Funny how one election has thrown everything up in the air.

Of course I’m talking about the election of Scott Brown as the Republican senator from the bluest of states, Massachusetts, on January 19. The result has been that Democrats of all stripes are running scared, while Republicans can’t stop crowing about the renewed vigor that Brown’s victory has brought to their party.

I happened to be in Massachusetts the weekend before the election and believe me there was hardly any time for music on any station because the competing ads for Scott and his opponent, Martha Coakley, were going nonstop like some insanely repetitive, yet inescapable, loop.

Brown, as it happens, did not run as a Republican; indeed, he seemed at pains to mention his party affiliation at all.  No, he was an independent. 

One of Coakley’s ads, in fact, identified him as Republican Scott Brown as if this in and of itself was enough in the Bay State to ensure a politician’s defeat.  Sorry, Martha.

But think about it, have you heard much, if anything, about health care reform in the wake of Brown’s victory?  Compared to the nonstop barrage of news that kept coming out of Washington for close to a year, the silence on the issue after the Massachusetts verdict is not a little startling.

Of course, there’s probably a ton of stuff going on in the back rooms of the House and Senate and White House, but any clear sense of direction is not to be found.   Not even in the president’s State of the Union message.

If, as a result of this upset election, nothing or very little comes of nearly a whole year of trying to reform the health care system, there’s no doubt the president will take a body blow.  Even though he did a terrible job of leading the fight on the issue and never truly made it clear what exactly he wanted in the final bill, it is nonetheless the issue that has defined his first year in office.  And if it comes to nothing, what was all the sound and fury about?  And further, what about all the other pressing issues that were back-burnered so that health care reform could take precedence? 

Many people will be only too happy to see the end of any kind of health reform effort, but the fact remains that the system is not going to heal itself and the major problems that were there a year ago are still with us, only worse.

The silence that I referred to above has not only descended on Washington.  There’s been hardly any comment from the health insurance industry, the pharmaceutical business or health care providers.

The first two, in particular, had a lot to gain from reform because they were looking forward to millions of new customers paying premiums and buying prescription drugs.  That promised revenue went a long way toward easing the pain of some of the restrictions that the reform plans intended to put in place.

If some kind of “reform” is salvaged after all, it’s likely to be aimed at making changes that affect health insurance regulation.  Insurers could very well end up being subject to many of the restrictions that were in the grand schemes, but without the palliative effect of those millions of new customers.

Trying to forestall this result might be worth insurers bringing some verbal life support to health care reform now.  In fact, reiterating support of reform could well capture the imagination of the public and politicians to good effect.

Without making some noise now, is anybody going to care what they have to peep about later on?

I know you are probably getting tons of advice from all corners about what you should do now in the aftermath of the upset election of Scott Brown, a Republican, as a senator in the bluest of states, Massachusetts.

You, and we, are hearing from the punditocracy that it was a repudiation of your overreaching agenda, of health care reform and of all those other “ultra-liberal” causes you’ve espoused since being sworn in exactly a year ago.

Democrats are indulging in paroxysms of hand wringing (the Chicken Little thing), while Republicans are ecstatic beyond belief (What me worry?).  Meanwhile, the country is waiting to see what you’re going to do.

Here, sir, is my advice: Take off the gloves.

Let us see what you really believe in instead of leaving us to fathom what it is that we think you believe in.  And when you’ve shown us what you believe in—then fight for it.

Enough with the bipartisanship already!  If it isn’t obvious by now that you’re not going to get any support from across the aisle—for pretty much anything—then something is wrong with your receptor.  We know you have the fire in the belly and know how to fight.  You overcame long odds to become president after all.

But because you haven’t really fought for anything all out since taking office, and have mainly given half-hearted support to your initiatives, the opposition has been able to get away with its unending chorus of “No!”

Case in point: Health care reform.  I’ll be damned if I know—and I cover it!—where you stand on the issue.  And that’s the problem, sir.  For someone so articulate, you have a way of fuzzying up, if not hiding altogether, what your goals are and what it is you really want to accomplish. 

You and I know that “No” is not going to solve any of the problems that face this country.  In the language of the schoolyard, you’ve got to make your opponents “put up or shut up.”  And if they can’t or don’t “put up,” then start pounding them for doing nothing.  Harry Truman did it.  Bill Clinton did it.  You can do it.

You were elected in large part to change things, if I might remind you of your mantra, sir. 

It’s true you inherited the biggest mess of any president since FDR.  But messes make the man, if you get my drift.

A couple of other things: I don’t think you’ve got a grip on the amount of rage that’s out there.  People want jobs and security for their homes and families. They want to see a sense of fair treatment prevail.  They want to know that the country’s not giving away the bank—to the banks!

If you don’t get on the right side of this rage, you’re going to be a one-term president.

So, take on the big banks, which are the focus of so much of the rage.  But don’t propose measures as a bureaucrat.  And, sir, calling a bevy of bank CEOs “fat cat bankers” one time is just not going to cut it.  As in anything else, practice makes perfect.  So, once more with feeling!

If the country is still limping along a year from now, with unemployment still sky high and people feeling you’re not doing much about it, there’ll be nobody to blame but yourself.

You can look at the Massachusetts election as a reason to run for cover or as a wake-up call.  I sincerely hope you decide to do the latter.  But remember one thing about wake-up calls, sir.  They don’t do any good unless you get out of bed.

In an age where millions of people get off on conveying their thoughts in 140 characters (not words) or less, the art of crafting a one-word description of anything seems like a next logical step.

So if, after witnessing the U.S. Senate during the month of December, you were asked to describe that legislative chamber in one word, what would it be?

(Yes, I know, but no #@$&*($%*%*# words are allowed.)

For myself, I know what words would not be among those I would use to describe the Senate.  Here are a few of them: admirable, competent, inspirational, multi-tasking.

Some of the ones that might make my list: unbecoming, ridiculous, one-dimensional.

I think you would have to agree—no matter where you stand (perch?) on the political spectrum—that it was an undignified spectacle at best.  Is this how we as a country really want our Senate and the 100 potentates that grace it with their presence to operate?    

The most outrageous thing about the Senate is, of course, that 60-vote rule that came out of who knows where and lives on as a hallowed tradition.  I’m not going to belabor the point that nowhere in the Constitution–which, by the way, these Senators have sworn to uphold–does it say anything about having to garner 60 votes in order to move anything ahead.

But the outrageousness of the 60-vote rule became so clear as one or two senators were able to effectively dictate what large sections of the health care reform package would or wouldn’t contain.

You may well have appreciated Sen. Joe Lieberman’s threats this time around because they happened to play into what you wanted or didn’t want.  But you can rest assured that the time will come when another senator with delusions of grandeur takes a Lieberman-type position on something of vital interest to you.  Then we’ll see how much cheering you do.

And where did this apparent rule come from that you cannot consider a couple of pieces of legislation simultaneously?  Even kids in kindergarten are taught that you can use both hands at the same time.

Thus, we ended up with a result that no one really expected to actually happen.  Which is to say that the Senate never acted one way or another on the fact that the estate tax was due to expire for a year at the end of 2009, only to be reborn at 2001 levels in 2011. 

The fact that this cockamamie law was passed in the first place is a pretty big indictment of our legislators.  But all the while we kept telling ourselves that surely Congress would move to fix the year’s lapse.  They couldn’t possibly let it expire without doing something about it, we kept telling ourselves.  The possibility that they would do nothing—not act at all—was the stuff of late-night comedy shows, not something that might happen in the world’s greatest deliberative body.

It’s not like they didn’t have enough time to think about it. 

So now, the likelihood is some kind of retroactive patch, which in itself will create all kinds of weird problems. What if someone dies in that period when there is no estate tax, i.e., before retroactivity is voted on and approved?

The House at least took some action on the estate tax.  Similarly it has moved ahead on financial services reform, while the Senate tries to find its navel.

Maybe the problem is that there are too many millionaires in the Senate and they’ve just forgotten that we vote for them and then pay them to be there and get things done.

So, my one word to describe the Senate?

Dysfunctional.