So this morning I read that President Obama is going to come to Massachusetts to promote his candidate (current state attorney general, Martha Coakley) in next Tuesday's special election to fill Ted Kennedy's seat. The dems have been confident the the majority of voters who showed up on election day would vote for a guaranteed 60th democratic vote for healthcare reform and other party line votes.
But, not so fast, says Scott Brown, the republican state senator who opposes Ms. Coakley. Brown has tuned-in to the dissatisfaction many independents have expressed about the current health care bill and the sleazy deals that have been made to ram the plan down the throats of the electorate. The dems have demonstrated chronic tone deafness by dismissing any criticism of its plans as partisan rhetoric.
Following their debate last week Coakley saw her lead in opinion polls going downhill like an outgoing tide. Brown's strong performance in the debate and sharp rise in polls elicited national attention with editorials in WSJ and other non regional media. Coakley's campaign hit back with an expensive attack ad campaign. As a non-partisan, my opinion is that Coakley's ads will backlash against her, because the attempts to distort Mr Brown's record and position are obvious.
The tsunami of support for Brown is palpable here. It is a wave of discontent with politics as usual. It should not be seen as pro-republican either. It is a cry of "We're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it anymore."
Now, Mr. Obama is in a bit of a pickle. If Coakley loses the election, Brown has already stated that he will vote to block the current bloated health care plan. "We need to go back and start over," he says. So, Obama cannot ignore the situation because his loyalists (and all those who have sold their souls for the current plan) will blame him if he does nothing and Brown wins. Yet, if he comes here and Brown still wins (shades of New Jersey) Obama will be perceived as weak.
The irony is in the fact that if the healthcare bill is defeated and the dems are forced to go back and rewrite a cleaner, less expensive plan, they will ultimately come out better for it. If the current legislation is passed, the dems will be swept out of power at midterm elections and Obama will be heading back to Chicago in three years.
My advice, stay home Mr. Obama, Our minds are made-up. we taxpayers don't need the cost and hassle of your visit. (Ramp-freeze at Logan, traffic tie-ups to allow his motorcade to cruise at will about our fair city). No matter what the final result on Tuesday, one thing is certain: the tide has turned. And the shockwaves will be felt around the world.
(OK so I mixed up the metaphors. Sue me.)
9 comments:
Seems to me we're experiencing another case of voters going for the candidate who's most personable - someone they'd like to have a drink with in the political vernacular - than the one who would actually vote for policies they support. How else to explain Coakley's fall from a 30 point advantage to dead even or behind? Did a third of the voters suddenly decide that they no longer agreed with Martha's positions, which are nearly identical to the revered Ted Kennedy? Looks like we have another George Bush vs. Gore/Kerry election. How did that work out?
Just got a Coakley flyer today saying, "This bush is brown." (picture of a leafless bush) and then, "This Brown is Bush." (picture of Scott Brown and you-know-who). Have the Mass. dems no shame? Are their souls made of unfiltered hubris? ("Either Catholic doctors should perform abortions or not work in emergency rooms.")
And yes, I agree ... a Brown victory on Tuesday should not be taken by the Republicans as a unbridled mandate ... just as Obama's victory should not have been taken by the Chicago thuggery (of which we have become so familiar) as a mandate to dig up Norman Thomas and install him as the Czar of czars.
Rick, you need new glasses if you can't see what is going on. Scott Brown is a career pol just like the other weasels. Many voters (including virtually everyone I have talked to in several weeks) have become totally alienated by the secret deals and sleazy politics of the dems. Most of us who would normally waste our vote on the Libertarian have decided to vote for the guy who can get elected and who will vote against the train-wreck of a healthcare bill. The only other choice is to move to Nebraska and join the Union.
George, Coakley is wasting her ad dollars talking about Scott Brown instead of making a convincing case for herself.
No reasonable Doctor would deny an abortion to a rape victim who requested it. Any other position is just nuts.
DEN, There are doctors who view infanticide as immoral and even against the Hippocratic (sp?) oath (even if "unreasonable")... to force them to abandon these principles smacks of Obamacare.
Perhaps it is also "nuts" to make people dote over smelly dogs.
Easy Solution, If there is a Doctor working in ER who can't do the job, give the case to a doc who feels that the care for a victim of violence is more important than preserving a glob of protoplasm. It is a pretty far stretch to extend the term infant to a barely conceived tadpole.
I could be wrong but I think that is what Scott was proposing.
From the Washington Examiner:
The controversy stems from a 2005 Massachusetts law which requires hospitals to make emergency contraceptives available to rape victims. During debate on the law, state senator Brown offered an amendment that would have exempted medical professionals with "sincerely held religious beliefs," particularly at a number of Catholic hospitals in Massachusetts, from the law's requirement to provide emergency contraception. If no one at a given hospital could provide the contraception, Brown's amendment required that hospital to transfer the rape victim to another facility where she could receive emergency contraception, at no cost to the victim. Brown's amendment failed, but he voted in favor of the final bill."
Signed,
Onceaglobofprotoplasm
Thanks George for demonstrating how poor a politician Coakley is with her choice of words, while Brown trumpets the hot buttons "across-the-board tax cuts and (magically) lowering the deficit." That across-the-board tax cuts are bad economic policy and incompatible with deficit reduction is inconsequential to him. It sounds good so he says it. Remember, it was GWB's tax cuts that ballooned the deficit, which now makes it difficult to deal with the economic meltdown (a results of Republican free-market mantra, I may add.) So I reiterate, people are voting for the guy who makes them feel good (sending a message to Washington?), even though he will not act in their best interests.
Rick,
It wasn't Bush's tax cuts that caused his deficits ... it was two wars and out-of-control government spending. How come you Dems (other tha JFK) never acknowlege that tax cuts spur enough economic growth to bring in more tax revenue, not less? We were taught in Econ 1 a concept called elasticity of demand, remember? It applies here at the macro level. Now Obama, Pelosi, Reid, et alia are making government spending under Bush look like chump change.
Signed,
Milton Friedman
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