The opening verses of Luke’s gospel this Sunday set out the intention to write a narrative of events just as they had been handed down by “those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning.” The largely Democratic and independent voters of Massachusetts handed down a stunning mandate on Tuesday when they elected Scott Brown, a little-known conservative Republican state senator, to fill the U.S. Senate seat long held by the late liberal icon Edward M. Kennedy.

Republicans are rejoicing and Democrats reeling nationwide in the wake of Brown’s triumph, a devastating Democratic defeat that triggered soul-searching within President Barack Obama’s party over how to stem further losses in November’s midterm elections.

Obama himself grimly faced the need to regroup on Wednesday, the anniversary of his inauguration, in a White House shaken by the realization of what a difference a year made.

The most likely starting place will be finding a way to salvage the health-care overhaul Democrats have been trying to pass. The election of Scott deprives Democrats of their filibuster-proof majority of 60 members. They also will need to determine how to assuage an angry electorate, in particular independent voters, after a year of Wall Street bailouts, economic stimulus spending, and enormous budget deficits.

The president suggested the same forces that elected Brown “swept me into office” in 2008. People are frustrated “not just because of what’s happened in the last year or two years, but what’s happened over the last eight years,” he said in a Wednesday interview. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters at his daily briefing: “That anger is now pointed at us because we’re in charge. And rightly so.”

Brown, in his first meeting with reporters after the special election, portrayed his victory as less a referendum on Obama or the president’s health-care proposal and more of a sign that people are tired of Washington politics and deal-making. He said his victory sends “a very powerful message that business-as-usual is just not going to be the way we do it.”

Source: Articles by Michael Cooper for the New York Times and Glen Johnson and Liz Sidoti for Associated Press