Tea Time

Republican Scott Brown's amazing victory yesterday over Martha Coakley for the "Kennedy" senate seat in deep blue Massachusetts can be attributed to many things: an attractive candidate, an inept opponent, a smug Democrat party, growing fears over health-care reform, growing disgust over the health-care reform process, a poor economy, the Christmas Day bomber, etc. But we must not forget to include what happened last April, the 15th to be exact, tax day. It was then that the Tea Party movement was launched. More than any other single event of the past year, the Tea Party rallies held across the country that day served to voice, focus, and organize what was until then a smoldering but mostly frustrated opposition to President Obama, the Democrat Party, and their aggressively liberal agenda for America. The movement achieved what the Republican Party seemed incapable of accomplishing, and too often seemed even unwilling to try. Very significantly, it succeeded without morphing into a "pox on both your houses" movement towards a third party, a third party that would have assured Martha Coakley and every other liberal Democrat a comfortable margin of victory not only last night, but this coming fall as well.