It's entirely possible that by the end of the night, Martha Coakley will have squeaked by with a win in the Massachusetts special election, and all this sturm und drang will have been for nothing. But if that doesn't happen, Republicans are gearing up to tell us that this one election in one state is The Most Important Thing That Has Ever Happened, and one that means more than, say, the elections in which the country gave Democrats the White House and large majorities in both the House and Senate.

For instance, here's David Brooks in full-on hack mode:

A specter haunts Democratic-led Washington. It's the specter of a special election in Massachusetts, the bluest of blue states, not just slipping through Democrats' fingers but in the process dooming health-care reform. But it doesn't have to -- even if things go badly in the Bay State.

In case you haven't heard, Massachusetts voters will go to the polls today to choose someone to serve the remaining three years of the late Ted Kennedy's Senate term. The Republican candidate, state Sen. Scott Brown, is running a surprisingly strong campaign, while the Democrat, state Attorney General Martha Coakley, has been lurching from one bumble to another. A spate of polls in the last week showed the race to be essentially a dead heat.