The Age of Citizens: Can Reid Win an Amnesty?

By Jonathan Osborne, Thursday, January 28, 2010, 4:45 PM EST - posted on NumbersUSA

History will record January 19, 2010 as a day of transition for America; a day when a political bomb shell landed on politics as usual. While I initially thought the elections in 2006 and 2008 were simply bad election cycles for Republicans and a referendum on President Bush, I’m starting to change my mind and wonder if our country has actually entered a whole new era of history and politics. I wonder if the public wasn’t targeting Republicans, but instead incumbents and the Republicans were just the low hanging fruit as the party of power for the past decade. Like the Era of Good Feelings, Gilded Age, Progressive Era, Watergate, and the Reagan Era, America may be entering a new period of history, but what should it be called?

The election of Scott Brown of Massachusetts to the United States Senate may be an awakening and it may signal more change as populism returns to rotate the crops. Scott Brown may be a new and independent voice and he may represent the 41st Republican vote needed for a filibuster, but he will also be forever linked to the late Senator Ted Kennedy who held that seat from 1962 until his death in August. Like Brown, Kennedy also won the Senate seat in a special election. However, unlike Brown, Kennedy became the epitome of elitist liberalism on numerous issues including immigration. Kennedy was one of the Senate’s leading voices in support of amnesty and his leadership in passing the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 started the largest immigration wave in history. Scott Brown appears to be a sharp contrast to Kennedy on immigration, but most importantly his 41st vote severely complicates matters for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who still wants a healthcare bill and really wants another shot at “comprehensiveâ€