It's either that or the tequila I guzzled watching the victory roll in last night.

Finally a Boston Globe Wasserman cartoon I can enjoy.

I've received a few emails, and watched a lot of the talking heads (last night was like the World Series -- I was flipping TV channels, radio stations and web sites), so I thought I'd jot a few notes down about the campaign.

What we had here is a confluence of stars aligning.

Brown was a good candidate, well known, liked and established in the state. For years he's been a presence as a caller on talk radio -- the voice in opposition to the Democrat majority. So when people went looking for credible, serious, and non-rancorous opposition, there he was.

The biggest skeleton in his closet was a semi-nude photo-spread that made him look...attractive. There was nothing else. The guy's in the military and a lawyer, so that cancels a couple of lines of attack and gave him added credibility on a number of issues.

He's got a great family, again, with no problems. In short, an excellent candidate.

His opponent was uninspiring to listen to. She had any number of controversial decisions in her past as a state attorney. She made innumerable gaffes and was clearly part of the Massachusetts machine (no one believes there IS a Massachusetts Republican machine, so advantage Brown again) in a time when people are increasingly feeling that government is unaccountable and jamming unpopular things down our throats. In short, Coakely was a bad candidate.

How about the soil here in Mass? There's no question that Washington has overreached such that even liberal Massachusetts is saying "enough." And it's not just the health bill, or the Mirandizing of terrorists, but it's the way it's been happening -- the lack of transparency, the reckless manner of it...it's once again given people that things are being jammed down our throats against our wills.

Add to that an unpopular Governor, a Speaker of the State House of Reps who's about to become the third in a row convicted of a felony, and again, just as on the national level, a feeling that they do what they want up on Beacon Hill without regard to what we the people want, including an unpopular increase in the Sales Tax...it all adds up to very fertile ground for real change.

What about the campaigns? Coakley's people took the electorate for granted once they got the Democrat nomination. And why not? "Milk Carton Martha" was nowhere to be seen. Her strategy was just not to screw up, which seemed to consist of not talking to anyone. And all the while Scott Brown was on the ground, shaking hands, calling radio, and taking every opportunity to be seen and heard.

And debates? Martha would only debate with waste of time Libertarian Joe Kennedy -- Teddy Kennedy would never have done that.

And when Coakley did finally get down to it, what happened? She walks out of the last debate -- the last time she'd have to face Scott Brown face to face -- and immediately the negative ads start in. No, not just negative, but vicious, distorted... And guess what? It didn't work. It turned people off. Remember that people are hurting. They don't want to hear that crap anymore. And what's more, remember, people know this guy. It didn't stick. It couldn't.

And another thing. Massachusetts voters don't like that. Scott Brown knows the people well enough to know that and he never struck back in time. He never said anything bad about Coakley personally, and he told the outsiders to stay away. It worked. People always asked how we could elect Teddy Kennedy with all those skeletons. Why didn't his opponents go after him harder? Because it doesn't work here. (Rush Limbaugh would have been a hindrance in this campaign.)

Teddy Kennedy is dead. The man who stayed popular and avoided the elitist label in part due to excellent constituent services (say what you will, that was always his reputation) left a family behind now seen as out of touch elitists -- outsiders. I was struck by the Fox interview last night with a family coming out of the polling place they said they were turned off by the Kennedy family this time: "They can't come down here and run our lives." So when Vicki Kennedy came on TV plagiarizing Scott Brown, and Patrick Kennedy couldn't get Martha's name right, it sure didn't help.

All those elitists endorsing Coakley (the spectacle of Obama and John Kerry making fun of Scott's truck will endure forever), and all the out of state groups "helping" with mailings and advertising were just more lead weights on the Coakley boat.

Contrast to Brown whose only prominent endorsements were from John McCain and Rudy Giuliani and then basically told everyone else to leave it to him...again, Brown maintained the feeling of grassroots Massachusetts versus the elites trying to dictate to us again.

Where was I? Hmmm...OK, one more thing. Much has been made about the number of "independents" in Massachusetts and part of that is a technical quirk. If you're an "Unenrolled" voter it means that you can grab either a Republican OR a Democrat ballot during the primaries. People like that. They also like to convince themselves that they're really open-minded. I'll let you in on a secret. In Massachusetts, independent really means liberal. It's like a sort of game people play with themselves that they feel makes them seem smarter. Truth is, they generally know what side they're on in the end, which makes what happened even more remarkable. Generally, all the Democrat has to do is not offend too many people. Coakley failed at that, while Brown played to the independent streak in a way that can only be called brilliant. The JFK morphed into Scott Brown ad was one of the top political advertisements in history as far as I'm concerned, and it all happened because Scott Brown knew the turf and had one of the best campaign teams in Massachusetts history.