Matthew Cochrane
In a special election yesterday, Scott Brown shocked the political world by taking Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat. Shortly after the primary elections, Brown was trailing Coakley in the polls by thirty percentage points. How surprising was Brown’s victory?
John Miller probably sums it up best:
In twelve years of covering elections for NR, no election result has surprised me more than this one. Nothing else comes close.
For Democrats, this is the political equivalent of Bill Buckner letting that ground ball bounce through his legs. (Memo to Martha Coakley: Buckner played for the Boston Red Sox in 1986.)
Huge upset that it is, what exactly does the result of a special election in Massachusetts on a cold January day mean? While that question might not be able to be definitively answered for months, here are a few observations:
1) President Obama and the Democrats are in trouble. On many levels (though not every level) this election was a direct repudiation of the Obama administration’s policies and tactics. John Judis writes on the respected liberal journal
The New Republic:
Yes, a less inept candidate might have beaten Scott Brown, but if Obama and his program had been more popular in Massachusetts, even Coakley could have won--and by ten points or more.
There were no network exits polls, only a limited sample by Rasmussen, but some of the polls taken beforehand bear out Obama’s role in Coakley’s defeat. In the final January 17 poll by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic-leaning North Carolina outfit that picked up Brown’s surge early in the month, 20 percent of the respondents who voted for Obama in 2008 said they’d vote for Brown. Among those voters, only 22 percent approved of Obama’s presidency, and only 13 percent backed his health care plan.
Judis continues:
The most important question raised by Coakley’s loss is not what she could have done better--the answer to that can fill pages of unhappy anecdotes about campaign mishaps--but why Obama’s popularity is so low that a Democrat could lose Massachusetts. A conservative Republican Senate candidate winning Massachusetts, which Obama carried by 62 percent to 36 percent in 2008, is comparable to a liberal Democrat carrying Utah.
If you believe some of the blogs, the Democrats lost Massachusetts, and Obama’s approval is plummeting nationwide, because he alienated his left-wing base. Perhaps that does account for an absence of turnout among young voters in the Virginia gubernatorial or Massachusetts Senate races, but the polls have not shown growing dissatisfaction among young, minority, or liberal voters--the three voting blocs that accounted for Obama’s strongest support in 2008. Where he has lost ground--and where the Democrats have lost ground--is primarily among white working and middle-class voters and senior citizens.
If Democrats are smart, an iffy proposition at best, they will listen to this self-critique rather than other explanations given by other leading liberal pundits. Some examples of these nonsensical explanations include
Howard Dean thinking Coakley’s defeat means Massachusetts voters actually want
a more liberal version of healthcare reform than what is currently being offered by Democrats,
CNN’s Carol Costello stating “
Republicans used the President’s strategy to create fear and confusion among voters,” and MSNBC’s Donny Deutsch saying Massachusetts voters were “going back to basics” by electing a white male into office.
If Democrats buy this convoluted logic they will be in a rough spot come November.
Politico reports:
If Democrats can lose in Massachusetts, they can lose anywhere. That is the mind-set that will shape the next nine months for Democrats. It will affect who runs for reelection, who bolts on big votes, who gives money and who speaks out against Obama. All of this will make governing harder.
The focus has been on the special election for the past week. But Democratic insiders were equally concerned about other signs of trouble that got insufficient notice: Polls show Democrats could lose the New York Senate seat, Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson’s favorable ratings plummeted in Nebraska, new polls showed Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-Ohio) trailing badly in his swing district, and Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.) is in a statistical tie and in more trouble than previously expected.
In that respect, though, Brown’s victory might be a blessing in disguise for Democrats. Clinton didn’t realize he had veered too far left until 1994, when Republicans retook Congress. After the Newt Gingrich takeover, Clinton repositioned himself as a moderate and won reelection in 1996. Obama has the opportunity to reposition himself after losing just one Senate seat.
2) Martha Coakley was a horrible candidate. I mean she was really, really bad. Really bad. Yes, the hostile political atmosphere for Coakley in Massachusetts was created by the radical liberal agenda advanced by Obama and congressional Democrats but Coakley could have still pulled out a victory in blue Massachusetts if she had run a smart campaign and gone through the motions of pretending to care. Instead, she ran on a sense of entitlement. Some of her gaffes were simply epic. Her campaign
misspelled Massachusetts in a television ad. She condescendingly sneered at the thought of standing out in the cold to, you know, actually campaign. Her campaign aide was caught on tape pushing a reporter to the ground while she walked by. The Jon Stewart monologue we posted
yesterday actually captured her stunningly aloof manner and campaign mistakes quite well.
Nothing, however, can compare to the now-infamous Curt Schilling gaffe. For all of Coakley’s blunders, Brown’s impressive performances and the hostile political environment for liberals, it was not until the Schilling gaffe that I actually thought Coakley was going to lose the election. It was simply inexcusable.
In a recent comment, a reader asked, “Can someone explain to me why Coakley saying someone was a Yankees fan when they're really a Red Sox fan makes her unqualified to hold public office?” My partner-in-crime Todd responded, “It's not that it makes her unqualified, but to the potential voters I think it shows that she's out of touch with Massachusetts. If you live in MA, you're expected to know certain things that are important to the state. The Red Sox are a big part of Boston. Obviously not the most important thing in the state, but considering they won the championship after decades of trying...”
While mostly hitting the mark, Todd actually underestimates the gaffe a bit. In Massachusetts, following the Boston Red Sox is a
religion. There is nothing more important in Massachusetts than the Red Sox. Nothing. Curt Schilling pitched a game of a lifetime on a bleeding, bum leg to lead the Red Sox to the World Series title in 2004 after nearly a century of failure. I’m having a hard time putting this into words so I’ll turn to our liberal friend,
The Lizard Master, to take on the Schilling episode. In private correspondence (reprinted here with permission), TLM stated, “…what she did was beyond stupid. I know me and Bill Nelson [Senator, D-FL] have had our differences in the past, but if he said Dan Marino was a Jets fan I'd straight up punch him in the face, let alone vote for whoever was running against him.” I am sure many voters had the same justified reaction to Coakley’s comment. I know I would have.
3) Healthcare reform, as we now know it, is dead. Late last night Jim Webb (Senator, D-VA), stated the Senate should wait until Brown is seated before looking at healthcare reform again. This morning, Democrats everywhere, including President Obama, followed his lead.
Politico reports:
There are ways Democrats can jam through the current health care bill with procedural tricks or legislative creativity. But what seemed a certainty a week ago feels unlikely today. Don't take the word of Republicans or even reporters on this one. Listen to what Democrats are saying as they appraised the results overnight:
Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) told a local reporter, “It’s probably back to the drawing board on health care, which is unfortunate.” Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.) told MSNBC this morning he will advise Democratic leaders to scrap the big bill and move small, more popular pieces that can attract Republicans. And Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) said his leadership is “whistling past the graveyard” if they think Brown’s win won’t force a rethinking of the health care plan.
Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), who now might draw a challenge from Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), said the party needs to rethink its entire approach to governing
This ad featuring John F. Kennedy was also great and politically astute:
5) Hitler’s reaction. Predictable; exactly what you would expect from the German dictator.
6) Brown is a RINO but his victory is still a huge win for conservatives. Let’s not kid ourselves: Scott Brown is no Jim Demint. In fact, he might not even be a John McCain. Some
estimates place Brown, once sworn in, as the most liberal Republican in the Senate but still more conservative than any Democrat. Some readers have complained in recent days about Brown’s weak pro-life stances.
All of these concerns are valid but, ultimately, misplaced. Conservatives must be politically smart. The goal of elections is to win, not run ideologically-pure candidates. Massachusetts is an extremely liberal state. As it is, a perfect political storm had to take place for Brown to win. A more conservative candidate would not have had a chance. Conservatives should support the most conservative politically-viable candidate in any race. In South Carolina, that means Jim Demint; in Massachusetts, that means Scott Brown.
While I have more thoughts, that’s going to have to suffice for now. It’s late, I’m tired and my thoughts are beginning to blur.
Todd Jaspers
The people of Massachusetts have always been fairly liberal. I loved living there when I did, but that’s just a fact about the state’s demographics. Plain and simple, I believe America is waking up.
Massachusetts has been under predominantly liberal law for the past ~40+ years. Senator Ted Kennedy had some accomplishments, but there was a lot of unacceptable activity that was allowed to be overlooked under his policies. He became comfortable in his Senate seat. Each day was like the one before. The energy from his campaign was gone; he became entitled. The voters in Massachusetts came to realize that after 40 years, what exactly did they have to show for it? Boston is a great city, and Massachusetts has a lot to offer this country… but what significant improvements or world leading industry have they brought to the country that they didn’t already have 40 years ago? The only thing they have to show for the past 40 years are significantly increased taxes.
This should come as a significant wake-up call for all politicians. Unfortunately, many Democrat politicians are trying to play this off. They are reluctantly realizing that this isn’t just a fluke. This isn’t just because they had a poor candidate. This is because the people have spoken.
Look at the numbers; the voters aren’t stupid. It was snowing and cold in Massachusetts. That means that the voters who went to the polls were very informed and determined. The final statistics will be available in the next 10-15 days, but the preliminary numbers showed that 99% of the Republican vote went to Brown, nearly 80% of the Independent vote went to Brown, and almost 30% of the Democrat vote went for Brown. Democrats outnumber Republicans three to one in the state of Massachusetts. This is not a fluke; this shows an extremely inherent problem with the current policies.
The United States does not want a welfare state. The United States wants a country where people work hard and have the opportunity at the American dream. We will always have poor, and we will always want to help them, but we simply cannot set up a policy mandate that creates a community that’s dependent upon government subsidy.
After the winner was announced, I rather unashamedly watched MS-NBC so I could see the closing comments from Rachael Maddow and then Keith Olbermann. Maddow’s reaction was expected. She simply blamed the election loss on the idea that Brown was simply more engaging to the voters and that Coakley simply didn’t run a good campaign. That might work in a purple state, but this is Massachusetts which was run by Democrats for decades. Olbermann on the other hand, went off on a rant about the Tea Party movement and then tried to suggest that the term “tea bagging” was created by the Republican side first as he quoted a comment in response to a fairly unknown conservative blog. He didn’t really have much to say with regard to the election in general.
