Serendipity

Serendipity is running across something good that you weren't looking for.  For those of us whose political perspective tends to be conservative or libertarian, who would have thought that that would describe the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States, with the election at the same time of a House of Representatives that is overwhelmingly Democrat, and followed (since the election of Senator Al Franken was delayed for so long) with a filibuster-proof Senate majority?  As it turns out, it seems like the far left of the Democratic party has been unwittingly hanging themselves and the American voters had been furnishing them the rope to do it with.  A couple of months ago, Glenn Beck drew heat for remarking that it may have been a good thing for Barack Obama to be elected because the sudden lurch to the left woke Americans up as the slower drift to the left by electing John McCain would not have.  Now it appears that the substantial majorities that the Democrats had in both houses of Congress under the leftist leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid has had a similar effect.  Both houses of Congress passed health care reform legislation that came within a hair's breadth of being foisted upon an American public that for the most part didn't really want it.  Even the voters of Massachusetts (hardly the most conservative lot in the country) woke up to what was happening and effectively killed the health care reform legislation by given a convincing victory to Scott Brown as their newest Senator in a special election to fill the seat held so long by Ted Kennedy.  That was a sign that the American public has heard the wakeup call.

Think about what would have happened if Al Franken had not been elected to give the Democrats their 60th vote in the Senate.  Obama, Pelosi, and Reid would still be determined to pass health care reform that slanted as far left as they could get away with.  However, lacking the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster in the Senate, they would have had to compromise to get a bipartisan bill and instead of having an atrocious bill that failed to become law, they would have had one nearly as bad that did become law.  The Democrats would also not have had to take complete ownership of terrible legislation and could share the blame.  As it turns out (for the period before Scott Brown's election in Massachusetts) by getting what they wanted from the voters, the left wing of the Democratic Party failed to get what it needed.  For everyone else, serendipity.