I suppose between the thrill of the Saints-Vikings game over the weekend and the audible thud of the President’s State of Confusion “lecture”, one very under reported, but very important news item has slipped by.

WHY THE HELL IS MARK KIRK STILL CASTING VOTES IN THE SENATE?

Massachusetts law is quite clear on this issue. When Brown won the special election last week, he was to be sworn in ASAP and Kirk was banned from voting in the Senate, starting the the day after the election.

From the Weekly Standard:

But in the days after the election, it is Kirk’s status that matters, not Brown’s. Massachusetts law says that an appointed senator remains in office “until election and qualification of the person duly elected to fill the vacancy.” The vacancy occurred when Senator Edward Kennedy died in August. Kirk was picked as interim senator by Governor Deval Patrick.

Democrats in Massachusetts have talked about delaying Brown’s “certification,” should he defeat Democrat Martha Coakley on Tuesday. Their aim would be to allow Kirk to remain in the Senate and vote the health care bill.

But based on Massachusetts law, Senate precedent, and the U.S. Constitution, Republican attorneys said Kirk will no longer be a senator after election day, period. Brown meets the age, citizenship, and residency requirements in the Constitution to qualify for the Senate. “Qualification” does not require state “certification,” the lawyers said.

Now, compare that to this item. Look at the date of the story of this item from FOX News re: Niki Tsongas: (Hat Tip to Lan Astaslem at Michele Malkin)

Thursday, October 18, 2007

WASHINGTON — Democrat Niki Tsongas cast her first House vote Thursday on an issue that helped propel her into Congress: expanding a children’s health insurance program.

The election itself was held on the 16th of that October.

And please do not give me any “House vs. Senate” rules claptrap. Brown was duly elected, and by MA law, was to be duly sworn in to REPLACE the current occupant of that seat, Kirk. Not sit around like a stranded tourist, hoping someone would give him directions to the Dirksen building.

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First there was the Music City Miracle almost exactly 10 years ago. Buffalo Bills fans to this day still grouse about what they thought was a game stolen from them.

And now a decade later, in a different venue, we have the Massachusetts Miracle. Only there is no doubt about this one:

Full results can be found here.

It sure has been a busy day here in the blogoshhere, so much so that sites like MichelleMalkin.com and HotAir.com went down for short while due to overwhelming traffic. (BTw, Michelle has a nice little roundup of the day’s events here).

Not so ironically enough, the liberal Alphabet networks spoke nary a peep most of the day on their sites. It got so quiet that CNN switched to all-Haiti coverage not long after the numbers started pouring in after 8PM.

I suppose all of this might have been enough to make Teddy K go back to bar in the afterlife and never want to come home.

BTW, Happy First Anniversary as President, Mr. Obama.

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If absolutely nothing else comes of the 2009 election season, one thing is clear. The populace is 1) angry, 2) frustrated with their government on most every level and 3) will take matters into their own hands in order to change the political landscape. And many of those who had never paid much attention to politics before are now the seeds that are transforming the way elections might be run for the foreseeable future.

A lot can, has been and will be read into last night’s results. From the network and cable news pundits to the largest political sites and forums to the smallest blogger, there will be an extraordinary amount of analysis of what is usually a boring and little noticed election cycle.

However, in my opinion, the most important events happened before the first ballot was cast. And the most important of those were that a good percentage of the American citizenry decided to finally start taking matters into their own hands and shedding the snakeskin of the political class, who for far too long have “spoken” for them, even as most of that class worked against them, overtly or covertly. The rise of the Tea Party, the elevation of the Town Hall and the return of a true citizen candidate is transforming the very fundamentals of the political landscape of this country to it’s very roots. Even as the Political Class looks it’s nose down at such rabble and brushes them off as one would a tick on a hot summer day.

The Rise of the Citizen goes way beyond the usual and predictable Party/Talking Points/Media babble that has so dominated the political conversation for far too many decades. It is grassroots at it’s finest and was seen most clearly as an election consequence in the NY-23 race.

For here, the disconnect between the Political Class and the Citizen was at it’s most stark. A few powerful party leaders bypass the usual party primary, select a candidate that is the ultimate political cross-dresser and pour tons of money into her campaign. When it leaks out that the political cross-dresser is a radical leftist, they circle their wagons, bring in some aging, political big guns to help shore up the cross-dresser’s support. All the while, derisively sliming all those that question the troubled nomination in the first place.

And then, almost suddenly, like a David taking on Goliath, a Citizen Candidate emerges from nowhere, energizes both the local populace and catches the notice of highly influential conservatives the country over and with just a matter of a few weeks of campaigning nearly pulls off a stunning win.

It just goes to show that the days of being led by staid party leaders, recycling endless campaign money and uttering empty, predictable and shallow media bytes in order to achieve a “victory” that usually ends up in an appeasing and spineless victor are over. Like a football team building from the ground up with a new owner, GM and head coach, the whole gameplan and playbook have changed dramatically.

Party leaders on both sides ignore this at their peril.

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Today, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and the RNC itself must be held-up in a corner of some remote cave, licking their political wounds.

And let’s not forget Newt Gingrich….Who shocked conservative circles around the country when he endorsed Dede Scozzafava in the NY-23 congressional race. Scozzafava, who even by modern definitions is so left of center that she barely falls into the category of “RINO”, was endorsed by all the above…Newt, the NRCC, the NRSC and Michael Steele of the RNC. As Michelle Malkin put it:
(snip)

Scozzafava isn’t just “anybody who doesn’t agree with us 100 percent.”

She’s an ACORN-Friendly, Big Labor-Backing, Tax-and-Spend, Margaret Sanger Award-Winning Radical in GOP Clothing — a left-wing saboteur who seeks to marginalize mainstream conservatism with conservatives’ own money.

(Click the purple links in the quote above for more info….)

I wonder if Scozzafava’s endorsement of the democrat still in the running against Doug Hoffman finally taught the supposed GOP leadership a lesson?

Let’s hope so…Because the “Scozzafava Affair” has become a modern-day version of “The Shot Heard ‘Round The World” for the GOP establishment.

No longer will we blindly accept the crap you’re shovelin’!
No longer will we embrace and mimic (even to a small degree) the stances and ideology of the left, in order to bring those who claim they are “moderate” into the “big tent” of the GOP.

No sir…No Ma’am!
That ends here.

And the rebuilding begins….Now!
If you’re not going to pony-up and lead the party by effectively communicating politically conservative ideology to the voting populace, then get out of the way, and let “nature” take its course! We’ll pick the leaders, campaign for them, donate time and money to them, and tell YOU to support them! Remember, that’s how this “game” is supposed to be played?!

Newt had it all wrong on Scozzafava.
We can no longer look at charts and statistics and say “well, this candidate more closely represents what the numbers indicate as being the political make-up of their district (or state)”. Forget the numbers. Forget the charts. Forget the stats. Why not try what works….Actual politically conservative ideals!

I shouldn’t have to list these, but I will:

-Lower taxes
-Less government
-More individual freedom

I could go on, but I think the point is made.

If the “Tea Parties” did one thing for the conservative (and moderate) voting population in this country, it allowed civic-minded people of all ages and backgrounds to get a refresher course on just how our system of government is supposed to work. It allowed them to see that things haven’t been right for a long long time, and obama is but a small cog in the huge “wheel” of a political machinery gone wrong. No no…This voter angst has been building for quite some time, and obama and those who share his ideology simply provided the “steam” needed to finally awaken the “conservative giant” from its fitfull slumber.

Those “Tea Parties” and townhall events are political “pressure valves”, where those who are tired of being ignored, belittled, and betrayed by most elected officials in Washington, can give voice to their concerns, frustrations and calls for action!

Even before a ballot is cast in the November 2009 elections, the “Scozzafava Affair” will go down in history as being the “warning shot” put across the “bow” of the supposed GOP “leadership”.

For those within GOP “leadership” positions or PAC’s…Take the hint….This is only the beginning.

We’re paying attention.
We’re marking the time.
And we vote…According to conservative ideals, and not those of our supposed leadership. And the more you castigate those who even lean to the right for not doing as you say, the more you’ll prove yourselves unworthy of the votes and money you cannot operate without.

Can you hear us now?
Dede Scozzafava can….

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