A leader with vision and passion can transform a division, a corporation or a nation. Unless you are sometimes prepared to change everything, you may end up with nothing. If you have to force a decision, the decision probably should not yet be made, so says Sheelagh Whittaker, former chief executive of EDS Canada Inc. - on leadership, as published this week in our national newspaper.

Barrack Obama might take note.

On January 19th, the Democrats lost a Massachusetts senate seat to Republican Scott Brown. It had been a Kennedy-family fiefdom for more than fifty years, considered one of the safest senate seats in all of the United States for Democrats.

Early polls had shown Democrat Martha Coakley far ahead of Brown. The Democrats had supported Obama with a 26 point vote margin just 14 months earlier. The assumption of an electoral cake-walk, a series of campaign blunders and a sour national mood undid Coakley as she was overtaken by Brown in the final days of the campaign.

The Massachusetts upset is significant because it reduces the Democrat majority in the senate from 60 to 59. In the U.S. Senate, it takes 60 votes to break a filibuster (the use of extreme delaying tactics in an attempt to prevent action). This 60-vote convention (a basic agreement between parties concerning procedure) is not a regulation or a law but it has often been used and most likely will now be used to frustrate the will of the majority of senators who support healthcare reform.

It appears that Obama misread the national mood. Having gained the presidency on a promise of change, he mistook his win for a mandate. He had his sights on the transformation of American society. For most Americans, social revolution was the last thing on their minds. They wanted change in the process of government, blaming the failed policies of the Bush years on the glaring defects of a political process dominated by special interests and partisan bickering.

It appears that most Massachusetts voters believed the President was preoccupied with passing a health-care-reform package that focuses too much on extending coverage to the 15% of Americans who are uninsured and too little on out-of-control medical costs (translation: rising insurance premiums) for the 85% who already have insurance.

For the majority of voters, there was no short-term health-care crisis – only a long term (fiscal) one – a raging recession and 10% unemployment - the issues that mattered most to them. It’s clear that Obama heard the message but in a defiant State of the Union speech this week, he promised to continue his fight for healthcare reform even as he turns his attention to employment and job creation.

Some people speculate that the Republican win in Massachusetts was the best thing that could happen to health-care reform. Before the 19th, the left was increasingly despondent about reform. The political process and all the compromises and trade-offs had transformed Obama's signature policy into an awkward hodgepodge of intentions and priorities. The Senate bill in its present form represents nobody's dream for reform but it may be what is possible, given the U.S. political process.

Even if the Democrats’ base isn't particularly fond of the reform package, they clearly understand how close they are to getting no reform at all. The loyalists who Obama will need to pound pavements in November's mid-term elections could be far more energized by this new narrative than they would have been had Coakley been elected and reform negotiations continued to drag on for months.

The health-care crusade has cost Obama support, particularly among independents. In 2008, he won a majority of independents by promising to reform the way government worked: to make it more "transparent" and clean, more logical and brainy, less influenced by big money and old ideological thinking. It seems that was a pipedream.

A recent 5-4 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court throws a monkey-wrench into plans for government reform. The Court decision removes all limits on political contributions and permits unlimited spending by corporations, unions and non-governmental groups on grounds of free speech. Americans are rightly concerned about the glaring partisanship of the decision – five Republican-appointed judges v. four Democrat appointees, all voting according to party affiliation, as they did in 2000 when George W. was handed the presidency after losing the vote count to Al Gore by half a million votes.

If the Court’s decision stands without congressional challenge, it will encourage more lobbying, more fundraising, more (attack) advertising and more pressure on politicians to follow the dictates of their most moneyed donors. Mr. Obama’s push for reforms that would bring healthcare to 46 million Americans who now live without health insurance could indirectly be derailed by the decision.

W.E. (Bill) Belliveau is a Shediac resident and Moncton business consultant. He can be contacted at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com