The coveted U.S. Senate seat left vacant after the passing of Ted Kennedy, and widely assumed to be promptly filled by another well-heeled political hack from the political hack Center of The Universe, Massachusetts, is suddenly in jeopardy.  To the utter dismay of hard-core Massachusetts democrats, the campaign of Attorney General Martha Coakley, is in shambles and by Tuesday night we’ll know just how bad.  This doesn’t mean she’s going to lose, although I hope so, but even if she wins, the campaign has been a train wreck, and the fact that she didn’t simply walk away with the election, as most people expected, has shaken the National Democratic Committee to it’s core.

Instead, she actually had to face a viable opponent, and given the current political climate in the country, Scott Brown was the right guy, in the right place, at the right time.  He has that most important element working for him.  Momentum.  And, it came at just the right time.  Not too early…not too late.  Nearly every poll, save the Boston Globe’s, has shown Brown gaining on Coakley.  First fifteen points…then ten…then five…then two…and now a dead heat by nearly every account.

It makes sense, as both candidates are emblematic of the political fire that is burning in the country right now.  It’s almost like a steel-cage death match.  Coakley, the entrenched pol, steadily climbing the ladder for years, but with a career blemished by bad plays and deal-making.  Brown, on the other hand, the consummate every-man.  Two decades in the National Guard, a family man, still driving an old pick up truck with 200,000 miles on it.  Speaking with conviction about what people want to hear.  Smaller government, “no” to the health care bill, “no” to increased government spending, “no” to the massive over-reaching that is becoming the moniker of the Obama administration.  He answered David Gergen, who moderated a much publicized debate between the two, that the race was for, “not Kennedy’s seat, not the democrat’s seat, but the people’s seat…”.  This line went instantly into the campaign-line Hall of Fame, along with Reagan’s famous “I paid for this microphone” line from his Presidential campaign.  Gergen, of course, made it easy.  Deeming himself “neutral” but then asking Brown about Roe v. Wade then asking Coakley about her favorite sandwich, the questioning was typically stacked in one sides favor.

Still, Brown will have to take it by a wide margin, to off-set the attempts that will be made by corrupt forces to shape the outcome of this election.  Let’s not forget, this is a State House with more convicts than most prisons.  Only Chicago conjures up quicker images of political corruption than Massachusetts, and Chicago doesn’t hold a candle to Massachusetts in my opinion.  The Big Dig itself is an internationally recognized hallmark of graft, payoffs and corruption.  The state is second only to Vermont in their absolute repudiation of any attempt to capture and convict child-rapists.  Coakley herself, though she has campaigned as one who is tough on child predators, has been benign when it comes to protecting children.  Indeed she was implicit in protecting a police officer who was convicted, finally, of sodomizing his own niece with a curling iron.  She spent weeks in the burn unit at Children’s Hospital.  Coakley has been at odds with Rep. Karyn Polito and Wendy Murphy, two of only a small handful of Massachusetts politicos who have faced the problem of child predators head on.

Martha Coakley, decent person though she may be, is out of step with average Americans.  Like her political counterparts, she just doesn’t get it.  People have had it.  We’re rising up.  It’s not going to be business as usual anymore. Real hope and change is coming, I expect in the mid-terms this year, only it’s not “slogan hope” it’s the real deal.  Change?  Oh, yeah…change is coming.  We’re going to “change” back to a government that reflects the desires and wishes of the majority of Americans, not the few.  A government that will stop and lend an ear to folks whose parents and grandparents wore, or maybe died wearing, a uniform for this country.  We can have compassion for the less fortunate, we can open our arms to people seeking a better life, but we can also expect them to understand that there are citizens who would like their voice heard as well, maybe even….gulp…first.

Win or lose Scott Brown will be a household name from this point forward.  Like Sarah Palin early on, he has captured the imagination of many.  And how refreshing, at least for me, to have someone capturing my imagination for a change, instead of simply straining it.