Anger at Washington and incumbents in general, appears to be a large factor in the Massachusetts race for the Senate between Democrat Martha Coakley and Republican Scott Brown.  Don't get me wrong though, Martha Coakley and her team have run an awful campaign.  She acted in the beginning like she was preordained to take over the seat from the late Senator Edward Kennedy, appearing to be an elitist and out of touch with the average voter, compounding this when she said on the radio that Curt Schilling was a Yankees fan. 

Conversely, State Senator Scott Brown campaigned the old fashioned way, shaking hands, knocking on doors, forgoing public appearances with national conservative personalities, and positioning himself as a man of the people.  He has run on a policy of defeating the Senate healthcare bill and subsequently President Obama's initiative to reform healthcare and lower rising costs.  What's interesting to note, is that Massachusetts already has a state run healthcare system, and it's possible, even though it's a very blue state, that the warnings of the possible failure of national healthcare doesn't affect the Mass. voters like it may in another state.

The latest polling shows Scott Brown ahead of Coakley by a 5 point margin, although Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight.com does some great analysis indicating a possible upswing for Coakley late in the game.  None of this withstanding, a loss here could be a sign of things to come in the 2010 midterms, not only for Democrats, but also for Republicans.  This year has seen many Democrats retire instead of facing a losing election, however there have been even more Republicans who have retired for similar reasons, mostly from conservative challengers.

We've already seen the results of a conservative challenger in the New York 23 special election in November 2009, when Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava dropped out of the race when it became apparent that her conservative challenger dwarfed her support in the polls, allowing the Democratic candidate to win a seat held by Republicans for over 100 years because of a split vote.  Scott Brown is part of the tea party movement, having spoken at their events and has attracted the support of those people fed up with government in general.  However, the anti-incumbent movement isn't just the tea party, it encompasses many newly described independents who were horrified to find out that their Republican party wasn't what they were told it was.  Embarrassed and angry at a disastrous Bush Presidency and an economy in shambles, and worried at government spending (despite the fact that it's working), these voters have turned overwhelmingly to people who talk with their kind of rhetoric.

In the future we'll see more and more talk from candidates distancing themselves from Washington and government in general to tap into the unrest people have for their politicians and it will  be interesting to see what those same voters will have to say when it turns out the newly dubbed conservative candidates are the same as any other.  If it were a matter of policy those voters would at least give the Obama agenda a chance to work, seeing as how it was  conservative policy which sunk the country into a giant economic and social mess in the first place.  However, it's not about policy, it's about ideology, much to the detriment of progress.