By David Galland in Casey's Daily Dispatch:

As you know by now, a previously unknown Republican state senator in Massachusetts has pulled off one of the biggest and potentially most significant political upsets in memory, wresting the “Kennedy seat” from the Democrats.

In the January 15, 2010 edition of these musings, I wrote…

Though still too close to call, a victory by Brown in this staunchly Democratic state would have huge reverberations. For starters, it would undo the Democrats' filibuster-proof majority, giving rise to all manner of political chaos (a good thing, in my view). And it would send a very strong message to incumbent Democrats that their perfect-world legislative agenda is failing to impress.

Coming on top of other recent losses by the Democrats, a loss in Massachusetts could send congressional Democrats into an "everyone for themselves" mode, with the honorable members rushing about to cover their derrières ahead of the November elections. Perhaps, just perhaps, enough cracks will appear in the Democratic bloc to assure that initiatives such as cap and trade will end up in the waste bin of history.

While the ultimate consequences of this upset remain unknowable, it is a near certainty that the Democrats’ legislative express train will be slowed and may even leave the tracks.

All of which makes one wonder how the politically savvy president and his crack team could have let this shoe-in election become a boot upside the head.

While there’s a lot of finger pointing going on, the tipping point for me was reading about the Democrats’ last-minute campaign strategy to brush Brown with the politically toxic paint of one who might cozy up to the big banks.

Now, we Americans have many less-than-shining traits and can be as thick-headed as any other population group on this planet of ours. But you’d have to be dumb as a mud brick not to see the hypocrisy in the attempted smear.

On the one hand, you have a state senator with no record of national service, and on the other, you have our illustrious president. Who, if you look closely, appears to have some sort of growth on his right shoulder.



No, wait! It’s the Goldman Sachs Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner.

Yes, the very same quisling that, as the Goldman Sachs Head of the NY Fed, oversaw a transfer of billions of dollars of taxpayer money to his big-bank cronies at 100 cents on the dollar for their busted AIG derivatives.

Obviously the Massachusetts voters didn’t buy it.

Crux Note: Each day in Casey's Daily Dispatch, David Galland brings you an informative and entertaining overview of the markets, the economy, and politics... all from his unique and often contrarian perspective. Casey's Daily Dispatch is absolutely FREE and comes right to your inbox, five times a week. To sign up, click here...

More from Casey Research:

The huge danger to gold stock investors in 2010

This is how America gets toppled from No. 1 world power

Why the Democrats will do absolutely anything to pass health care