The victory laps are adding up for everyone to the Right of Walter Mondale. If it were just any old Senate seat we would not be subjected to this spectacle but combining the drama of snatching the People’s Seat from the jaws of the Hyannisport Leviathan with a guy who was a Cosmo centerfold (who knew they had such things?) and has a serious American Idol connection made these events a media prairie fire that somewhat distorts their significance.

And why? Because of another media prairie fire, this one intentionally lit by the Obama Administration. Of course that would be the alleged urgent crisis in our medical industry and that troubled, titanic bit of legislating that goes commonly by the name Obamacare. While national security and other issues were arguably important and personalities played their usual part the healthcare issue is pivotal and has peculiarities in Massachusetts for reasons obscure to most folks just tuning in, which is most folks.

Did you know that Massachusetts has its own state healthcare system? Yes, since 2006. And it is indeed a template for the proposed O-care system in many important aspects. There is an individual mandate; a legal requirement for all to pay into the system in some capacity or face criminal charges. There is regulation of the insurance industry that makes them agents of the state in all but name and there are cost-savings provisions that can only impede delivery of medicine, especially to the elderly or infirm. And Scott Brown of course objected to this plan as a state legislator on principles of limited government and free-market realities.

Ooops! You didn’t really believe that, did you? Probably you wouldn’t have fallen for that if you remembered that the system in place in Mass is known to friends and foes as Romneycare.

Casual observers probably find it strange to see Mitt Romney’s lupine mug and plumb/square hairdo on the talking-box. His appearances in the Republican primaries were noteworthy only for their tactical skirmishing and the enemy-of-my-enemy alliance between McCain and Huck, so how did he get there? Romney’s appeal was based largely on this eponymous accomplishment which supposedly demonstrated a) that there is in fact a policy solution to the healthcare “crisis” b) that it is affordable and above all c) it was politically advantageous. It was bi-partisan. It would have to be, wouldn’t it? A Republican governor in Massachusetts of all places? This sort of thing is what the gunslingers… the PR guys and gals who earn handsome livings on the political battlefield… they just love this. It is non-ideological. It is practical. And with the state mediating in every medical transaction more involved than buying some Robitussin, it would amount to a program of free campaign ads to a captive, perhaps desperate audience, benefiting the incumbent.

Or it would be if the system turns out to be beneficial. It stretches strange-bedfellowism but is nevertheless true that the Dems are spinning the vote for Brown that was on the healthcare issue as a demonstration of the selfishness of the citizens of Massachusetts. These New Englanders, the story goes, HAVE their system in place, they love it (or at least prefer it) and fear that it will suffer under a Federal version so they have sent a Brown torpedo off to Washington in a pre-emptive strike. But this is not supported in the polling, limited as it is. Narrow majorities declare that costs are up and rising, quality diminished and falling, and overall they judge it a failure rather than a success. While these are perceptions the hard numbers are also unkind to Romneycare. Total spending on the program has increased beyond projections since the first year and that was before our recent economic troubles. Medical outcomes are at best stagnant.

Stagnation isn’t much of a campaign meme so we see that Romney and other cheerleaders for gub healthcare are aligned by mutual interest. For this reason the Brown victory, for those of us who oppose Obamacare on musty old principles, is a dubious one. Here is a good question for any reporterette who wants to knock some of the shiny off the hand-model Senator; Mr. Brown, could you tell us what you see as the differences between Obamacare and Romneycare and why you support one and not the other? This will throw the broomstick into the spokes but it is a bicycle built for three; Romney, Brown and Obama, oddly enough. For this reason you will not hear this question asked. This is one bike that is Too Big To Fail.

And that is why, if you oppose Obamacare and the other communalist aspects of Obama Brand Government on principle, friend you CANNOT support Romney and it will prove wise to be cautious in how you support Brown. These men may be men of principle but most emphatically they are not men of the principles of limited government, fiscal discipline and moderate (which is the most efficient) taxation. They just look like that compared to Democrats. And if that is enough to buy the Right when the statists already have the Left, the pooch is as screwed as she can get.

So beware Romney and Brown (and the inevitable me-tooers). Let them wrestle for which is Dr Evil and which is the Mini-Me of Rockefeller Republicanism. But do not let them build monuments to themselves with your money and your future simply because they will plausibly manage their boondoggles more proficiently than Obama. Gub is a necessary evil as all citizens seem to agree. The Romneys and Obamas are unified in their concern with its necessity. We must be unified in our concern with its evil and that means no Romney, no how, no way.

Not ever.

I mean, unless he changes his tune on Romneycare, but given the name, what are the odds?

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