Game Changed

If I were Spike Lee, I'd be telling President Obama and the Democrats to WAKE UP!!!! The alarm clock went off in Massachusetts and it brought glad tidings and good news for the Republicans. For the Democrats? Not so much.

All politics may be local, so the saying goes, but the impact of Ted Kennedy's Senate seat switching to the Republicans has far-reaching consequences for the nation as a whole. The president likes to seize upon "teachable moments." This is one of them.

There's no way to sugarcoat this one. Maybe President Obama and the Democrats could write off the ominous results of the governor's office in New Jersey and Virginia as a case of an unpopular incumbent losing and a formidable GOP challenger winning. This is nothing but a nasty beatdown. It's one thing to lose what was considered a safe Democratic seat. It's quite another when the race boils down to a single volatile issue: health care reform, and the guy that wins is the one who promises to kill it.

You won't be able to turn on a radio or television without being blasted by hot air from politicians, pundits and experts as to what happened in Massachusetts and what happens next, both to the chances of health care reform in Congress, the president's agenda, and the Democratic Party as a whole when November comes around.

The Democrats should make a hard turn to the Left and galvanize their disillusioned base. President Obama has not done enough to bring moderate Republicans on board and keep independents. Martha Coakley ran a lazy and ineffectual campaign and before she looked up, Brown had seized the momentum. This vote is a referendum on Obama's big spending ways and the country's distrust of nationalized health care. The GOP is back, baby! If a Republican can win Massachusetts, they can win anywhere. Look out Democrats, you are going down and going down hard next November.

Let the blame game begin. The Democrats should take exactly ONE day to point fingers and fight among themselves. Then, they'd better figure out if they what they need to do to get health care reform through or there will be a lot more Scott Browns taking their place in November.

Republicans, whom at this time last year looked beaten down and politically impotent, can and should bask in the glory of breaking the stranglehold Democrats had on a Senate seat since 1952. The day after Brown's victory the storyline becomes one of dispirited Democrats and revitalized Republicans. You'll hear it repeated until your ears bleed.

The Republicans have established themselves as the "Party of No" and the tactic to "give them nothing but hell" has only been strengthened by Brown's impending arrival as the man who ended Harry Reid's supermajority. The danger for the GOP is overreach. There is a difference between opposing health care reform on principle and blatant obstructionism. This is illustrated by the fact that in the first year of the Bush Administration 70 appointees to diplomatic and federal positions awaited confirmation. Contrast that to the 177 appointees submitted to the Senate by the Obama Administration have yet to be confirmed and most have been blocked by Republicans placing a "hold" on the nominees that can only be broken by a 60 vote supermajority.

The Republicans have proven skillful in frustrating the will of the majority by the tyranny of the minority. This strategy may not help the problems of the country, but it's been very helpful to the Republicans.

There will be no bipartisan outreach from either side 11 months out from the next election. Republicans have shown no inclination to work with Obama on any major issue and Democrats have polarized and hardened the GOP opposition with Harry Reid's ineffectiveness and Nancy Pelosi one-party rule in the House. And the Democrats shouldn't play games trying to delay seating Brown. Barring any voting irregularities, Brown should join the Republican minority in the Senate

Point of fact: Obama is still the president and Democrats still control the Senate and House. They can remind the GOP of this by passing the Senate's health care bill in the House as is without reconciliation and avoiding any possible filibuster. This will provoke howls from Republicans and the right-wing noise machine of Fox, talk radio and the blogosphere, but their bitching is nothing compared to what Democrats will face if they do nothing and allow reform to wither and die. If the Senate is a lost cause, the House of Representatives, where Speaker Pelosi is dealing with a stronger hand, can still save health care as Jonathan Cohn''s open letter to Democrats explains.

Oh, and President Obama? The honeymoon is officially over. In case you haven't figured it out yet, while the American people may like you personally and think you're a smart guy, they don't like their job situations and feel really nervous and uncertain about the economy and the direction the country is going. It's time to prove you're a smart guy and focus that intellect on what it takes to get people working again.

The president should be concerned that if he doesn't demonstrate his leadership and political talents, he'll look up in January 2011 and find a lot fewer Democrats around him and a lot more Republicans instead. Blame it on the crappy economy, but he can't blame in on George Bush anymore. Blame in on the Tea Party protests, but there's no denying that there's an anti-incumbent mood out there and it favors Republicans.

Succumbing to panic and recrimination won't help Obama and the Democrats. Remembering they were elected to bring about genuine and systemic change to the nation will. It wasn't to cut deals with pharmaceutical and insurance companies and water down health care reform until all that remained was a soggy mess of the original idea. The people watched the Democrats dithering and got turned off by it.

Obama and the Dems can weather this storm and counter the Republican surge with one of their own. It might not be enough to entirely blunt the Republican chances in November, but if they can and should remind Americans how lousy the nation's state of affairs were under GOP rule and start right now in winning back the disaffected and disappointed voters that gave them a shot in 2008,

It's not too late to get this thing back on the move. But as the leader of his party, Obama has to point them in the right direction.