The conventional wisdom (one way you know it's wrong is that everyone repeats it) is that Democrats lost in MA because the voters rejected their policies and also rejected big government. It's so easy to say so that you can find articles like this everywhere (this one is from Scott Brown and Bob McDonnell's pollsters):

Apparently, the Democrats thought people had voted for them because of their agenda -- an agenda they really hadn't bothered to share with the electorate in the first place. And now, the party's bungling has resulted in the highest disapproval rating in Gallup polling history for a president after his first year.

Actually the polls from MA show something very different. There's anger and frustration (you don't need a poll to know that) but it's directed at not getting things done.

The latest poll is from The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University's School of Public Health (.pdf), and what you see is an important picture of non-voters as well as those who turned out.

For example, here were two question put to all surveyed, not just voters:

Whatever frustrations MA has with Obama, the GOP alternative is worse (that's, of course, not enough by itself to allow Democrats to win.)

What's true for Republican voters isn't always true for the electorate as a whole, but even there, this is not evidence of a GOP agenda win. For example, Brown's voters like the MA health care plan (68%) and even in a Brown win, more voters in MA (50%) thought the govt wasn't doing enough than thought the govt. was doing too much (47%.) Pay careful attention to the reporting: the 50-47 is from voters. Overall, wanting the government to do more is a widely held opinion, particularly among non-voters (click for clearer pic):

The lesson: voters turned out for Brown (who ran a good campaign), and the tepid support for Dem dithering won't win elections since those voters will sit on their hands and stay home if there's nothing offered to them. They won't just vote D because of the brand.

Here's another example of what the MA voters and non-voters want from Brown:

That doesn't look like "I elected you to block the Democratic agenda." In fact, only 8% of Brown voters (5% of total voters) voiced blocking this bill as an "extremely" or "very" important factor in their vote (Q 6), whereas there was 18% voter support and 15% voter opposition to health reform.

The biggest sticking point was that everyone hated the process (click for larger pic):

No kidding. So did we. And how the Joe Liebermans of this world read this as "the public wants more of me" is a question only a politician can answer with a straight face.

Chris Cillizza has an interesting round-up of 5 MA election myths, and I want to highlight myth number 2: Brown's victory means health-care legislation is dead. Cillizza talks about it from the POV of Obama and Dems needing to pass this politically (which is true), but the fact is that that's also what MA voters want. And when it comes to bipartisanship, since Republican policies and agendas are not in the least bit popular, the idea that the pressure is only on Democrats to produce is a fabrication of Republican spin doctors. Browns's voters want him to work with Democrats in Congress; the numbers are there plain as day (70-28, and an even split amongst Brown voters).

Here is supporting info from other polls. For those who want to look beyond MA, another broader poll question, published by Kaiser yesterday, looks at this:

A new Kaiser Family Foundation poll finds that Americans are divided over congressional health reform proposals, but also that large shares of people, including skeptics, become more supportive after being told about many of the major provisions in the bills.

If you want to look at the straying MA Obama voters only (the 18% who voted for Brown, and those who stayed home), look here (R2K for he Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy for America, and MoveOn.org.). Support amongst these Obama voters for the public option:

82% of Obama voters who voted for Brown

86% of Obama voters who stayed home

The Obama for Brown voters appear to be independents (85%.) The Obama stay at home voters appear to be Democrats (89%.) Any question that Dems did not turn out?

So when you hear about what the MA voters really wanted, and especially when you are told about what agenda the public wants, dig in to the numbers and see for yourselves. According to the polls, the vote is Cooperate in Congress (and clean up the process) 1, Senatorial dithering (and business as usual) 0. Any incumbent who doesn't pay attention now has only themselves to blame, and may as well start writing their memoirs.