Voter Ire Against Democrats Evident in Mass. Race

[bonnie]

Voter Ire Against Democrats Evident in Mass. Race

Saturday, 16 Jan 2010 03:06 PM

newsmax.com

The ill winds of an angry electorate are blowing against Democrats, the warning signs clear in a closer-than-expected Massachusetts Senate race that may doom President Barack Obama's healthcare agenda and foreshadow the party's election prospects this fall.

Anti-incumbent, anti-establishment sentiment is rampant. Independents are leaving Obama. Republicans are energized. Democrats are subdued. None of it bodes well for the party in power.

"It's going to be a hard November for Democrats," Howard Dean, the Democratic Party chairman in the 2006 and 2008 elections when the party took control of the White House and Congress, told The Associated Press in an interview. "Our base is demoralized."

While he praised Obama as a good president, Dean said the Democrat hasn't turned out to be the "change agent" the party thought it elected, and voters who supported Democrats in back-to-back elections now are turned off. Said Dean: "They really thought the revolution was at hand but it wasn't, and now they're getting the back of the hand."

Just how much voters have soured since Obama took over a country in chaos is reflected in the president's late-game decision to rush to Massachusetts on Sunday to try to stave off an extraordinary Republican upset in the race for a Senate seat held by Democrats for more than half a century.

Obama faced a no-win situation as he pondered whether to campaign with Democrat Martha Coakley. Had he decided against going, he would have enraged the base and been blamed if she lost. But a Coakley defeat following a presidential visit would be embarrassing, raising questions about Obama's popularity and political muscle.

Once heavily favored to cruise to victory, Coakley is in a tight fight with Republican Scott Brown, a little-known state senator, for the race to fill the seat left vacant when Sen. Edward M. Kennedy died.

Losing the race would cost the Democrats their 60-vote coalition in the Senate. The president has been relying on that big edge to stop Republican filibusters and pass not only his healthcare overhaul but also the rest of his legislative agenda heading into the first elections since he took office.

A Suffolk University poll released late Thursday showed Brown with 50 percent of the vote and Coakley with 46 percent. The survey indicated that Brown's supporters — a mix of disaffected Democrats, a large number of Republicans and a majority of independents — are far more enthusiastic than Coakley's backers.

Voters are down on Washington. They are deeply divided over the healthcare plan in Congress and a majority thinks the country is on the wrong track. Nearly all remain anxious about the prolonged recession even though there are signs of recovery. Only about half approve of Obama's job performance. Excessive spending and big government irk them. They've lost faith in institutions.

It was that same brew that helped Republican Chris Christie topple Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine in New Jersey, and Republican Bob McDonnell overtake Democrat Creigh Deeds in Virginia. Those victories coupled with Tuesday's vote in Massachusetts have Republicans and Democrats alike predicting a good GOP year in 2010 and a tough one for Democrats.

Democrats are likely to be punished more because they hold power. But the GOP also is feeling the effects, as seen in the "tea party" movement whose followers are challenging establishment candidates in primaries nationwide.

"Washington is just not in touch," Dean said. And now, he said, the tables have turned: "Republicans are unified against Democrats the way we were against them when Bush was president."

In the country at large, a new Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor survey found that the public's yearslong shift against institutions is in overdrive, fueling anti-establishment sentiment. It also showed that Obama has lost his luster — his job performance rating is at 47 percent — amid a belief that his administration's response to the recession has favored the wealthy and powerful over the middle class and average families.

The survey showed that people have little trust in any institution. They gave bottom-barrel ratings to government, major corporations, and financial entities. Many people say the country is heading the wrong way, levels similar to those during the George W. Bush years.

All that adds up to a warning for Democratic candidates — for politicians of any stripes, for that matter.

Passing Obama's legislative priorities would become much more difficult with fewer seats. If Coakley does poorly but ekes out a victory, moderate Democrats in Congress may think twice about falling in lockstep behind the White House.

The public's mood also could scare off establishment Democrats considering entering races, such as Beau Biden for Delaware's open Senate seat, or cause vulnerable Democratic incumbents, including Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, to retire.

Brown, a little-known Republican state senator with a limited record who had never before run statewide, shed his party markings and downplayed his conservative credentials throughout the monthlong campaign. He spent weeks campaigning not just against Coakley but against Capitol Hill.

He cast himself as a man of the people, fighting for them: "It's not the Kennedy seat. And it's not the Democrats' seat. It's the people's seat."

Coakley, the state's attorney general, comes right out of the establishment and has embraced her stature within the party. She has run a Rose Garden strategy, largely shunned retail politics, and dashed to Washington for an oh-so-insider fundraiser.

Now, with the race tight in its final days, Coakley's trying to appeal to an anti-Washington, pro-populism electorate by seizing the fight-for-the-little-guy mantle in hopes of thwarting a Republican victory. The White House and Coakley are hammering Brown for opposing Obama's just-announced plan to tax large Wall Street firms.

"I'm standing with Main Street on this one. Scott Brown stands with Wall Street," Coakley charged.

"There's only one candidate in this race who's a tax cutter — and it's not Martha Coakley," countered Brown, unwilling to cede his advantage among the angry electorate.

[Guest]

Brown, Brown, he's our man,

If he can't do it, nobody can!

[Dr. Shane]

I would expect Newsmax to slant the story a bit. I am interested to see how things turn out.

[karl]

Tell me what you think about this blog from redstate.com:

Quote:

From Blanche Lincoln to Ben Nelson to Evan Bayh, they are privately praying Scott Brown cleans Martha Coakley’s clock.

Now they won’t admit it in public, but they know if Brown wins, the odds that they’ll be able to smother Obamacare in its crib go up significantly.

For months Rahm Emanuel, Bill Clinton, and a host of conventional wisdom talking heads on the news networks and in the op-ed page of the Washington Post have been saying that 1994 happened because the Democrats did not pass health care deform then. It has become the working hypothesis for Democrat leaders and has been used repeatedly to get Democrat votes for Obamacare.

They say that if the Democrats were to pass health care deform now, it will inspire the Democrat base and get people motivated to go to the polls.

Well, here we have Massachusetts, a state that is overwhelmingly Democrat and has its own version of Obamacare already, and the voters appears to be breaking toward the Republican who has pledged to vote against Obamacare.

If Brown even pulls close to Coakley — he does not have to win in a state so overwhelmingly filled with Democrats — it will be a clarion call that Rahm’s working hypothesis is fatuous nonsense as most of us already know.

With Obamacare hanging in the balance and Massachusetts voters deciding if it will pass or fail, you would think if Rahm’s hypothesis is true, the overwhelmingly Democrat oriented voters of Massachusetts would be beating down the door for Martha Coakley.

But they aren’t. Lincoln, Bayh, Nelson and many of the House Blue Dogs already know this because they are going home to angry voters opposed, regardless of party, to this health care plan. They know if Brown wins, they may be spared a vote and, consequently, defeat in November.

[bonnie]

I would expect Newsmax to slant the story a bit. I am interested to see how things turn out.

Then read all the others. Maybe they are all slanting the same story.

I expect if Brown wins it is going to be a small amount to be recounted till they get the counting right.

Like MN did with Franken. Those democrat dead people just wouldn't stay dead in 11 counties.They insisted on being counted and finally were.

Our most popular bumper sticker for Franken was Vote for Franken,he is a crook but he is our crook.

No matter how it ends up I still expect a health care bill to be passed one way or another

[phkrause]

Nothing is a done deal. And living here in Mass I can see that all these story's are most definitely spinning things. I have not seen or heard or experienced any of this in the streets of Mass. Sure everyone is talking about this and that but not one person is concerned one way or the other. All I know from reading about the two candidates that Coakley is much more for the people than Brown. At least from my persective. Anyway for me it doesn't matter. They both have no real care for the people of Mass let alone the country. Just another two politicains that run there mouth and than just do what there parties dictate.

pk

[Woody]

I say ... let's boot them all out and start over. What do you say pk?

[phkrause]

I say ... let's boot them all out and start over. What do you say pk?

That's probably the best idea yet. But I do know that that is very unrealistic. These will change once this life on earth comes to an end and he comes to get his children. Until than I guess we have to put up with all of this.

pk

[bonnie]

It is starting already. Those pesky dead people in Mass just won't stay dead. 116,000 dead have voted.

If this is not a big win for Brown it will be count and recount until the numbers are what they want to see.

Wonder if the dead that resurrected in MN for Franken moved to Mass

[karl]

From USNews:

Seeing President Barack Obama reverse course and make a last minute/last ditch effort to save the Coakley campaign brings back memories of November, when Obama put his prestige and political capital on the line in an unsuccessful attempt to save the gubernatorial campaigns of New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine and Virginia’s Creigh Deeds.

Combined, those two elections were a stinging rebuke of the Obama Agenda–higher taxes, government control of health care and out of control spending. Since November, Obama’s poll numbers have only fallen. Coupled with the “perfect storm” that is Martha Coakley’s candidacy–a bad candidate running a bad campaign in a bad year for Democrats–and it may be shocking, but not altogether surprising that Scott Brown is in a position to win.

There are two basic unwritten rules in Massachusetts: don’t insult Catholics and don’t insult the Red Sox. They’re unwritten because it was unconceivable that any candidate would break them. Yet Coakley has managed to do both–suggesting Catholics should not work in emergency rooms, disparaging Fenway Park and picking a fight with Curt Schilling that resulted in the Red Sox hero joining Brown on the campaign trail.

Coakley’s missteps, astonishing though they are, are really a sideshow to the larger issue of the effect Obama’s declining poll numbers have on Democratic candidates. When in a short three-month period Republicans win in New Jersey and are in a position to win in Massachusetts that translates into an environment absolutely poisonous for Democrats.

Reports have talked about a lack of enthusiasm in Coakley supporters compared to Scott Brown’s campaign–so choked with volunteers and money (Brown has raised more than $1 million every day last week) it can’t use them all. Regardless of tomorrow’s results, that this campaign has become a real race depresses Democratic enthusiasm, especially in key races. After Massachusetts, will Organizing for America volunteers be more or less likely to walk precincts and make GOTV phone calls for embattled Democrats? Will potential Democratic donors be more or less likely to open up their checkbooks on a campaign they’re just not sure about? Will Democrats in conservative and swing districts say “thanks, but no thanks” to offers of an Obama campaign stop?

Thus, in a sense, Brown’s campaign has already been successful. He’s campaigned on the Republican platform against an establishment Democrat–elected in 2007 with a whopping 73% of the vote–and is neck and neck in the polls. Win or lose, the Massachusetts Senate race demonstrates the political albatross the Obama agenda has become, especially with independents and disillusioned Obama voters.

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article url: http://www.usnews.com/blogs/doug-heye/20...-albatross.html

[karl]

I actually am beginning to hope that the populace of the US has awakened to the fact that socialists have hijacked the halls of power. It certainly seems that way, with this close a race in a state where socialist (liberal) dominance of politics is legend. Almost 100% of elected officials in Massachusetts are Democrat. Even if Brown doesn't win, I'm thinking this is huge. Hoping, anyway.

[bonnie]

I actually am beginning to hope that the populace of the US has awakened to the fact that socialists have hijacked the halls of power. It certainly seems that way, with this close a race in a state where socialist (liberal) dominance of politics is legend. Almost 100% of elected officials in Massachusetts are Democrat. Even if Brown doesn't win, I'm thinking this is huge. Hoping, anyway.

I expect it to get ugly if it is a close win for Brown. Heard on the radio that the democrats were filing a complaint as to "dirty tricks" in the election. Only problem is the date was yesterday on the memo.

[bonnie]

BONNIE

WELL I am sure the Attorny General wil put

out all the stops she can

dgrimm60

They announced on the news just now that the attorney for Al Franken and his election challenge is on his way to Mass just in case he is needed.

Perfect guy for the job,he has previous ties to acorn.

[Guest]

Scott Brown WINS!!!!

[abelisle]

This is my take on this. I think we have seen this coming for a long time now. This event is the cusp of the paradigm shift in American politics as to how the American voter sees partisan politics. People are fed up with partisan party politics.

They are voting for candidates who understand their plight and will meet their needs. Scott Brown ran a smart campaign, identifying himself most strongly with the Independents and keeping a sharp focus on what he stood for. I personally may not agree with him but I respect him. The Republican party can learn a lot from him as to how he ran his campaign, especially in the arena of local politics.

This is a good thing for Obama. It forces him to take on a more moderate partisan stance and it teaches the Democratic party that they need both stronger candidates and better run campaigns. Considering the fact that Brown didn't have a party machine backing him up, he did very well.

The American people (in Mass. anyway) have just sent out a powerful message. Meet our needs first, worry about your party agenda later.

Alex (there's a new day coming - just what will it bring?)

[Guest]

HEY ALL

THE news is saying BROWN is the winner

dgrimm60

That's right dgrimm!!

You're a little slow on the draw there DG.

[Guest]

THAT'S RIGHT DGRIMM!!

HAHAHAHAHA HEHEHEHEHE HOHOHOHOHO

[karl]

This is a good thing for Obama. It forces him to take on a more moderate partisan stance ...

The American people (in Mass. anyway) have just sent out a powerful message. Meet our needs first, worry about your party agenda later.

I predict that Obama won't become moderate.

I think he believes he is the ruler of the world. He will continue trying to ram unpopular things down the throats of Americans because he honestly believes that he knows best and that if he tries hard enough he can make us believe it.

Look at what he did in the presidential election. His victory was nothing short of miraculous. A virtual unknown with almost no legislative experience and THE MOST LIBERAL VOTING RECORD. Elected POTUS, no less.

I'll bet he thinks he can still pull stuff like that off.

We need to make sure he can't. Our very lives may depend on it, and most certainly our freedoms do.

[Guest]

Amen Karl!

[Woody]

Yes. There is much ire against the current Admin of Obama. That is very evident. One year ago ... I predicted that the next election would be a whopper. And I am no prophet. But just watch.

[Woody]

HAPPY NEW YEAR folks. What a way to start the year.

[karl]

KARL

yes I am sure that OBAMA and congress will keep

pushing for his agenda

NANCY POLASKI said she will get a health care bill passed

dgrimm60

POLASKI - is that some kind of personal watercraft or maybe some new parabolic snow-play gear?