Seldom has the outcome of a single state-wide election determined the fate of an American president or his administration. By all accounts, the outcome of Tuesday’s special election in Massachusetts may do just that.

If Republican Scott Brown defeats Democrat Martha Coakley and becomes the 41st Republican Senator, Obama’s ambitious liberal agenda to transform America could be stopped cold in its tracks. What’s more difficult to predict is then what? That, of course, depends on how Democrats and Republicans react; both parties have a penchant for shooting themselves in the foot.

Democrats' immediate problem is healthcare reform. Already wheeling and dealing behind closed doors to work out differences between House and Senate bills, their efforts have been invigorated by fear of a Brown win. Brown has vowed to vote against it.

Massachusetts election officials or a narrow victory could delay Brown’s certification, allowing interim Sen. Paul Kirk to vote on the bill before Brown replaces him. Or the Senate could pass the bill with 51 votes using the reconciliation process. And if the House passed the Senate bill with no changes, no more votes would be necessary. One way or another Democrats can still pass a healthcare bill despite a Brown victory.

Nevertheless, Brown's election would stop the Democrat steamroller ten months sooner than expected--ten critical months Democrats can't afford to lose. If all Democrats up for reelection have to put before the voters in the November mid-term elections is an extremely unpopular healthcare reform bill, they are in even bigger trouble than they will be if Coakley loses.

President Obama and congressional Democrats will spend the next ten months ostensibly focusing on the economy and jobs, but given the policies they have been pursing it's doubtful they'll make much progress in so short a time.

They could move away from big-government solutions and stimulate job growth with tax cuts and other free-market solutions Republicans would buy into, but will they? President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have shown no signs they are willing to do so. Their ideological commitment to their liberal agenda seems total. The image of kamikaze pilots sitting in open cockpits with their silk scarves flapping in the wind comes to mind.

One would predict, then, that the mid-term elections will be a disaster for Democrats--they could even lose their majorities in the House and Senate--and President Obama could lose the 2012 election and become a one-term president.

Republicans across the country are savoring those thoughts; and if Brown wins on January 19, they will uncork the Champagne slap each other on the back. Before they allow themselves to get too carried away, however, they have a few problems of their own they need to worry about.

Just as few could predict that the outlook for Democrats would be so bleak one year after Obama took the oath of office, Republican fortunes, even with a Brown victory, could be equally as bleak a year or two from now.

While there are several positive trends for Republicans, they have yet to settle on a positive unifying message to rally conservative and moderate voters, and no clear Republican standard bearer has emerged who can defeat Obama in 2012. 

The significance of Republican gains in recent gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as Brown’s election to the Senate from Massachusetts, should it occur, should not be over interpreted. As in 1994, they likely portend better than usual Republican gains in this year’s congressional elections; but like 1996, they are no harbinger of a Republican presidential win in 2012. 

For Republicans to regain the White House in 2012 they must convince voters that they have learned from their own mistakes when they were in power--pork-barrel, out of control spending and pursuit of self interest. They must offer positive alternatives to Democrats' policies on healthcare, the economy, and national security that Americans believe in and support. And they must offer a vision of America that an increasingly diverse nation can rally behind.

This doesn’t mean that in 2012 Republicans must chose a moderate to run against Obama. It means they must find a conservative who can articulate conservative principles and values in ways which rally the Republican conservative base but also make them attractive to the broadest possible spectrum of Americans.

Forty percent of Americans identify themselves as conservatives. Many are Democrats, including Asian, Hispanic, and African Americans. Many of them, along with moderates and Independents, will vote for a conservative Republican if he or she can give them a stake in the Republican agenda.

Democrat strategists hope that Republicans will nominate a moderate in 2012, that the Tea-Party movement will become a third political party, and that a divided opposition will ensure Obama’s reelection. If the Republican establishment isn’t careful, that’s exactly what could happen.

A Brown victory won't determine the fate of the Obama administration by itself. Win or lose in Massachusetts, Republicans need a positive message, good congressional and senatorial candidates, and the right presidential candidate. And, like Scott Brown, they need to remember whose seats their candidates are running for, something many Democrats apparently have forgotten.