Regular readers will probably rub their eyes a few times out of disbelief when they read the following statement:

Scott Brown deserved to win the special election for the Massachusetts Senate seat.

Not that I particularly supported his platform - although I appreciate that he's relatively moderate on some social issues - but because his opponent Martha Coakley basically treated the election as a coronation after winning the primary. (I mean, come on, going on vacation in the middle of a campaign??? Seriously???) And her making fun of Brown pounding the turf around Fenway Park? So yeah, Brown deserved to win. But I'm obviously not thrilled about it.

If anything, his imminent arrival may open Obama up to what I thought were some reasonable ideas from the Republicans in Congress. One being tort reform on doctor malpractice suits. As I may have said before - I'm too lazy to look back on here LOL - I think a cap on "pain and suffering" is reasonable since that is something that is not quantifiable. I don't think there should be a cap on paying for actual medical care as many medical misfortunes can last a lifetime.

I have mixed feelings on the idea of allowing insurance companies free reign on all fifty states. Granted, there are some states where the choices are few and the premiums are correspondingly high. However, I also foresee larger companies using their economies of scale to undercut smaller companies a la Wal-Mart, resulting in an oligarchy of companies.

So has Obama managed to do in only one year what took W a total of six? Well, I'll concede that regaining that 60th Senate seat is not realistic at this point. But I do think some honest attempt at common ground and compromise is good. Like I've said all along, one can draw many parallels between the behavior of certain principals during the previous administration and the complete flip-flop once the current administration began. It would be nice to know that both Democrats and Republicans have learned from being in each other's shoes. One can only hope.