I offer my condolences to the family, friends and supporters of Congressman John Murtha. I salute Mr. Murtha’s service to America.

Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), a Vietnam War veteran who staunchly supported military spending and became a master of pork-barrel politics, died Monday at Virginia Hospital Center. The 19-term lawmaker died from complications of gallbladder surgery. He was 77.

From a political standpoint however, Mr. Murtha’s passing almost guarantees his seat will go to a Republican in an upcoming special election. The Democrats know it too…

The Democratic party faces another election test after the death yesterday of John Murtha, a congressman dubbed by his colleagues the “king of pork”.

Murtha, aged 77, had been in the House of Representatives since being elected to his Pennsylvania district in 1974.

The fear in the party is that Republicans will notch up another victory when a special election is held, probably May.

The Democrats have been panicking since losing Ted Kennedy’s Massachusetts Senate seat to the Republicans last month.

The Senate Republican Leader, Mitch McConnell, appeared on Greta Van Susteren tonight and described the reception Scott Brown received today from Republican senators in Washington, DC.

McConnell also sent out a very complimentary press release about Scott Brown via his official website:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor Thursday welcoming Senator-elect Scott Brown:

“The Senate’s newest member is coming down from Massachusetts today, so we’ll have a chance to welcome Senator-elect Brown to the Capitol. We’re delighted to have him.

“Senator-elect Brown has captured the attention of the entire country, but he captured the attention of Massachusetts voters first. And the people of Massachusetts sent a strong message. They were looking for someone who could help change direction in Washington. And they put their hope in the candidate whose views best reflected the kind of change they were looking for.

“So we welcome Senator-elect Brown to the Senate. We look forward to working with him to bring about the change that Americans are telling us they want. Now we need to show them we were listening.”

Dr. Charles Krauthammer once again says so eloquently what many Americans are thinking. Obama can try to spin the Scott Brown victory into an anti-Bush vote all he wants but the American people aren’t stupid.

In his new column, Krauthammer makes his point crystal clear.

WASHINGTON — On Jan. 14, five days before the Massachusetts special election, President Obama was in full bring-it-on mode as he rallied House Democrats behind his health-care reform. “If Republicans want to campaign against what we’ve done by standing up for the status quo and for insurance companies over American families and businesses, that is a fight I want to have.”

The bravado lasted three days. When Obama campaigned in Boston on Jan. 17 for Obamacare supporter Martha Coakley, not once did he mention the health-care bill. When your candidate is sinking, you don’t throw her a millstone.

After Coakley’s defeat, Obama pretended that the real cause was a generalized anger and frustration “not just because of what’s happened in the last year or two years, but what’s happened over the last eight years.”

Let’s get this straight: The antipathy to George W. Bush is so enduring and powerful that … it just elected a Republican senator in Massachusetts? Why, the man is omnipotent.

And the Democrats are delusional: Scott Brown won by running against Obama not Bush. He won by brilliantly nationalizing the race, running hard against the Obama agenda, most notably Obamacare. Killing it was his No. 1 campaign promise.

Bull’s-eye. An astonishing 56 percent of Massachusetts voters, according to Rasmussen, called health care their top issue. In a Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates poll, 78 percent of Brown voters said their vote was intended to stop Obamacare. Only a quarter of all voters in the Rasmussen poll cited the economy as their top issue, nicely refuting the Democratic view that Massachusetts was just the usual anti-incumbent resentment you expect in bad economic times.

Brown ran on a very specific, very clear agenda. Stop health care. Don’t Mirandize terrorists. Don’t raise taxes; cut them. And no more secret backroom deals with special interests.

Read the rest here.

BONUS VIDEO: Here’s Dr. K “hammering” the point home on Special Report last night. Bottom line? “This was an election about substance and the Democrats lost on substance.”

Can someone please explain this to me?

Democrats last week: Scott Brown is a reincarnation of George W. Bush. An evil Republican who hates rape victims…

President Obama yesterday: I’m just like Scott Brown. In fact, we were elected for the same reasons.

Funny thing, that.

OK, the CATO Institute didn’t actually say that Libertarians are wicked smart but they did suggest that Libertarian minded voters are probably the lead indicator of political trends in 2010.

David Kirby and David Boaz wrote the report:

Libertarian — or fiscally conservative, socially liberal — voters are often torn between their aversions to the Republicans’ social conservatism and the Democrats’ fiscal irresponsibility. Yet libertarians rarely factor into pundits’ and pollsters’ analyses.

In 2004 libertarians swung away from Bush, anticipating the Democratic victories of 2006. In 2008, according to new data in this paper, libertarians voted against Barack Obama. Libertarians seem to be a lead indicator of trends in centrist, independent-minded voters. If libertarians continue to lead the independents away from Obama, Democrats will lose 2010 midterm elections they would otherwise win.

We find that 14 percent of American voters can be classified as libertarian. Other surveys find a larger number of people who hold views that are neither consistently liberal nor conservative but are best described as libertarian. A 2009 Gallup poll found that 23 percent held libertarian views. A Zogby poll found that 59 percent considered themselves “fiscally conservative and socially liberal,” and 44 percent agreed that they were “fiscally conservative and socially liberal, also known as libertarian.”

Read it all here.

BONUS VIDEO: The CATO guys analyze the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts. “This is like Ted Kennedy being elected in Utah.”

Oh, but watch out for the CATO Institute! According to the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee), those Libertarians are just a bunch of right wing extremists!

First we had the election of Scott Brown, Republican, to the United States Senate in Massachusetts. He made his initial trip to Washington, DC today.

Now we have New York Times writer Paul Krugman saying in a recent blog post, “I’m pretty close to giving up on Mr. Obama.”

Progressives are desperately in need of leadership; more specifically, House Democrats need to be told to pass the Senate bill, which isn’t what they wanted but is vastly better than nothing. And what we get from the great progressive hope, the man who was offering hope and change, is this:

“I would advise that we try to move quickly to coalesce around those elements of the package that people agree on. SNIP Now I think there’s some things in there that people don’t like and legitimately don’t like.”

In short, “Run away, run away”!

Maybe House Democrats can pull this out, even with a gaping hole in White House leadership. Barney Frank seems to have thought better of his initial defeatism. But I have to say, I’m pretty close to giving up on Mr. Obama, who seems determined to confirm every doubt I and others ever had about whether he was ready to fight for what his supporters believed in.

In a third and equally shocking piece of news, House Democrats are suddenly suggesting that maybe it’s a good idea to extend the Bush Tax Cuts. Say whaaaatttt?????

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Some Capitol Hill Democrats want President Barack Obama to extend tax cuts for wealthy Americans now scheduled to expire at the end of 2010, arguing that a tax increase could hinder economic recovery.

“I think there is a certain logic to leaving well-enough alone for now, given the fragility of the economic recovery,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D., Va.). ” It’s a question of prudent judgment and timing.”

White House officials are preparing to unveil their 10-year budget plan on Feb. 2, which will include a decision on what to do about the pending expiration of tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush.

This report was brought to you by Al’s House of Flying Pigs. Our prices are soooooWEEEEEET!

If you had any doubts about the gravity of the election of Republican Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, you may abandon them now…

President Obama warned Democrats in Congress today not to “jam” a health care reform bill through now that they’ve lost their commanding majority in the Senate, and said they must wait for newly elected Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown to be sworn into office.

The president also said the same voter anger that swept him into office in 2008 carried Brown into office on a stunning upset victory Tuesday night over heavily favored Democrat Martha Coakley.

“Here’s my assessment of not just the vote in Massachusetts, but the mood around the country: the same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office,” the president said in an exclusive interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. “People are angry and they are frustrated. Not just because of what’s happened in the last year or two years, but what’s happened over the last eight years.”

Brown defeated Coakley in the special election to replace the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.

With his victory, Brown becomes the 41st Republican vote in the Senate — meaning Democrats have lost the 60 seat super-majority they need in the Senate to avoid a Republican filibuster.

Of course, President Obama isn’t the only Democrat currently doing a furious backstroke away from the jaws of the American electorate. The blood was in the water about 15 minutes after Brown declared victory last night when frightened politicians started ringing the emergency bell…

There are ways Democrats can jam through the current health care bill with procedural tricks or legislative creativity. But what seemed a certainty a week ago feels unlikely today. Don’t take the word of Republicans or even reporters on this one. Listen to what Democrats are saying as they appraised the results overnight:

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) told a local reporter, “It’s probably back to the drawing board on health care, which is unfortunate.” Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.) told MSNBC this morning he will advise Democratic leaders to scrap the big bill and move small, more popular pieces that can attract Republicans. And Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) said his leadership is “whistling past the graveyard” if they think Brown’s win won’t force a rethinking of the health care plan.

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), who now might draw a challenge from Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), said the party needs to rethink its entire approach to governing.

I can’t wait to hear an update on Cap and Trade. And where does this leave Nancy Pelosi, who up until last night was still promising to rush Obamacare through the system no matter what?

House Speaker John Boehner has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

As noted on this blog on January 15th, the last person to turn Massachusetts this red was Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Of course, Obamacare is not the only reason Massachusetts independents swung to Scott Brown. The other major reason is national security and defense.

A majority of Bay State voters clearly reject the idea of civilian trials for war combatants.

As Brown said last night in his victory speech, “Our tax dollars should be spent on weapons to stop them, not lawyers to defend them.”

If that’s the consensus among Massachusetts Independents, you better believe that will resonate with voters across the country.

Coakley has conceded to Brown! Scott Brown is the new Senator for Massachusetts!

You know it’s bad when your supporters aren’t willing to defend you on TV.

Pollster Frank Luntz can’t even pay people to go on the air to explain why they support Coakley.

Just about every election night, Republican pollster Frank Luntz assembles a focus group of likely voters to help predict election results. Tonight you can see Luntz interview an assembly of Massachusetts voters on Fox at 9:10 p.m. EST.

But you probably won’t see all the work that went into it. As of late this afternoon, Luntz was still scrambling to balance his focus group with supporters of Democrat Martha Coakley. “I just lost another one,” Luntz growled over his cell phone from a hotel ballroom at Logan Airport. In the last 24 hours, six Coakley voters have dropped out. By contrast, Luntz hasn’t lost a single supporter of her opponent, Scott Brown.

The problem isn’t money. “They’re getting paid well,” Luntz says, “probably more than they’re making at their jobs. And they still don’t want to do it.”

Instead, says Luntz, they’re ashamed. “They don’t want to be on television defending Martha Coakley. It’s passé. It’s socially unacceptable. I never dreamed I’d see Democrats in Massachusetts embarrassed to admit they’re Democrats.”

We won’t know the outcome of this race for a few more hours but I’d say this is not a good omen for Coakley.