The Massachusetts special election feels like the sorority parties we used to have in college. It's 1 a.m. and the party is in full swing. The music is thumping and the crowd is building up steam. We pause for a moment to get a drink and all that's left is coffee brandy (generic, not Kahlua) and ginger ale. And the question is whether we say what the heck, let's mix it and chug-a-lug. Or pause for a moment and think, hmm, how will we will feel in the morning?
Before we imbibe this Tuesday, can we take a moment to look at what's at stake in Massachusetts? It might feel like the voters there are deciding on Obama's health care reform, but they are not. This is a special election to select a senator that will represent Massachusetts voters for the next three years.
Let's face it: voters are very angry. Make that VERY angry about health care reform. The blogosphere is chock-full of folks who are exasperated that their voices are being ignored by Obama, Reid and Pelosi.
And so folks want to make a statement and there is a way to do this: put a Republican into a seat that has been held by Democrats since the 1950s. That will show Obama, Reid and Pelosi. Or will it?
The answer is no. If they cared about the public opinion, we wouldn't be here to begin with. Let's face it: electing Scott Brown will not stop Obama's health care reform. If there aren't 60 votes in the Senate, they'll find a way to do it with 51. Or they'll rush it through before Scott Brown can be seated. The special election is not going to single-handedly stop them. The special election will, however, select an individual that will be representing Massachusetts for three years.
The Coakley campaign has been caught flat footed by the populist outrage over health care reform. Her advisors thought they were running a campaign to represent Massachusetts. They were wrong. And they have realized all too late what has been building on independent blogs for weeks.
Much like Hillary Clinton's advisors misread sentiment in the weeks leading up to Iowa. The sure thing not so certain. The inability of Hillary's campaign to right itself. Hillary finally stabilizing things herself in New Hampshire and finding her voice. Coakley, unfortunately, does not have the luxury of time.
There's another similarity to Hillary and Coakley: our country's unconscious bias that female candidates must be perfect. We hold women politicians to a higher standard. If they can't be everything we want them to be, it's a no go. For Hillary, her Scarlet Letter was a vote for W. Bush's war. For Coakley, her support of Obama's health care reform.
But not so fast Democratic and Independent voters. This Tuesday, you're not voting against Obama's health care reform, or even against Obama. You're voting for Martha Coakley. A woman who showed loyalty, a trait so rare these days, to Hillary until the end. A woman who has an impeccable list of credentials and experience. A woman who would be an advocate for so many issues important to women and our daughters.
After all, do we really need another male senator? Our country is 51% women, yet only 17% of our senators are women? Has this imbalance been working for our country? Or have we created one big fraternity that is leading our financial system and our country generally down a dangerous path?
So please give some thought to what is at stake here beyond a single issue -- granted that issue looms overwhelmingly large at present. Yes, Coakley might not today be 100% of what we want her to be. But I'm giving my word here to do my part as President of The New Agenda to hold Coakley's feet to the fire on issues impacting women and our daughters. And we can hardly afford to squander the chance to get a qualified woman to the senate.
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Mandates to purchase insurance from politically connected monopolies that would only be regulated by the same weak state insurance boards that don't enforce the consumer protections we have now would have hurt progressives, liberals, libertarians, and conservatives alike. It would only have benefited insurers.
We're all better off with no legislation than we would have been with the Senate bill. And as long as there were the mythical 60 votes, that's the bill we would have gotten.
It's as simple as she cannot think on her feet. her record as attorney general is one failure after another. She tried to prosecute the father who rescued his son being attacked by a predator. She tried to prosecute a young security guard who shot a man viciously stabbing a doctor. But after the big dig scandal where corruption, payoffs and fixed contracts ran rampant and resulted in the death of a woman Martha Coakley prosecuted...no one....not one person. The people of massachusetts are not stupid.
At a debate, when asked about her foreign policy experience, she said she spoke regularly to her sister in London...and said it with a straight face. The voters don't want a candidate who ignores them to be feted at a party by Washington lobbyists...very bad move..the people want change and it's not just about health care reform.
Was John McCain a horrible candidate because he was male.
Michael Dukakis?
John Kerry?
John Edwards?
Tom Daschle?
If Brown is elected it would be like hitting the democratic congress with a baseball bat between the eyes. It will wake them up. Will it change their minds on this healthcare debacle?
I think it may change a few Dems who see the reality of all of this and want to have a chance next november.
A vote for Brown is the only chance we have to snap the dem congress out of their zombie trance.
The only way we will have change is through a populistic uprising where we literally clean house. That would require some cohesive issue that binds everyone together. We saw it to some extent when Obama was elected, but too many of the people who allowed us to get where we are are still in power. Now is not the time to become discouraged. We must continue voting those people out as it is the only way to real change as we have seen with the Health Care debate.
I also believe there should be a law prohibiting members of Congress from having taxpayer paid healthcare if they make more than $500,000. They're all millionaires and they can afford to pay for their own insurance premiums.
1) that the majority of the voters (61%) oppose this bill.
2) that the swing for Brown is in fact the electorate rebelling against a federal government not listening
then logically shouldn't you support Brown?
isn't that what democratically elected federalist government is all about?
Come on support Croakley because she's a women and we need more of them, is that why you elected Barack?
The future of America lies in our response to more and more situations like Haiti. This is a moral test, America, and the world is watching.
How can Americans demand a health care system, financed by foreign governments who buy our long term debt, when so many everywhere have so much less?? How can Americans demand full border closure when people of the Haiti need a refuge from natural disaster???
The wisdom of the people will prevail, and the old culture war battle lines will be seen as realistically impossible, from preventing gay marriage to insuring all US folks at he expense of the world's poor. The more the incumbent politicians fight the same old culture wars, the more a new generation of politicians like Brown, Palin, etc., will rise faster.
It is time to retire all of the old world view politicians. As Jefferson said in paraphrase, there should be a revolution every 20 years or so, to prevent one generation from holding the next in tyranny.
Obama is a perfect example of someone who is under 50, but has accepted the old, radical liberal world view and is governing by anachronistic policies.
Palin is an example of someone on the right who has tried to reform her party, but has degraded her political capital with self-aggrandizing book and TV tours.
One thing is for certain, Congress has not done a good job of doing the people's work.
They use taxpayer money like its theirs....but it's not.
After eight years of Bush/Cheney, the American people were desperate for that " change you can believe in " promised by Obama and the Dems. Instead, they've been served up more of the same, only Dem style.
One of the best examples - the Dems are about to ram a piece of legislation down the throats of the American people that taxes the middle class, is a windfall for big business and anything but the legitimate reform we were promised. The only reason the Repubs aren't supporting it is because it came out of the Democratic caucus.
A lot of folks who would typically support the Dems have become fed up with their abuse. They're realizing that the Dems no better represent them than the Repubs. They're no longer buying the old line that they should elect the Dems, as the lesser of two evils because, especially this time, after a year of broken promises and shameless conduct culminating in this abusive healthcare legislation, they realize that it ain't necessarily so.
The Dems are about to start losing elections they should win. The Dems in office and those supporting their treachery will be to blame.
Obama has shown that it doesn't matter what your stated party is, both sides are for for corporations.....
And he renegged on so many campaign promises, people feel they've been cheated.
ironically, it didn't have to happen but the Dems have proven themseleves to be just as corrupt and inept as the Repubs, so that they, too, are about to implode, losing seats of power in what must be record time