Massachusetts victory raises GOP hopes

Was there an underdog on the ballot in Texas who looked at last week’s Massachusetts miracle without a thrill? Taxachusetts, of all places – wellspring of Kennedys, Dukakis, Kerry – sending a Republican to the U.S. Senate.

What Democrat didn’t shudder? What Republican didn’t dream of tapping that mojo?

From GOP operatives, the talking point was that “every Democrat is vulnerable” in House, Senate and gubernatorial contests nationwide.

Hyperbole, perhaps, but not far from the assessment offered by Sen. Barbara Boxer, who is struggling to prolong her career in California: “Every state is now in play.”

It will take a few months to see how the forces that cost Democrats the seat Edward Kennedy held for most of the last half-century, along with their Senate supermajority, translate in Texas.

We can take a few educated guesses, though.

For top-of-that-ballot Democrats such as Bill White and possibly John Sharp, who hope to become governor and senator, the message was clear enough: This is not a good year to try to snap the party’s long statewide losing streak.

In the GOP governor’s race, the implications are fuzzier, and both sides had reason to take heart.

Rick Perry “seems to be tapping into the anti-Washington backlash that we saw manifest in Massachusetts, and which we can all feel everywhere,” said Sen. John Cornyn, who remains neutral in the governor’s race. On the other hand, he said, Kay Bailey Hutchison has made the case “that she’s been an agent in opposition to some of the big-government policies like the government health care takeover and the like. It’s fascinating.”

On Friday, the first President George Bush and his first lady, Barbara Bush, endorsed Hutchison. They helped build the Texas GOP way back when. (They also dragged Perry across the finish line against Sharp in the 1998 lieutenant governor race, paving the way for Gov. George W. Bush to run for president.)

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