I just don't think for a second that there are fundamental differences in everydamnthing that comes down the pike.

Notwithstanding that there is a difference between my "Damn near everything" and your "everydamnthing," I put forward that in this administration, there has been. The President runs very liberal in his worldview, and that's reflected in the spending and expansive legislation that he wants and supports. True fiscal conservatives will oppose damn near anything that bloats government and doesn't adhere to fiscal conservatism. As they should. And vice versa.

I also think that while the Massachusetts thing let the Dems know that they had an issue with how they communicated their message (read: not very well), for the most part the problem was that they ran a really sucky candidate who ran a really sucky, overconfident campaign.

While the sucky candidate and campaign may be true, the polls don't support this as being the pivot point. When polled, the Massachusetts electorate said the thing that most swayed their vote was opposition to the current health care reform bill.