Given:
- Massachusetts' bipartisan health care reform a few years ago is the model for what Obama and the Democrats have been on the verge of passing in Washington.
- Scott Brown supported the bipartisan Massachusetts health care reform (which has given the state near-universal coverage)
- Scott Brown opposes the Democrats' health care reform in Washington, and told voters he'd be the 41st vote to stop it.
- Massachusetts voters, who overwhelmingly support the Massachusetts health care reform, have sent Scott Brown to Washington to stop Washington from enacting at a national level the popular plan Massachusetts enacted a few years ago.
Which of the following explains Scott Brown's victory over Martha Coakley? (Maybe I'm missing something, but I think these are the only three options):
1) Scott Brown is a disingenuous idiot.
2) Massachusetts voters are confused idiots.
3) I'm an idiot, for expecting logic or reason to play any role in American political life at all.
The weird mantra "people obviously just want us to keep doing the same thing, only faster" and the pompous "the voters must be ignorant if they have disagreed with our direction" are the only two statements coming from the left about Massachusetts. Yours is a variation of the second. As an average American, I perceive the left as either breaching with reality (those in the first camp) or megalomaniacs who are going to run over the top of the public will because they think they know better what's good for us (those in the second camp). Either way it spells disaster for the democrats if they don't wake up soon.
Obama's failure is one of appearing (and appearances count for a great deal) of preserving the status quo that he inherited from the Bush Administration. Frankly, if I were a resident of Massachusetts, I would have voted for Brown!
Many disenchanted Dems did not bother to vote, while the opportunity for a high visibility upset was a strong motivator for those Republicans who apparently want a return to the bad old days of Bush.
Brown will only be around for 2 years, and I doubt he will do anything other than join the obstructionist ranks of his colleagues when he is sworn in.
This election was the proverbial "warning shot across the bow" of the Democratic party, and the voters of Massachusetts loaded a circus clown named Brown into their cannon instead of a cannon ball...
I HOPE the Mass voters rejected the SENATE HC plan, because it MANDATED 30mil new customers to the HC companies with no cost/monopoly reform of any import while asking the middle/working class to make sacrificies by gettin taxed for their HC plans. And this in a time of recession. The wealthy and the HC companies made no sacrifice.
What's going on here ...... ??
The republicans could win the 2010-12 election knocking that senate bill (that they'll vote against)! And they'd be right (scary thought).
I do not want health care reform AT ANY COST (to the middle class or otherwise). I want a public option, not a fatally flawed plan that probably wouldn't be fixed anytime soon given the presidents lackluster performance and the republicans entrenchment. Obama made no attempt to "push" for Dorgan's Drug Reimportation amendment which several dems (31) did not vote for.
http://news.firedoglake.com/2009/12/15/dorgan-reimportation-amendment-up-for-a-vote/
What ..... dems didn't vote for a bill that would have saved the public 120mil + ?
What's going on here?
Obama's overall competence notwithstanding, he was "hired" for "CHANGE"! This is "Business as Usual" ... !!! This is not .... "Change I Can Count On" ... !!!!
Also, not all change is improvement... !!! I hope that's what the Mass. vote was about.
Those who did present opinions about the health care bill were generally not asked their feelings on the Massachusetts model, but complained that the national bill circulating in the Senate does less than they expected from the Obama administration. They may be satisfied with their current status, but expect a Democratic President to go somewhat beyond the reforms Mitt Romney enacted. Is this really that complex?
I think your post sets up the ultimate question with a string of false premises. Now I am not from, nor do I know anyone from Massachusetts, but I suspect that either...
- the Massachusetts' health care reform is NOT the model for what the Democrats have been on the verge of passing.
- Massachusetts voters DO NOT overwhelmingly support the Massachusetts health care reform.
-or-
- the voters have sent Scott Brown to Washington to stop Washington from enacting at a national level the NOT SO popular Massachusetts plan.
-or-
- they sent him to stop at a national level what they no longer need.
-or-
- they couldn't give a crap about health care, and something else is at play.
-or-
- elections are rigged, it doesn't have anything to do with the voters.
Pretty sure if Massachusetts state level elections were rigged, the Democratic machine would be in control of them, and the results would look different than polls prior to the election, which they didn't.
I think your "something else is at play" statement is correct, more above.
Between now and Nov. you'll come to see the ramifications of that realization.
Sleep tight
4) The outcome of the election in Massachusetts was a sign that the people of Massachusetts felt their current system was far better than the Senate version that was being railroaded through Congress
5) The election was a mandate on something else altogether, for example the Democrats unholy alliance with Lobbyists and Big Corporations
Leaving out the more obvious answers makes the test harder to pass!
The opportunity to get in the way of the Demos in DC by virtue of a dramatic vote in
MA was too big for all sorts of interests to pass up, and the Demo response was
too feeble. And Coakley is 'The School Marm' while Brown is 'Studley Do-Right'.
Could it be this is a vast left-wing plot to get Sarah Pailin' out of the headlines for good?
It was certainly the Supreme Court Five who opened the door to Corporate
domination of campaigns.