BOSTON, Mass. -- If every Republican in Massachusetts wasn't
inside the ballroom of the Park Plaza Hotel on Tuesday night, it
was only because the city's fire marshal is a Democrat.
Ayla Brown, the "American Idol" daughter of Sen.-elect
Scott Brown, was rocking the capacity crowd to the tune of "Some
Kind of Wonderful" when it was announced that Democrat Martha
Coakley had conceded. The crowd began to chant: "John Kerry's
next! John Kerry's next!"
Like the 2004 Boston Red Sox who broke an eight-decade
curse by winning the World Series, Brown's victorious surge has
inspired Republicans in Massachusetts and nationwide to believe
that anything is possible.
While Brown's supporters chanted inside the ballroom, the
candidate's sister Lee Ann was outside the hotel on the sidewalk
beside Arlington Street.
"What kind of guy is he?" she said of her older brother,
who was a surrogate father in their single-mom home. "When there
was a father-daughter event at my school, Scott took me. When
there was a parent-teacher conference and our mom couldn't make
it because she had to work, Scott was there."
At Tuesday's victory celebration, Brown was there for every
member of the American majority who, according to polls, believe
that Obama and the Democrats have been taking the nation in the
wrong direction. Brown's victory in Massachusetts was celebrated
by Republicans and conservatives nationwide.
Many contributed, many volunteered, but the lion's share of
the credit belongs to Lee Ann's big brother -- a candidate who
ran a nearly flawless campaign and showed that a conservative
message can appeal to independent voters.
"Tonight, the independent majority has delivered a great
victory," Brown said in his victory speech.
"Forty-one! Forty-one!" the crowd chanted in response. And
when the crowded quieted slightly, the candidate struck a
populist theme.
"While the honor is mine…this is the people's seat," Brown
said, adding that he had spoken by phone to interim Sen. Paul
Kirk, whose career in Washington can't end soon enough for
Brown's supporters.
"Seat him now! Seat him now!" the crowd chanted.
This wasn't the first long shot Brown has made. As a high
school basketball star, his skill at hitting long-range jump
shots earned him the nickname "Downtown Scotty Brown."
For weeks, Brown had described his quest to win this Senate
seat -- occupied by Ted Kennedy for more than four decades -- as
a battle against "the machine." Tuesday night, he turned that
phrase around, telling his supporters: "Tonight we have shown
everyone -- you are the machine!"
For a Republican to win here in Massachusetts required a
convergence of several forces, including a conservative
grassroots hungry for a winner and a Democratic opponent so
spectacularly inept as to alienate many of her own party's
constituencies. During the course of her campaign, Coakley
insulted Catholics, Red Sox Fans and pickup truck drivers.
After the balloons had dropped and the confetti cannons had
covered the ballroom floor with red, white and blue paper, Rob
Eno of the Massachusetts conservative blog Red Mass Group sat
down and said, "I can't begin to say how huge this is."
For once, it seemed, the Establishment had been defeated
and the people had won. Like the patriot militia whose stand at
Concord Bridge turned back the vanguard of the British empire,
the Brown Brigades believe they have begun a revolution.
"This really does change everything -- you know that?" said
Mitt Romney, the state's former Republican governor and a 2008
presidential candidate. "America belongs to the people. Scott
Brown's victory is a shot heard 'round the world."
Republican candidates across the country will study this
campaign -- "template" was a buzzword heard often among the GOP
operatives on the Brown team -- as an example for the 2010
mid-term election, now slightly more than nine months away. A
year after President Obama's inauguration, Democrats must now
contend with a Republican Party reinvigorated by a hard-fought
victory.
"Let them take a look at what happened in Massachusetts,"
Brown told the cheering crowd in the Park Plaza ballroom,
"because what happened here in Massachusetts can happen all over
America."
Then the man who won this breakthrough victory repeated a
simple slogan from his campaign.
"I'm Scott Brown. I'm from Wrentham. I drive a
truck."
