More than a straw in the wind in Massachusetts

By Rick Richman

The Boston Herald is running an online poll on the question "If Scott Brown pulls an upset in the U.S. Senate race, how should his swearing-in proceed?" It is not a scientific poll, and is published in one of the less liberal papers in Boston, but with 44,000 responses and an extraordinarily lopsided result there is a certain credibility to the basic conclusion.

As of this morning, here are the results:

14% - Wait 10 days for the votes to be certified

37% - Bypass it all and swear him in right away

4% - Wait for certification until Feb. 20, to be safe

45% - Get it done by the Jan. 20 U.S. Senate session

Total Votes: 43,810

In other words, if Scott Brown wins, a total of 82 percent want him sworn in the next day or right away. Only 17 percent are willing to wait for the votes to be certified. There is a certain spirit in the air, which blogger Anne Lieberman captures in her post "Can You Hear Us NOW?!"

Only elections have consequences, not polls, so we need to wait four more days for the Massachusetts voters to render a verdict. But there is a certain cosmic justice in the fact that the verdict will be rendered on the last day of Obama's first year, by the most liberal state in the Union, in the place where the original Tea Party occurred.