Dakota Beacon

It was almost Christmas and all appeared lost.  A fierce battle had been waged, the field left strewn with its casualties . . . and a horrified electorate watched and waited for what seemed to be the inevitable.  As an arrogant Harry Reid prepared remorselessly to force the vote to pass health care “reform” down past the gag reflex of a Senate whose Democrat hold-outs had each, in turn, seen their price met or their vulnerabilities discovered and exploited to firm up this coup, Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, a leader in opposition, turned elsewhere for help.  “What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can’t make the vote tonight,” he said.  

A horrified gasp escaped Reid’s lips.  Senator Dick Durbin was shocked, shocked!  What evil! How coarse!  Of course, Coburn was hoping that icy roads might keep senators from voting, that – who knew? – maybe a flight might be cancelled.  Every vote was essential to pull this off, in order to dismember our Constitution.  Any sign, however slight, was sought.  But as the roll call proceeded,  one by one, it was as if the lights were going out on a great Republic and its hallowed Constitution.   And while they intoned the “yea’s” and the “nay’s” in the Senate Chamber, back in the offices the phones rang, unanswered.  When it was over,  Harry Reid gathered his papers and closed his briefcase – and war-weary Republicans were left as though forsaken.  But they held.  None strayed across the aisle this time.  Somewhere in the distance they heard the People.

And still the people called, and emailed and organized tea parties.  It sometimes seemed futile.  But perhaps the Almighty works in his own way.  So much had happened since, that we must recall that last August,  America had bidden farewell to one of her more wayward sons, as Edward M. Kennedy, “the Lion of the Senate”, was laid to rest at Arlington.  

It sent waves of panic abroad in the powerful Massachusetts Democrat machine; suddenly they remembered that when Republican Mitt Romney was Governor and Democrat John Kerry was running for President, the legislature took away the Governor’s privilege to appoint a successor.  Now suddenly the tables were turned and it was most awkward.  Here they had a Democrat in the State House, Deval Patrick, and had lost a Democrat in the Senate and they needed a vote!  Quickly they set about to repair this error and reinstate the Governor’s (as long as he was a Democrat) right to appoint successors in the Senate.  Patrick appointed Paul Kirk (D), and so the seat was immediately filled.  

But things weren’t going right.  All through August those pesky tea parties raged.  Townhall meetings and their attendees were scaring the bejeebers out of Democrats.  Like the Scarlet Pimpernel, they darted and dodged to avoid those embarrassing questions.  Michelle Bachmann rounded up a million or so angry Americans to show up in the halls of Congress.  Senators were really beginning to dread this vote.  The clever ones worked out deals, the name of the game being to hold out to the last, pretending to care about that little matter of a human being’s right to life.  We all know what the Long, Hot Summer of 2009 did to Congress.  

Fast forward to Christmas Eve.  The infamous vote handed in, Congress went home.  At least two career men decided they’d had enough and would never run again.  As the holidays passed and the solons returned to the scene of their latest crime, our attention was caught up in the whimsical special election race in Massachusetts and saw a groundswell of support from across America for a state senator named Scott Brown, not exactly a household word, but a man sworn to defeat healthcare.  We know the rest.  Brown laid down the gauntlet, Pelosi threw in the towel and America handed healthcare the mitten.
There will be those who say this is the beginning of a Republican resurgence.  There may be truth in this.  But I would venture to guess that had the tea parties not driven them back, Democrats would have passed health care last July.  They couldn’t because American activists were shouting, carrying signs, writing letters, emailing, calling talk show hosts, phoning and faxing and their numbers were multiplying by exponential increments every day.  It was not the Republican establishment who stopped health care.  True, there were some stalwart leaders out there like Jim DeMint in the Senate, Bachmann and Wilson in the House, not afraid to tell us and their colleagues the truth.  But they were empowered by the legitimacy of the message conveyed by these tea party activists.  Imagine the Republicans without them, led, perhaps, by a Lindsey Graham, compromising all the way to socialism and feeling all good and civilized about it.  Democrats like Byron Dorgan had enough.  Some of these people had never been talked to like this before.  It was downright impolite.  Ben Nelson was booed out of a pizza parlor;  Arlen Specter was INTERRUPTED!  

This groundswell was not angry Republicans, although they were a part of it.  It was disenchanted Democrats, Libertarians, Independents, Constitutionalists, Conservatives, patriots.  The best and brightest Republicans sensed the rightness of their message and the importance of their participation.  This is, after all, their country.  It never did belong to elitists in either party.

And as we prepare to restore our nation, take back our Constitution and send the enemy packing once again, what have we learned?  We’ll see.  If Republicans and Democrats go back to golf and cocktails and ignore the tea party patriots who saved America, we’ve learned nothing.  Right now we need to follow Mark Levin’s advice and seek the best Conservatives we can find, support them in the primaries and follow the winner all the way to the top.  There needs to be a thorough airing out in our House and Senate races.  One candidate in particular has been shut out by the party elite – Paul Sorum , in the Senate race.  We need to hear him as well as the establishment favorite.  Only this will legitimize the Republican Party for the tea party activists they WILL NEED to win.

We’ve heard before about the importance of the Republican Party embracing this astounding phenomenon and making it their own.  The tea party movement is so much greater than the Republican or the Democrat Party today.  If the Republican “establishment” closets itself behind closed doors and picks candidates for the House and Senate they seriously risk alienating this magical force for good.  The Party needs to stop talking about “big tents” that are big enough for socialists and environmentalists and good old boys and everyone else, but not for Conservatives and patriots.  Republicans need to get back to their principles and away from compromise.  They need to define what they are and what they stand for and invite in those who agree with their values and vision of America.  Democrats need to tell their leadership that they won’t tolerate being abused or seeing the process or their countrymen abused.  This is a nation founded on free speech, on self-government, on a Constitution which guarantees these things.  And tea party patriots need to keep doing what they’ve been doing.  Just move it indoors now to the district and county caucuses and make your voices heard there.  Vote in a strong Conservative platform and strong Conservative candidates for every office.

I have no doubt there was a Divine intervention.  It took place long before Coburn’s prayer but no one recognized it.  Its only magic was that ordinary Americans kept doing what they knew they must, even in the face of defeat after defeat.  They never gave up, they never lost their courage. And their true leaders were empowered by this and stood their ground.  Without a Jim DeMint, what would Olympia Snowe or Lindsey Graham have done?  Obviously having someone to hold the line was imperative.  And maybe this is what is meant by man’s “free will” and the Almighty’s invisible hand.  Without man’s free will and unstinting endeavor, we would have lost all. As Hamlet observed, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”