Massachusetts Medley

Ted Kennedy's Leftward Drift and Scott Brown's Victory


September 12, 2009 Rally in Washington. The people demand to be heard.

Here are a couple of interesting articles about Massachusetts' political history by Daniel J. Flynn in City Journal. First a Look at Ted Kennedy's Leaning Leftward [click to read] and then Scott Brown's Victory [click to read] and what it means for the country as a whole.

One does well to remember that John Kennedy once cut taxes and knew he needed to stand strong in the face of Soviet missles being delivered to Cuba. Ted once was, believe it or not, a believer in morally conservative ideals:

"Kennedys and Catholicism became intertwined in Catholic Massachusetts. But all that changed dramatically with the emergence of new issues like abortion and gay rights. Prior to Roe v. Wade, Kennedy had believed that society had a “responsibility to its children from the very moment of conception,” which included “the right to be born, the right to love, the right to grow old.” But Kennedy’s reversal on the issue was complete, making his support of abortion rights as pronounced as his identification with the Church had been."

Though the pro-life movement has deep roots in the Church, Kennedy felt no need to acknowledge it in the wake of the Supreme Court's elevation of abortion to a 'right.'

"[He] inherited neither the America First foreign-policy views of his father nor the liberal anticommunism of JFK, but the newly dovish tendencies of brother Bobby, who, by his ill-fated 1968 presidential run, was swimming deeply in New Left currents. For the next 40 years, Ted Kennedy and much of his party remained bound to this 1960s zeitgeist."

Ted fought the Reagan reduction of tax rates too. Nationalizing healthcare was a major priority for him.

But Ted and his party were drifting steadily away from the responsibility of representing the people. The election of Barack Obama and his bold push for bigger government finally tilted the scales too far. Though he had promised to reach across the isle and create new transparency in government, the President instead pushed major changes through under cover of darkness... expensive changes that would create massive new deficits and burden an ailing economy with even more taxation. When Scott Brown came on the scene his message already had a waiting audience. The rest is history.


December 15, 2009 in Washington saw crowds protesting the tactics of the left.