Rather than put this in the comments section of my “Hot Water” post, I will address the feedback I’ve received here.

The Massachusetts election, if it has proven anything, has shown that rumors of the death of the Republican party have been highly exaggerated. Glenn Beck is even nowtrumpeting a “civil war in the Democratic party” to match the rhetoric that the Left has been issuing for over a year about the Republican party’s own discord. While this may or may not turn out to be an accurate observation, it should be clear by now that the Tea Party machine, the birther bullshit, and all the rest has all added up to an important win for Team Asshole. In other words, if you thought there was no method to their madness, you were wrong.

One could rightly point out that the Massachusetts election did not hinge on the tinfoil hats of the Beck conspiracy, that Martha Coakley ran a poor campaign, that Massachusetts actually has near universal health care coverage for its citizens, etc. All true. The fact is, all the political theater of the past year has not been expressly for the purpose of putting little Becks in power, but to till the soil for a conservative renaissance at the polls, if not in their politics.

I count myself among those average Joes who missed the forest for the trees. My own assumption was that the more the Republicans embraced the Bachmann/Wilson fringe, the worse it would go for them in November, since the Republicans would have to embrace screeching, bizarro candidates that were the GOP equivalents of the 9/11 truthers. When conservatives chose third party candidate Doug Hoffman over Republican Dede Scozzafava in the race for New York’s 23rd congressional district late last year, throwing the race to the Democrat, I felt this opinion was vindicated.

Instead, a far more important race was won by the Republican for the exact same reason. Not because Scott Brown was the more moonbat of the the two choices (a third candidate, oddly enough a conservative named Kennedy, did not place), but because a year’s worth of conservative eccentricity had peeled off a precious 4% of Massachusetts voters, and a single senator is now the torpedo that stands to sink the entire health care reform agenda.

Please note my use of language: health care reform agenda, not movement. And therein lies the Democrats downfall.

The difference between the Tea Party movement and the much larger anti-war movement of the Bush years lies in the fact that the Republicans are not afraid to be on the ground with the proles, fists in the air selling Obitler T-shirts, while the Democrats could scarely be troubled to be seen shaking hands with the anti-war Left in those days. The Democratic party is ultimately as timid as a tit mouse amongst dinosaurs, only coming out in the daylight when it is finally ready to exploit an opening niche, such as a Republican catastrophe so tremendous that if you couldn’t win then you might as well dissolve the party.

Where was the liberal answer to the Tea Party town hall campaign? My own Congressman, Louise Slaughter, wouldn’t even appear at her townhall meeting, except by phone. After nearly a century of debate over public healthcare, and with the majority finally in place to bring it about, why is it that the Democrats only sent the team mascot and the drum majors onto the field against the linebackers? Is John Stewart supposed to carry the ball forever? How many maladjusted meatheads did he fill the town halls with?

So let’s not get too bitter about the Republican “villains” without examining the Democrats’ own failed fundamentals. The last of that old 60’s liberalism died with Ted Kennedy, and the movement finally burned itself out (albeit in a blaze of glory) with the election of a black president. What remains is a bloodless, establishment political dinosaur that gives publicly funded bonuses to Wall Street, lets the health insurance industry into the White House to author reforms, and in every other way seems to be willing to help the Republicans back into the driver’s seat where they will, of course, do the exact same things. In the words of Mister Miyagi: “Stand in middle of road, squish like bug.”