After Scott Brown captured the U.S. Senate seat Ted Kennedy had occupied for decades, we heard two different views of the event.

One said the surprise victory of an obscure state senator over the anointed Democrat in such a Democrat-leaning state had much to do with growing antagonism to runaway federal spending and spastic efforts to expand federal control over our lives. That Scott Brown promised to vote against Obamacare supports this view. So do exit polls showing that 41 percent of participants “strongly oppose” the health care legislation, only 25 percent “strongly favor” it.

The other notion is that Brown won only because people are frustrated. President Obama declared that “the same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept [him] into office.” People are “angry and they are frustrated. Not just because of what’s happened in the last year or two years, but what’s happened over the last eight years.”

See, it’s all Bush-legacy stuff, not anything Obama and the Democrats have been doing.

Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt.

Not everyone’s wearing blinders. Soon after Brown won, Democratic Senator Jim Webb said the election had been a referendum on both health care legislation and “the integrity of the government process.” He urged fellow Democrats not to try ramming Obamacare through before Brown could be seated.

Hmmm. Listening to the voters. Good idea, Jim.

And it’s Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Just when you thought nothing could stop Congress from sucking another sector of American life and our economy into the dripping maw of government, a spark of hope.

Scott Brown, the Republican candidate for Massachusetts’s open U.S. Senate seat, won.

I’m sure I’d disagree with many of the senator elect’s opinions. But his campaign was based, loud and clear, on his promise to vote against the Democrats’ overblown, misguided, quasi-socialistic healthcare plan — a compelling enough message to propel a Republican to victory in a very Democratic state.

What now? Well, hopefully we are going to stop the big government juggernaut. That is, unless Democrats start playing some very dirty pool.

Will it be the kind of dirty pool MSNBC talk show host Ed Schultz endorses? In the final days of the campaign, Schultz bragged on his radio show that if he were a Massachusetts resident he’d cheat at the ballot box to stop Brown. “[I]f I lived in Massachusetts I’d try to vote ten times. . . . Yeah, that’s right. I’d cheat to keep these bastards out. I would.”

It’s not unheard of, in politics, for politicians and even activists to go off the deep end, foreswearing principle for the sweet smell of partisan success. But I bet one reason Brown won was that he represents the kind of above-board probity that Schultz and far too many in Congress — Democrats, and Republicans, too — utterly lack.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Big spending by candidates doesn’t always win elections. For instance, New Jersey Governor — soon to be ex-Governor — Jon Corzine outspent his opponent, Chris Christie, more than three to one . . . and still lost.

Of course, spending more money usually works better than spending less.

Michael Bloomberg won his race for mayor of New York City. But barely. Bloomberg spent 16 times more than his challenger — over $100 million dollars to get just 50 percent. It cost him more than $150 for every vote. Ouch.

So, why did the mayor have to spend so much to eke out a win?  Two words: term limits.

Bloomberg’s deal with the council to gut the city’s two-term limit and allow them all to run for a third term didn’t cost him his powerful perch. But it did cost him millions of dollars. And his reputation.

There were also a number of initiatives on the ballot. Before Tuesday’s election, at Townhall.com, I highlighted Maine and Washington State measures to put a cap on state spending growth. Both measures were defeated, but it was educational to take note of the spending.

In the final months, Maine’s measure was outspent by about ten to one. Washington’s? $3.5 million to nothing. Predictably, the big money came  from groups already wealthy from standing in the receiving line for government spending.

Spending money to make money . . . spending money to take money.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

There are gubernatorial elections, today, in Virginia and New Jersey. My Republican buddies in Virginia are excited. After losing to the Democrats in the last two elections for governor — and for president, and the last two U.S. Senate contests — Republicans are now poised to win back the governor’s mansion.

Me? I’m not as excited.

Oh, Bob McDonnell, a former legislator and then attorney general, doesn’t seem any worse, and may be better than your average politician. But his campaign has the usual messaging: more jobs, better education, more and better transportation. All new and improved. For less.

Strikingly similar to the Democrats, I dare say.

Except that McDonnell hasn’t flat-out said he’d raise anybody’s taxes. His opponent, Democrat Creigh Deeds, admits he would — only after a gallant attempt to dodge all those pesky questions and tip-toe around taxes.

No independent or third party candidate is on the ballot.

In New Jersey, the sitting governor, Democrat Jon Corzine, may win with less than 50 percent of the vote. What a shame that’d be — the majority votes against a guy and yet they’re still stuck with him.

The polls show it very close, with independent candidate Chris Daggett getting 7 to 13 percent.

I prefer Republican Chris Christie. He promotes voter initiative and referendum. He promises he’ll actively push to establish a statewide initiative process.

That would give people a real vote for change.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Courtesy of the Obama administration, we’re experiencing more and more Nixonian moments.

Take medical reform. The health insurers started out in Obama’s camp. But a shuffling of policies and a few insurance companies began making obvious points about how this or that feature would raise costs, not decrease them.

And the Obama administration struck back.

I’ve talked about the Humana gag order, how our bureaucrats in Washington decided to tell insurance companies to shut up about reform proposals. Congress gagged the gaggers.

Then a health insurance association released a study suggesting that the cost of insurance would likely go up under legislation being proposed in Congress. The president retaliated by threatening to take away the industries’ immunity from anti-trust laws.

What? An important policy change, and the president threatens it not to achieve a better outcome, or for constitutional reasons, but merely to punish and thereby silence opposition to his policies? How petty. How dangerous.

On the floor of the Senate, Lamar Alexander advised the Obama administration to play a little less hardball. Alexander warned that by creating an “enemies list,” including people in the media, the White House is heading into Nixon territory.

“An enemies list only denigrates the presidency, and the republic itself.” An old Nixon aide, Senator Alexander should know.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.