On Democrats using the Kennedy's senate seat...

It's good to see change is in the air. No, I'm not talking about those "yes, we can" change from Obama. (Was there any, really, anyways? If there ever was, it's not observable to me.) I'm talking about the special election in Massachusetts yesterday that turns the senate seat over from 58-year run (all in the Kennedy family) to a little-known Republican. It's quite a change indeed.

Much was read into the tea leaves of the election results, from the people's mandate (and appetite) to the proposed health care reform, to the Obama presidency on its anniversary, to the Democrat's hold on a 60-vote senate majority.

Yesterday, our household contributed two additional votes to Scott Brown. What angers me, sometimes, is how clueless all these post-election polls that hugely misrepresent the results, or try to read whatever trival notes to it, among which:

(a) All the talk on Ted Kennedy, and how Massachusetts are supposed to be sentimental to the late Ted, is simply white noise to me. Sure, it's sad that someone died. I don't really what Ted or anyone in the Kennedy family thinks or wants, but I sure know what I want. I don't give a damn if Ted wants a legacy or not, but this is a Massachusetts' senate. It's not a Ted Kennedy's seat. Period. It's exactly how I feel about the endorsement by Ted Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy, and just about every single member in that family does, for Obama, then a presidential campaign. Much as I said then, as it is now, their endorsement has not one iota of impact of my decision for a presidential candidate. The fact that every poll and mainstream media read so much into such stupid endorsements still baffles and enrages me.

(b) Yes, my husband and I both vote this time, on the main issue of health care. And no, we don't vote GOP to invalidate the idea of universal health care. But we vote to GOP to send a message that "yes, we like universal health care; but no, we don't like the proposal in the senate." Howard Dean has it right: If there is no public option, then there's no real meaning in this health care reform to me. The Dem senate and Obama just want to pass a health care bill, for the sake of claiming the mantle of making some health care reform. As it is now, the proposal is simply a proposal to force people to buy private insurance, with no other recourse. I don't want that. As Dean has it, a health care bill with no public option is not worth passing.

(c) Our household is one of those majority in MA: Independents. Obama and Dem would have everyone hoped and believed that MA is a solidly blue state, is just sooooo wrong-headed. While MA voters are generally more liberally minded, I don't think we all blindly vote for Dem, just because the party or the unions put their rubber stamps on a candidate.

(d) Obama has failed it time and again, that his show of support to whatever fledgling candidates, from Martha Coakley, to the now-failed gubernatorial candidates in Virginia and NJ, fails to galvanize whatever support that Dem (or Obama) is supposed to have. Do they really have to be told, yet one more time, that we the voters vote for issues, rather than for a party (or a face)? Are they really that clueless to figure that out. From all the post-election bruhaha of poll analysis, it doesn't look like they get it, still.

So, there you have it. I got these out of my chest.