By a decisive 52%-47% margin, Scott Brown, a little-known Republican state senator in Massachusetts, won the seat of the late Edward Kennedy, in a stunning rebuke to President Obama and the Democrats in Congress.

President Obama has lost his filibuster majority of 60 in the Senate and passage of healthcare legislation, which Senator Kennedy had called “the cause of my life,” is now imperiled.

Centrist Democratic senator, Jim Webb of Virginia, a former Republican, called on Senate leaders to suspend any votes on the Democrats’ health care legislation until Senator-elect Brown is sworn into office. The election, he said, was a referendum on both health care and the integrity of the government process.

While the Democratic candidate, Maura Coakley, made several missteps during the campaign, Brown nevertheless won the support of independents even though in the only state that was won by liberal Democratic presidential candidate, George McGovern in 1972, he supports waterboarding of terrorist suspects; opposes a federal cap-and-trade program to reduce carbon emissions; and opposes a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants unless they leave the country

According to a Reuters report, US stocks were likely to rally if Republicans pulled off a victory in Massachusetts' Senate election, on hopes that it would slow down President Obama's sweeping reform program, especially with respect to healthcare.

Of course, Wall Street doesn't have to worry about medical bills.

On Tuesday, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed that President Obama and his Democratic Party have declined considerably in popularity in the year since he took office - - the target of public discontent over the economy and the health care debate in Congress.

The survey showed that just 48% of Americans approve of Obama's performance in office, while 43% disapprove. That result is down sharply from the 56% approval and 31% disapproval that Obama received last February, shortly after his inauguration.

The Democratic Party has suffered similar loss of support. Some 38% of Americans express positive views of the Democratic Party, compared to 41% with negative views; last February those views were positive by a 49%-31% margin.

The telephone poll of 1,002 adults, conducted Jan 10-14 with an error margin of 3.1 percentage points, showed both the economy and proposed health care legislation as heavy political burdens for the party in power.

Eight in 10 Americans call themselves dissatisfied with the economy; six in 10 call job creation a top priority for Washington, twice as many as name health care. Though two-thirds say Obama inherited rather than caused economic problems, a 49% plurality disapprove the president's handling of the issue.

An even larger 55% of Americans disapprove of Obama's handling of health care reform. Nearly half call Obama's health care initiative "a bad idea" that would constitute "a step backward." A majority worries that the proposed legislation before Congress would impair their quality of care and choice of doctors.

President Obama was inaugurated a year ago today.

Money is the bane of politics in Washington DC and most forms of bribery have been legalised.

SEE: Finfacts article, May 2009: America may be the most corrupt developed country

Prof. Peter Morici of the University of Maryland, wrote this Op-Ed piece before the election count:

Massachusetts and the Change Americans Want

Whoever is declared the winner, the outcome of the Massachusetts senatorial election is neither a mandate for President Obama’s liberal agenda nor a license for a return to status quo ante of George Bush.

The fact that a conservative put Ted Kennedy’s seat at play is a repudiation of Democrats recent partisan governing style, and an agenda that is simply out of step with the real change Americans want.

From health care to jobs to the banks, it’s time for Democrats to stop accusing critics of deceiving the public and to step back ask what voters will accept.

On health care, Americans don’t want a comprehensive federal takeover and higher taxes. To cover the uninsured, they would support reforms that make Medicaid and other federal programs for the poor much more cost efficient, and changes that lower prices and don’t more-severely ration access for middle class Americans already paying for health care.

A new health care bill should focus on lowering drug prices to those paid by health systems in other high income counties like Germany and Canada, ending the inefficiencies imposed by a mindless malpractice system other advanced countries don’t have, and aligning doctors pay and insurance company administrative costs with those in Europe.

Real reform should not require new taxes or higher premiums, but rather should lower the cost of health care—that’s the yardstick the president should use, not budget neutrality.

Regarding unemployment, the president needs to acknowledge that the stimulus package will not deliver the four million jobs promised, and that fanciful dreams of replacing eight or nine million jobs over three years with new opportunities in green industries and smart buildings are just that—fanciful dreams.

The president may be right that American leadership in green industries is essential to American economic leadership in the future, but in the here and now, green industries will only provide one-tenth of the jobs needed, at best, to get unemployment down to acceptable levels.

Obama must tackle the trade deficit. For many years to come, Americans will still use oil and buy traditional manufactured products like cars, computers and coffee makers. Unless Americans export more of those products, or import few of them, consumer spending cannot create enough demand for U.S. products to provide enough jobs for Americans.

Alternative energy is important but Americans will continue using fossil fuels for a long time. The United States has abundant, untapped offshore oil and huge on-shore natural gas. Developing those would raise taxes to reduce the federal deficit and create jobs in drilling, refining and supporting industries.

Don’t abandon new green technologies, but don’t forget that medium-term choice is between importing oil and borrowing from China to pay for it, or using what we have and becoming more self reliant.

China undervalues its currency to subsidize its products on U.S. store shelves, and keep out U.S. exports. It’s time to bite the bullet. Either China agrees to revalue the yuan to rebalance trade, or President Obama should tax the conversion of dollars into yuan to effect the same change.

Finally, the banks are not lending to worthy homeowners and businesses. Wall Street is again recklessly trading in derivatives and questionable securities, and paying huge bonuses. All of this accomplished with $1.5 trillion in near zero interest loans from the Federal Reserve—an amount much larger and more important than the TARP (finance industry bailout scheme).

It’s time to separate real banks, who take deposits and make loans, and whose solvency the public must guarantee, from the casinos at Goldman Sachs and other financial houses of questionable ethical judgment.

Regulate the banks and their pay, and let the casinos pay executives what they like but don’t let them have access to the Federal Reserve or issue money market accounts or anything that looks like a bank account. Require those writing derivatives back those up with adequate funds to pay out potential losses and don’t let banks own securities.

There you have it—bank reform in less than 100 words, not 2000 pages.

If the President lived up to his promise and embraced such an agenda, the drug companies, insurance executives, doctors, tort lawyers, and bankers would make Washington lobbyists the richest people on the planet.

It would also leave aghast, Ivy League liberal and conservative economists, who alternate advising Washington, but they have given us enough bad advice.

It’s time the President the champion the folks that elected him. That’s the message of from Massachusetts.