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thatcrazycajunAs most of you know by now, the special election held two days ago in Massachusetts to choose a new sucker Senator to serve out the remainder of the late Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy's term ended in disaster for Ted's (and my) party. The anointed Democrat successor, Martha Coakley, lost to (gasp!) a Republican, an upstart state legislator named Scott Brown, by a squeaker of a 52-48 percent vote in what was supposedly the bluest of blue states, one that hasn't sent a GOP Senator to Washington in decades.
While the loss may have not been predictable even with polls showing Brown steadily gaining on Coakley in recent weeks (alarming the Dem leadership enough to send both President Barack Obama and his predecessor Bill Clinton up to stump for Coakley in the final weekend), the reaction around the polisphere has been utterly predictable. The party poohbahs are forming up the usual circular firing squad, pointing fingers of blame at each other from Boston and both ends of Penn Ave. The Repugs, led by that Kentuckian mouth-breather Mitch McConnell, are calling it a voter repudiation of the Obama/Dem agenda and continuing to spout the already-discredited shibboleth that the proposed health-care reform bill amounts to a government takeover of an industry forming one-sixth of the US economy. (Josef Goebbels would be so proud.) And pundits from one end of the media to the other are warning that the Dems better straighten up and fly right if they don't want this same scenario played out across a couple dozen states and House districts come November.
And Your Humble Correspondent's feelings on the matter? Am I disappointed? You bet your Boston creme pie I am. Do I think it was as simple as many of the aforementioned are making it out to be? Hell, no. This was a very complex situation: Yes, many are fearful about the healthcare bills and frustrated with the process of reform. But there were other factors as well: the weather and the severely truncated campaign period (why on God's green and pleasant Earth couldn't they have held a special election sometime after the dead of a New England winter?!); the continuing economic recession and spiraling un-/underemployment; Coakley's lackluster campaigning; possible Democrat fatigue on the part of Bay State voters after half a century of basically one-party rule; the historic tendency of midterm elections to almost always hurt the party currently in power; and on and on. (Readers actually living there—and I know several on my friends list do—are welcome to chime in with their own additions to the list, or correct mine.)
I do think the party needs to come up with better ways than have been used so far to gin up a recovery that will be real for Joe Sixpack and his wife Jane Soccermom—in other words, one that actually gets employers to start hiring again and gets them back to work and earning income. And financial policy that gets the still-balky banks to lossen up their purse strings and start lending again so businesses can do that hiring. A few points of downtick in the unemployment numbers can do wonders for the party's chances of retaining their majority between now and this fall. And it does not mean they need to surrender to the medical/insurance complex's minions in the Senate on reform; there is still plenty of support for a public option and for reining in costs.
They also need to remember two things: one, that Brown won very narrowly, which hardly amounts to a mandate to overthrow the liberal despots in Washington; and two, they still have substantial majorities in both houses and control the White House as well. And if they can seduce another Repub or two over to their side of the aisle before the elections, they can make up for losing Ted's seat and for Chris Dodd and Byron Dorgan having decided to retire rather than run again (and almost certainly lose). That the GOP would try to make this year's vote a referendum on Democrat leadership over the past two years is no news at all; we've seen this coming whole parsecs off. All the Chicken Little types in our party's leadership need to get a grip...and a clue, too, while they're at it.
While the loss may have not been predictable even with polls showing Brown steadily gaining on Coakley in recent weeks (alarming the Dem leadership enough to send both President Barack Obama and his predecessor Bill Clinton up to stump for Coakley in the final weekend), the reaction around the polisphere has been utterly predictable. The party poohbahs are forming up the usual circular firing squad, pointing fingers of blame at each other from Boston and both ends of Penn Ave. The Repugs, led by that Kentuckian mouth-breather Mitch McConnell, are calling it a voter repudiation of the Obama/Dem agenda and continuing to spout the already-discredited shibboleth that the proposed health-care reform bill amounts to a government takeover of an industry forming one-sixth of the US economy. (Josef Goebbels would be so proud.) And pundits from one end of the media to the other are warning that the Dems better straighten up and fly right if they don't want this same scenario played out across a couple dozen states and House districts come November.
And Your Humble Correspondent's feelings on the matter? Am I disappointed? You bet your Boston creme pie I am. Do I think it was as simple as many of the aforementioned are making it out to be? Hell, no. This was a very complex situation: Yes, many are fearful about the healthcare bills and frustrated with the process of reform. But there were other factors as well: the weather and the severely truncated campaign period (why on God's green and pleasant Earth couldn't they have held a special election sometime after the dead of a New England winter?!); the continuing economic recession and spiraling un-/underemployment; Coakley's lackluster campaigning; possible Democrat fatigue on the part of Bay State voters after half a century of basically one-party rule; the historic tendency of midterm elections to almost always hurt the party currently in power; and on and on. (Readers actually living there—and I know several on my friends list do—are welcome to chime in with their own additions to the list, or correct mine.)
I do think the party needs to come up with better ways than have been used so far to gin up a recovery that will be real for Joe Sixpack and his wife Jane Soccermom—in other words, one that actually gets employers to start hiring again and gets them back to work and earning income. And financial policy that gets the still-balky banks to lossen up their purse strings and start lending again so businesses can do that hiring. A few points of downtick in the unemployment numbers can do wonders for the party's chances of retaining their majority between now and this fall. And it does not mean they need to surrender to the medical/insurance complex's minions in the Senate on reform; there is still plenty of support for a public option and for reining in costs.
They also need to remember two things: one, that Brown won very narrowly, which hardly amounts to a mandate to overthrow the liberal despots in Washington; and two, they still have substantial majorities in both houses and control the White House as well. And if they can seduce another Repub or two over to their side of the aisle before the elections, they can make up for losing Ted's seat and for Chris Dodd and Byron Dorgan having decided to retire rather than run again (and almost certainly lose). That the GOP would try to make this year's vote a referendum on Democrat leadership over the past two years is no news at all; we've seen this coming whole parsecs off. All the Chicken Little types in our party's leadership need to get a grip...and a clue, too, while they're at it.
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Date: 2010-01-22 02:31 am (UTC)I think it was John Stewart who noted that only in Washington would deciding to retire after 60 years of public service be interpreted as cutting out for fear of losing.