A perfect storm made it possible for Scott Brown.

David Broder writes in The Washington Post:

Ron Kaufman, the longtime Republican National Committee member from Massachusetts, said that "it was a perfect storm" that made it possible.

"We had a really good candidate," Kaufman said. "A military veteran, a family guy, a fiscal conservative, moderate on social issues, a pro-choice Catholic. But it was bigger than that. The Democrats didn't understand that people here are very upset with the way things are going in Washington, just as they are elsewhere. They see big sums being spent, big deficits piling up, and they want to send a message."

Health-care reform -- the Democrats' chosen issue of 2009 and Kennedy's lifetime cause -- actually worked for the Republicans in this race. As Kaufman pointed out, Massachusetts enacted its own bipartisan health reform four years ago under Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, with Kennedy cheering, and that reform insured almost everyone in the state without raising taxes and without creating a government insurance company.

That allowed Brown to argue that he would vote against the legislation pending in Washington, which by comparison looks more expensive, more bureaucratic and more partisan than the Massachusetts model.