No Wonder He Won...

This was a campaign ad for Scott Brown, who will be be seated tomorrow as the Massachusetts Senator.

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Scott Brown Won Because GOP Stayed Out

This cartoon on Boston Globe cannot be more inaccurate.

One, GOP didn't do much at all to have Scott Brown elected. And two, it is a wish by many liberals and progressives to portray the so-called "tea party" as controlled by the extreme right wing of GOP. It's amusing how they spit the word "teabaggers", usually with a snear, at anyone who opposes their dear leader, but it is just their wish nonetheless.

(And remember, the Red Coats and loyalists threw the word "Yankee Doodle" at the rag-tag army who dared defy their dear leader, the British Crown.)

11.4% of the registered voters in Massachusetts are Republicans and 37% Democrats. The majority, 51% believe or not, of registered voters are not affiliated with either party - in other words, independents. (Read this pre-election Boston Globe article.) Scott Brown won by winning them.

Republican National Committee didn't even bother campaigning for the guy because until about a week ago he was no doubt considered by the Committee to be a lost cause. A Republican taking the seat that was occupied by Ted Kennedy for over 4 decades? Not a chance.

Scott Brown won because GOP stayed out of the race. Let that be a lesson for the GOP leadership. He ran, as far as I gather, on a libertarian platform: smaller government and fiscal responsibility. GOP didn't bother to spend money on him until the last week, when the turn of the tide became noticeable even for the party leadership.Then it scrambled to claim Brown as their champion. That was funny to watch.

Many of Ron Paul supporters seem to be dismayed, with one supporter saying "Scott Brown is a pro-Torture, pro-War, pro-PoliceState, pro-ForeignOccupation, pro-DroneAttack, pro-CIA Neocon shill and hack."

That may be, I do not know, frankly. Those discriptions equally apply to the defeated Democratic candidate, as she embraces Obama's policies.

But that's not really the point. The point is that Brown has proven that someone can be elected to office without the traditional party apparatus. Brown was supported by the grass-roots "tea party" people. As Christian Science Monitor called it, it was "the tea party's first electoral victory", a party that is not even a party, really. That should scare Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

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Boston Tea Party

says Drudge headline.

Martha Coakley conceded the election to Scott Brown.

Scott Brown: 52%
Martha Coakley: 47%

with 79% of precincts open.

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Intrade Update on Massachusetts Election

Brown increasing the lead....

(By the way, there will be no exit polls for this election.)

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Massachusetts Senate Race: Voting Has Begun

And finger-pointing has already started among Democrats over this special election for the Senate seat. Some pollsters are even expecting a double-digit loss, while the Democratic supporters are hoping their candidate will somehow pull through.

Finger-pointing begins for Democratic insiders (1/19/2010 Politico)

"CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — As voters head to the polls in Massachusetts, nervous Democrats have already begun to blame one another for putting at risk the Senate seat Ted Kennedy held for more than 40 years.

"Many angry Democrats blame their candidate, state Attorney General Martha Coakley, for running a sluggish campaign that let Republican Scott Brown set the contours of the race.
Some Democratic strategists lay the fault at the feet of President Barack Obama, saying he should have done more to sell the party’s agenda. [I'm not so sure it would have helped. It may have further backfired.]

"And in private conversations, Hill sources say White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has blamed Coakley, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Democratic pollster Celinda Lake for failing to see Brown’s surge in time to stop it." (The article continues.)

Should Democrats lose Massachusetts in today's election, it will have been because of independent voters, just like the governor races in Virginia and New Jersey:

"“We lost independents in Virginia, we lost independents in New Jersey and we’re losing independents in Massachusetts,” said one Democratic campaign strategist. “The only thing those three states have in common is Obama.”"

Boston's Democratic machine, just as entrenched as that of Chicago, could still produce miracles. We'll see. It seems the entire country is watching, including traders on the stock exchanges...

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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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