Did Democrats outsmart themselves in Massachusetts?

Ed Morrissey: When Ted Kennedy died on August 25, 2009, Massachusetts law required the state to hold a special election to fill the opening he left in the US Senate. That law was put in place by the state legislature in 2004 when John Kerry ran for President, and it was championed by Ted Kennedy himself. Why? The governor at the time, Mitt Romney, was a Republican — and Kennedy didn’t want Romney appointing an interim replacement that wasn’t a Democrat.

Fast forward five years, to when Kennedy was days away from death. The Kennedy family released a letter written by the Senator demanding that the law he pushed in 2004 get repealed in 2009 in order to allow Governor Deval Patrick to appoint his successor. Why? Patrick is a Democrat and a reliable liberal who would select someone in Kennedy’s mold. The state legislature responded by acceding to Kennedy’s dying wish and Patrick appointed Paul Kirk to fill Kennedy’s seat temporarily, until the special election could be held.

This all seemed to go by plan for the Democrats. They had ensured ideological continuity of the seat, and more importantly gave Harry Reid back his 60th vote for cloture, which allowed Reid and Obama to press forward with their plans to overhaul the American health-care system. All they would need is to keep Kirk in place until Massachusetts sent another Kennedy protege to the Senate.

But did they outsmart themselves?