Massachusetts Senate Race Has Got Dems Scrambling

We sure live in an interesting time.

Massachusetts' special election on January 19 to fill the Senate seat of Ted Kennedy is turning out to be a "make or break" deal for the administration's health care "reform".

Scott Brown, the Republican candidate who trailed the Democratic candidate Martha Coakley by as much as 34 points in November, is now ahead in a poll by 4 points.

There are 60 Democrats in the Senate, one of them is the interim Senator from Massachusetts. If Mr. Brown wins, Democrats will lose super-majority in the Senate. And so the scramble has begun.

First, it was Secretary of State William Galvin, Massachusetts' top election official, who said on Wednesday certifying the election results could take weeks. (This, by the way, is the same official who was quite willing to bend the state's certification rule in 2007 so that the fellow Democrat could be quickly swear in to override the presidential veto.) During those "weeks", the Democratic interim Senator would be in the Senate, ready to vote for the health care "reform" bill.

Then, it was announced on Friday that President Obama, who had avoided campaigning for Coakley, would go to Massachusetts on Sunday to try to revive the Coakley's campaign which is described here as "the bottom fell out".

Then, as expected by many opponents of the health care bill, Chris van Hollen, a top Democrat in the House declared that the Senate could use "reconciliation" to pass the bill with a simple majority of only 51, despite the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's pledge in November that he wouldn't use the reconciliation process for the health care bill.

51% of people in Massachusetts oppose health care bill as proposed by the Obama administration and the Dem Congress. Nationally, 55% oppose (45% strongly oppose) vs 40% favor (19% strongly favor), even though 54% are resigned to the eventual passage of the bill. (Source: Rasmussen Report on health care reform, 1/11/2010)

I'm curious to see if the president can turn the Coakley's campaign around. Democrats must be hoping that his failed Chicago Olympic bid, his Asian tour that achieved little to nothing other than producing tons of carbon dioxide, and Copenhagen snub by China and India (and Russia too, by the way) are just aberrations.

This from Mish Shedlock's post "Massachusetts Upset in the Making":

I have no particular love for Brown. Nor do I hold any for Coakley. However, I am certainly tired of the Obama agenda. Bear in mind I hated the Bush agenda, too. I am probably doomed to be unhappy with presidents of either party.

I want a fiscal conservative, small government, small military, mind our own business agenda. That is the Libertarian platform but they seldom have a chance.

I voted for Ron Paul (a Libertarian currently masquerading as a Republican).. Nonetheless, I thought Obama would do some things right. I thought wrong. I have agreed with almost nothing he has done.

Right now, the way to stop his agenda cold turkey (and cold turkey seems to be the only thing clowns from either party understand), is to cram a vote down their faces.

A vote for Brown is a vote that will without a doubt a message down President Obama's throat that he better change his tune or he will be a one-term flash in the pan.

I say, send that message.

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