The Long Crisis

Posts Tagged ‘Massachusetts senator’

Today is an extremely important day for Democrats in Massachusetts, and for that matter across the nation. Within just a few hours the results of the Senate race between Democrat Martha Coakley and Republican Scott Brown, a former Cosmo nude model of all things, will be known. The political upset of the last century may be in the making.

Democrats now are operating under the assumption that Democrat Martha Coakley will lose today’s election in Massachusetts to fill Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat. In the debate over how Democrats could possibly lose the race — which has major repercussions for President Obama’s agenda — Coakley herself is taking more and more of the blame. Some Democrats and liberals aren’t waiting for the polls to close to turn against Coakley and her campaign.

Ted Kennedy occupied the Massachusetts Senate seat for more than 40 years. Sen. Kennedy was at the head of a political juggernaut machine in Massachusetts. When former Atty. Gen. Martha Coakley won the Democratic primary election it was believed by most political observers that she would be a shoe in to win the general election. After all, Scott Brown was basically a throwaway candidate. The Republican powers that be in Massachusetts did not want to sacrifice a leading candidate to a race that they felt was not winnable. So initially, Scott Brown was not expected to even come close to winning the election, much less becoming a Republican senator in a heavily Democratic district of the state.

Should Martha Coakley lose the Democratic Senate seat the implications for president Obama and his agenda will be profound. The Democrats would lose their 60 vote cram down margin in the Senate and would likely lose their ability to pass even the present health care legislation. In addition, losing Ted Kennedy’s former Senate seat would put every incumbent Democrat on notice that they to are at risk for the 2010 and 2012 election cycle.

In fact, many political pundits would go so far as to say that the loss of the Democratic Massachusetts Senate seat would be the beginning of the end for not only president Obama’s aggressive agenda, but would signal that many American voters are absolutely angry at the direction that the country has been taking under the Obama administration.

While many Democrats will point the finger at Martha Coakley for running a poor campaign the reasons for her loss, should she lose, probably run deeper than that. The poor economy and the seemingly control of the Obama administration by the hated bankers, the fear and resentment surrounding Obama’s health care bill, the bail out of AIG, the bail out of the automobile industry, and a general feeling that president Obama has fallen far short of keeping his campaign promises are all indicators that the Democrats have dropped the ball and stand to lose big time in the midterm elections.

It is about four in the afternoon as I write this article. I expect that by nine o’clock or so this evening the results of the Massachusetts election for Ted Kennedy’s former Senate seat will be known. For team Obama and all Democrats the next few hours must be nervous ones indeed. A Republican upset in Massachusetts will invigorate a struggling Republican party. In fact, president Obama may become one of the earliest lame duck presidents on record.

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