Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA)

Senator-elect Scott Brown's stunning upset in the special election to fill the unexpired term of former Senator Edward Kennedy is significant. Voter turnout was sharply lower than it was in the 2008 Presidential contest (roughly 3/4 of registered voters in Massachusetts voted in 2008, a little over half of them voted in the 2010 special). That absence of enthusiasm on the Democratic side was almost certainly what doomed Martha Coakley's campaign.

The New York Times has a sensational interactive "map" of last night's vote and previous general election results in Massachusetts that give you a very good graphical "feel" for what happened.

Mr. Brown's victory was a serious defeat for health care reform, a stunning rebuke of White House/Democratic Party over-reach and arrogance, and the beginning of a massive political revolt against deficit spending and the bankrupting of America. It is the first of many such victories in 2010.

N.B.: The previous version of this post stated that Scott Brown was the MA GOP gubernatorial candidate in 2006. He was not. The NYT "interactive map" states that he was, but, in fact, the GOP candidate that year was Kerry Healy.