E-News Update: Think We've Sent a Message?

Monday, January 25, 2010

Dear Friends and Supporters,

Tuesday’s Senate victory in Massachusetts was the equivalent of a political earthquake. I think leaders in Washington are finally listening to what we have all been saying for the past several months – government spending and expansion are simply too big, and too much.

In a state where 90% of the elected officials in the Massachusetts House and Senate are Democrats, 100% of their elected members of Congress are Democrat, and where they haven’t sent a Republican to the US Senate since 1972 – Scott Brown’s victory sent a shockwave to Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and President Obama. It is simply incredible. In a state President Obama carried by 26 points, we now know politicians who support this tax-and-spend agenda aren’t safe even in the most liberal areas of our country.

It has never been hard to decipher the message that voters of all parties, ages, and backgrounds, were sending– stop spending money we don’t have, don’t put the government in charge of my health care, and get to work on fixing the economy to put people back to work. And if you don’t – you’re going to get voted out.

That message began immediately after the stimulus passed, grew louder as liberal Democrats pushed a cap and trade plan that jeopardized US jobs, and the equivalent of a mega-phone was added as government run health care came dangerously close to re-shaping the quality of care in America as we know it. They still didn’t listen.

I think now we’ve got their attention!

In light of this remarkable victory in Massachusetts, a story in Politico sheds some light on what is happening within the electorate. The major contributor to Republican victories at the polls? Independent voters.

In three separate elections in three different states, Independents have moved swiftly towards the Republicans.

The more immediate result has been Senator Brown preventing 60 Democrat Senate votes to push through an unpopular and costly health care reform bill that was having difficulty even before his election. They will now need to seek Republican input to gain enough votes to have it passed, something we have asked for since Day 1.

As a result, Nancy Pelosi announced Thursday that she doesn’t have the votes for the already-passed Senate version, because too many of her more liberal members would not support it without a public option. It appears the next major legislative issue, immigration reform, has also been shelved till after November.

Myself and many Republicans are at the ready to get much-needed health care reforms passed if only given a seat at the table, and the opportunity to present commonsense solutions that have wide bi-partisan support: tort reform, opening up competition across state lines, medical technology upgrades and covering of pre-existing conditions, to name a few.

Hopefully the House leadership has learned that Americans want key reforms that maintain the quality of care, not a health care overhaul that puts the government in charge. We can do it if given the chance, and leadership allows commonsense to prevail.

Sincerely,

Tim Murphy

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