Was Massachusetts Senate Race a Game-Changer for Government Ambitions?

With the upset victory by Republican Scott Brown in the Massachusetts special election to fill Democrat Ted Kennedy's U.S. Senate seat, there is much chatter in the news media about whether this will bring an early end to the Obama administration's agenda. Will the president just be playing defense for the rest of his time in office? Will he refocus, triangulate, like President Clinton did after losing the House in 1994? Will the agenda be set by the Senate's 41 Republicans?

To give you some background on what's at stake in all the talk about government ambitions and battles over big government vs. conservative populism, watch this video of William Eggers speaking to The Commonwealth Club on "When Government Works and When It Doesn't." His December 9, 2009, speech and the Q&A covered the highlights of his review of more than 75 government undertakings in the U.S. and abroad in an effort to find out what works, what doesn't, and why.

Eggers is the co-author of If We Can put a Man on the Moon ... Getting Big Things Done in Government.