Retired Pastor Ruminates

Some of you may be old enough to remember 1972, when Richard Nixon took every state in the union except Massachusetts against George McGovern, and many of us proudly (and somewhat self-righteously) displayed bumper stickers declaring “Don’t blame me, I’m from Massachusetts!”

Well, you can all blame us now for the election of Scott Brown if you want to because it happened here yesterday, and we’ll see if it is the end of the Republic, the death of health care reform, the downfall of the Obama administration, and various other apocalyptic political predictions. Just what it means is unclear, although I doubt it will be good.

Ah, but there is a symbolic silver lining. My local newspaper the Berkshire Eagle, is reporting that my own Berkshire County, the lovely strip of land on the far western side of Massachusetts, went solidly for Martha Coakley. In a high turnout special election she carried 31 of our 32 towns (all but Otis).  Here in Pittsfield she beat Brown with 8,900 votes to his 3,803 with more than a 45% voter turnout.

None of this is too surprising since she is a native daughter of our fair county. She grew up in North Adams and graduated from Williams College. So we are now the bluest of counties in a now purple state.

So all you graphic designers fire up your computers.  I want to see t-shirts and bumper stickers (although I won't put one on my car.)  You heard it here first: “Don’t blame me, I’m from Berkshire County.”