Scott Brown is owning the dems in the commonwealth state

From a state that, with the help of Brown, voted for a more liberal healthcare law just two years ago.

just wierd

 

from blue to brown in just 14 months.

 

This was a state election. In the most recent national election, the people were pretty clear about what they want. John Kerry is the only seated senator who represents Massachusetts. Other senators need to represent the people of their own states.

 

Not that weird, considering that Massachusetts' state healthcare law makes the need for federal reforms less urgent for voters there.

 

The current Democratic Party is locked into political suicide. There is a price for not listening to the voting public. The Republicans paid it during the last two national elections. I predicted then, that if the Dems became arrogant and ideological they would suffer the same fate. I am a prophet, and you haven't seen nothing yet. The Dems are going to "double down," push forward and go over the political cliff in the mid-term elections. Right now, Independents are driving the car. Did the Dems really think Seniors would sit home and let them cut 400 billion out of Medicare and not care, and not act? Think again.

 

Right, what they made clear was they wanted serious change. They didn't want special interests and back room deals. They wanted healthcare reform, but they did not want this version. This deal is terrible the polls have shown it.

 

Dems have just not played the game right. From horse-trade to horse-trade, any meaningful reform was hijacked. Somehow this process managed to piss both sides off. Now the need for such a process in the first place is being distorted into angry emotional outbursts over death panels and people are pissed and scared. sigh.

This is just sad for President Obama as well, who seems to be on a personal loss streak of pretty epic magnitude. Losing Chicago in the first round, half-assing Copenhagen and now pulling out all the firepower for a state race...for nothing. Hopefully he turns it around and scores a significant victory soon, things are looking kinda ugly.

 

Guess you're right

But I do find it interesting that the good people of MA are voting to deny the rest of the country something they already have.

 

That's not true. In part, this was also because Coakley was disinterested and ran a horrible campaign.

On health care, it's getting less popular, but if you look beyond the surface, it's not in the way you think. Where it's losing support is from the *left*. More and more of the disapproval is coming from people who don't think the bill goes far enough, as opposed to people who don't want reform.

The last poll I saw (I can't find it offhand) showed it broken down into:

Don't support - bill goes too far
Support
Don't support - bill doesn't go far enough

And more people were in the 3rd category than the 1st. The lesson Democrats should learn from this is to start accomplishing things. They aren't going to get GOP votes anyway - so they can either try to get Dem votes or lose entirely. Republicans have always been very good at understanding that.

 

No doubt that the Democrats have screwed up because of their weakness, when they should have been playing hardball to deliver a sensible bill. They seem to have fallen into the trap of thinking that Republicans, humbled by their recent defeats, would actually be interested in bipartisanship and compromise. But thinking this election means Democrats need to cave in to Republicans even more is just stupid. Democrats can't win elections by appearing impotent.

 

Isn't this just going to make the final bill worse? We'll probably see some sort of reconciliation thing, that will water down the bill even more, or accept the Senate version with no changes.

I'm still utterly stupefied at how the Democrats can be so incompetent, and why they can't even pass a funding bill without 60 votes. Quite frankly, I would hope this is a wakeup call to the entire Senate to be far more ruthless in their tactics over the next few months. Why are they not building a bridge to nowhere in Maine for Snowe and Collins, or paying for their tate's health insurance like Nelson's, giving them a godfather offer? It's what the Republicans would do if they needed to. Why not just say screw the guaranteed red states, and try to buy as many midterm votes as possible in swing states with big time pork in the form of a "stimulus bill"? I would find it hard to believe that the public could think any less of Democrats right now, so why don' they go play in the mud with their friends from across the aisle?

Jon Stewart said it best: "The Republicans are playing chess and the Democrats are in the nurse's office because once again they glued their balls to their thighs."

 

Doesn't that really sum up Republican social and economic policies?

 

Awesome.

 

The tea party movement is cutting its baby teeth. At the pace from April to now continues, we should be able to have a real bite at the precinct levels by 2010. That's all I have to say -- I have to get back to my group.

 

This is probably one of the very few elections that had nothing to do with political parties. This election result signals clearly that the people are tired of the usual politics in Washington.

 

Isn't this a betrayal of Ted Kennedy's legacy? It is clear as day how badly Ted wanted and worked for health care reform. And, Mass. just basically voted against it. Your thoughts?

 

Dude, please stop saying that. I know its popular liberal thinking that non-liberals do not want health care reform, but its simply not true. Health care reform is not synonymous with government controlled health care.

I completely agree the conservative politicians has not done anything on this subject, but thats a different argument.

 

This is not a Republican or Democrat thing. Nor a referendum on Obama. Or a thumbs down on Healthcare reform. We already have a healthcare plan In Mass that sucks. Why would we care about you? Massholes only car about number one. Most voters in Mass are independents and have proven that they will vote for the candidate and not the party. Martha is so unlikable. And not everyone is enamored with the Kennedys. If Brown turns out to be completely unqualified, the People's seat will change.

 

QFT

You're right.

 

A betrayal of his legacy? They don't owe his legacy anything do they? He's dead. It's not his seat anymore. They vote for whoever they want to represent them in Washington, and that's what they've done.