Back in the days of Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War, it wasn't uncommon to hear friends talk about moving to Canada. Not young men hoping to avoid the draft: people who were so dismayed about where the country was heading that they weren't sure they wanted to call the US their home.

I'm not seeing friends head to the Peace Bridge, but I have seen a lot of grim, worried faces in the past week.

Republicans and conservatives are ecstatic that Scott Brown won Ted Kennedy's seat in the Senate and that the Supreme Court has put the fix in on elections.

I'm troubled by both. But I'm also troubled by Democrats in Washington who don't seem to know what they want, and who are in a panic over Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts.

Just over a year ago, Barack Obama won the presidency by a good majority, and Democrats seemed to have veto-proof control of the Senate. Republicans shrugged off their losses, crafted an angry, faux-populist message, and started pumping it out. And Congressional Democrats ran for the hills.

The Republicans' latest message: The Massachusetts election proves that Democrats are out of touch with Americans. Eight years of Republican reign - a deficit caused by tax cuts and a war in Iraq; anti-science domestic policies and brash, go-it-alone foreign policy; lack of oversight of the financial industry; the bank bailouts - all of that is forgotten. Or, now, blamed on the Democrats.

Because Democrats are letting the Republicans set the agenda.

(Not to mention that Republicans have convinced the Democrats and the public that 41 Senate votes is a legitimate majority.)

It's hard to know what the Democrats can do about health care, at this point. On the NewsHour on Friday, the Times' David Brooks gave passage of a health-care bill a 20 percent chance. And in his Times column on Saturday, Brooks showed how serious the obstacles are. The Dems, he said, have four options, all of them bad:

They can ram through some form of health care (the "heedless and arrogant" approach), they can regroup and maybe try incremental reform (the "weak and feckless" approach), they can delete unpopular parts of the current bills and pass the rest, or they can forget about health care and just fight each other.

Brooks' advice: regroup. Ramming health care through despite public opposition, he warned, is not only arrogant but will be destructive. "Trust in government will be irrevocably broken," he wrote. And, he said: "It will decimate policy-making for a generation."

The Times' Paul Krugman urged Democrats to push on. Since most Democrats in the House and Senate approved a health-care bill, they'll be blamed for what they've already done, no matter what the outcome, he said. Backing off or giving up, Krugman said, would "solidify the public perception of Democrats as hapless and ineffectual."

Given the spinal weakness of many Democrats in Congress, Brooks may be right: 80-20 that health-care reform will go nowhere. But if that's the outcome, the Democrats must bear the blame.

Congressional Democrats don't need the clout and the wiliness of Lyndon Johnson. All they need is the courage of their convictions.

Whatever those are.

As for the Supremes: As bad as the Massachusetts election outcome is, it's not catastrophic. The Supreme Court decision on corporate campaign advertising will have a much bigger impact, and it will last much longer.

The court's passionate opponents of an activist judiciary overrode the will of the people and anointed George Bush president. Now, they've anointed special interests as puppet masters.

Democrats are scrambling to find a way to tip the scales back toward democracy. But we seem to be in dark waters right now. Can the federal government put any kind of limits on campaign spending? Can states? Is public financing unconstitutional?

You paying attention, folks?