Scott Brown, the newly elected United States Senator for Massachusetts, called his new position "the people's seat", "G.O.P. Senate Victory Stuns Democrats", New York Times, 2010-01-20. I read somewhere that he called it not a Kennedy seat, not a Democrat seat, but "the seat of the people of Massachusetts".
But how can it be "the seat of the people of Massachusetts" when so much money and time pour into Massachusetts for both candidates? I would say that outsiders determined the vote almost as much as the people who actually voted.
Scott Brown and the Republicans should be careful about congratulating themselves about the election. The turnout was 55 percent of the 4.1 million registered voters. That means that Scott Brown came in second to none of the above: forty-five percent of the registered voters didn't think the election was that important, twenty-eight percent voted for Brown, and twenty-six percent voted for Martha Coakley, and less than one percent actually took the trouble to vote for neither of the two major-party candidates.
Given that many commentators think Brown's 52-47 percent win over Coakley was a strong rebuke of the Democrats, I think they really should look at the 45-28-26 percent "win" for "none of the above" should be looked at as a strong rebuke of the political system in general.
