Massachusetts wakes up to change

By Karl Vick
The commonwealth of Massachusetts awoke Wednesday morning to a sobering new reality: Its voters had elected a Republican to the U.S. Senate seat held by Edward M. Kennedy for 47 years, and John F. Kennedy before that.

"I never thought I'd see the day it'd happen in Massachusetts," said Kristin Kelly, 22, at an Irish bar after midnight. Kelly grew up in a big Irish Catholic family in Brockton, and majored in health and human services at Suffolk University in downtown Boston, with a minor in political science. A bartender on Beacon Hill, she regularly talks politics with the lobbyists and lawmakers and politicos who define the public culture of a state that for generations

"But if you're willing to elect a Republican governor," said her friend Alice Fallon, who grew up in Chicago, "why does it surprise you?"

Kelly shrugged. "I have no answer for that," she said.

Future textbooks might be written about the election that reached a crescendo in the ballroom of the Boston Park Plaza Hotel, where state senator Scott Brown publicly accepted the concession of Democrat Martha Coakley, who lost by five points.

"What happened in this election can happen all over America," Brown said. "We are witnesses, you and I, to the truth that ideals, hard work, and strength of heart can overcome any political machine. We ran a campaign never to be forgotten."