will "never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity" Big Government Republicans squander their new Massachusetts mandate?

America’s Right Turn
(The American Conservative) -- By Patrick J. Buchanan

...How Democratic is Massachusetts?

Democratic registration is three times that of the Republicans. The party controls both houses of the legislature by huge margins, and holds every statewide office, both U.S. Senate seats and all 10 U.S. House seats. Massachusetts is a Democrat fiefdom, a one-party state.

...The one attribute Americans wanted most in its next president was that he be for “change.” And Obama had cornered the market on change, while John McCain had voted 90 percent with Bush.

But instead of seeing the election as a repudiation of the Bush Republicans, Obama, Pelosi and Reid read it as an embrace of their wonderful selves and a national cry for more government.

Following Rahm’s Rule — never let a crisis go to waste! — Obama and his party took the collapse of the banks and spreading economic chaos to attempt the greatest leap forward in federal power since World War II.

Most Americans understood candidate Obama’s health care plans to mean that folks who could not afford care would be able to get it, whatever their conditions. As the plan evolved, however, it grew in the eyes of the public into precisely what the Tea Party and town-hall protesters said it was: a federal takeover of one-sixth of the economy. Bureaucrats would decide who gets what care, when and for how long. And a panoply of new taxes, fees and regulations would be imposed, producing a revenue windfall for the federal government and a quantum leap in power for federal bureaucrats.

What Massachusetts is telling the nation is that the Tea Party people have won the argument, America doesn’t want this bill and either put it down or we remember in November.

Indeed, the crisis of the Democratic Party today may be found in a story this Monday by CNS.

It seems that an ABC/Washington Post poll found that, when asked, “Generally speaking, would you say you favor smaller government with fewer services or larger government with more services?” 58 percent of Americans favored smaller government with fewer services to 38 percent who favor more government and more services.

The Post, however, reportedly saw fit not to mention the results of this question in its news story about the poll.

Which is understandable. Why would you publish a poll that says three in five Americans reject your political philosophy?

In the near term, what is happening in Massachusetts is good news for the GOP.

What it says is that, no matter the weakness of the party label or brand, independents will vote Republican if that is the only alternative to the party in power.

The GOP can thus run this fall as the only effective force left in Washington that can block the Democrats’ drive for power. The GOP problem arises when the presidential season begins in spring 2011.

For what Republican ran last time for cutting back George Bush’s big government? Who ran against expansion of NATO into Ukraine and Georgia? Who opposed war in Iraq? Who stood up and said no to No Child Left Behind or Medicare coverage of prescription drugs?

Who in the Republican Party today is calling for a Barry Goldwater-like rollback of federal power and federal programs? Except Ron Paul...MORE...LINK