Why Buffalo Springfield lyrics, you may ask? Well, ladies and gentlemen, here’s why: in the great state of Massachusetts, a reliable bastion of progressive liberalism, a Republican has won the seat of liberal icon Theodore Kennedy. Longtime state senator Scott Brown defeated state Attorney General Martha Coakley by a margin of 52%-47%, with about 97% of districts reporting.This is especially shocking considering this was deemed almost impossible a mere month ago, when Coakley held a commanding lead in polls. However, early in the month momentum shifted to the moderate Republican, and he never looked back.
How, you may ask, was a Republican able to run close to a Democrat in Massachusetts, much less achieve convincing victory? The answer, honestly, is that it is mostly the fault of Martha Coakely herself. When early polls showed her achieving a landslide over Senator Brown, the Coakley campaign literally did nothing. No door to door efforts or even calling was initiated, and Coakely barely spoke at any events. Brown,on the other hand, did not back down from the insurmountable challenge and blew full steam ahead. He organized and spoke at campaign event after campaign event, and made known to the people of Massachusetts that if elected, he would be the 41st vote against the unpopular sweeping healthcare reform proposed in Congress, which Senator Kennedy had fought for for years. This allowed him to generate a lot of momentum going into the first debate,
In this debate is where Brown made his biggest impression, by quipping that he was running not for Ted Kennedy’s seat, or even the Democrat’s seat, but for the seat of the people of Massachusetts. This populist statement won him much support from Independents, especially after Coakely’s poor performance, made worse by her being caught watching one of her aides literally maul a reporter to the ground. After this, Senator Brown received huge boosts in funding from his new national attention, and began to pull close or ahead in many polls. Finally, near the end of the campaign, nearly every polling outlet had Brown ahead, and not even intervention from President Obama and former President Clinton could help Coakley in the end.
Inevitably, we must ask now, what does this mean for the aforementioned health care bill? This answer is not so simple. If Congress correctly decides to seat Brown within a few days, he will certainly vote against the bill, and the Republicans will surely filibuster, which according to fellow Massachusetts politician Barney Frank, would effectively kill the bill. If the Democrats go for the “nuclear option”, however, they will likely pass it, but then also likely face huge repercussions in 10 months. So, essentially, Congress is presented with a damed if you do, damed if you don’t scenario. What happens in these next few days will likely be even more important to predicting the health of the healthcare bill and the Democratic majority than this election was.
