Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Massachussetts and Health Care

The state of Massachussets elects a new senator to replace Ted Kennedy today. The most liberal state in America could elect a Republican, and they could thus yet bring down Obama's health care bill, riding as it does on the 1 seat 'super-majority' that the Democracts currently have in the Senate.

This is no humdrum election, and the fall-out will be considerable, even if the allegedly 'lacklustre' Democrat candidate, Martha Coackly, does manage to pull a win out of the bag. There is no way she is going to 'win big', and so the questioning of just how Obama has lost his liberal majority so quickly will be up and running across the political nation.

Andrew Sullivan is convinced the Republican - Steve Brown - will win; he also references this comment from New Republic's Jonathan Chait about what to do if Coakley loses today. The mid-terms are in November, but today faces President Obama with his first electoral test since his own election.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Scott" Brown, not Steve Brown.

In any case, even if the Democrats lose this election, they can always use the 'nuclear option', rather than to kowtow to the Republican moderates.

Giles Marshall said...

Thanks for the name correction - if he's going to be a senator I should really get that right!!

Anonymous said...

Another thing that needs to be added to this article is his cosmopolitan picture. Obviously.

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