Brown wins Massachusetts Race

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Brown wins Massachusetts Race
65
Wed, 01-20-2010 - 9:48am

Scott Brown Victory a 'Repudiation' of Obama, Health Care?


Republicans, Democrats Spar on Meaning of Massachusetts Race

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/scott-brown-defeat-coakley-means-obama/story?id=9609602


In the wake of Republican Scott Brown's stunning defeat of Democrat Martha Coakley in the race to replace the late Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, the debate has begun about what the outcome means for President Obama and Democrats nationwide.


Brown won 52 percent of voters to Coakley's 47 percent in Tuesday's special Senate election. Coakley, the state attorney general, had a 30-point lead three months ago.


Republicans believe a win in the bluest of blue states, where a Republican had not been elected to the U.S. Senate since 1972, amounts to a popular rebuke of the president's agenda.


"There's been a pattern here that began last spring and the administration has refused to acknowledge what the people out across the country have been saying," GOP chairman Michael Steele said on "Good Morning America" today.


"For the Democrats, this is clearly not the change they expected, but it's certainly the change the people of Massachusetts -- like the people in New Jersey and Virginia -- wanted," Steele said.


Steele called the outcome in Massachusetts a "repudiation" of Democrats' health care overhaul legislation pending in Congress, saying 41 Republican votes in the Senate now effectively kills the bill in its current form. Democrats needed to retain 60 votes to prevent a Republican filibuster.


"Start from scratch. Start by listening to the people," Steele advised his Democratic colleagues on health care.


For his part, Brown had campaigned in opposition to the Obama health care proposal, saying he would vote against the bill if elected.


"One thing is very, very clear as I travelled throughout the state," Brown, a lawyer and former model, said in his acceptance speech last night. "People do not want the trillion-dollar heath care plan that is being forged."


But many Democrats rebutted the notion that Brown's victory is a major statement on Obama and the Democrat's legislative agenda, including health care overhaul.


"We won the House and Senate in 2006, we won the White House in 2008. ... People sent the unmistakable message they wanted change. We have to deliver on that," former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said on 'GMA.'


"The Republicans have chosen their path: they are doing the bidding of insurance companies, just as they're going to do with big banks as it relates to financial reform. We have a good health care plan ? and we need to pass that," Plouffe said.



Obama's Reaction to Brown Win?

The White House has previously deflected suggestions that a Brown victory would amount to a referendum on the Obama presidency, vowing to move ahead on its agenda.


"I think there's a tremendous amount of upset and anger in this country about where we are economically," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Tuesday.


Asked whether he believed Americans are now attaching that frustration with Washington to Obama, Gibbs said, "I think there is certainly some attachment to us."


Still, the administration and many Democrats plan to continue pursuing their agenda "full speed ahead."


Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday night the loss of the 60-vote majority will not change the Democrats' priorities.


"While Senator-elect Brown's victory changes the political math in the Senate, we remain committed to strengthening our economy, creating good paying jobs and ensuring all Americans can access affordable health care," Reid said in a statement. "We hope that Scott Brown will join us in these efforts. There is much work to do to address the problems Democrats inherited last year, and we plan to move full speed ahead."


Although Democrats no longer have the votes needed to thwart a Republican filibuster, they maintain the largest Senate majority either party has enjoyed since 1979 and still have the ability to pass legislation through reconciliation, a process that bypasses normal Senate rules by only requiring 50 votes.



What's Next for Health Care Reform

Brown has said he opposes Democrats' health care overhaul working its way through Congress, leaving Democrats scrambling to develop contingency plans for the bill's passage.


Several congressional sources say reconciliation or, forcing legislation though on a simple majority is off the table because it would mean having to start over and could risk losing some Democratic moderates, which in turn could cost Democrats the bill altogether. But a few Democrats have suggested reconciliation is be a viable option.


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters Monday, "Let's remove all doubt, we will have health care -- one way or another."


Another option: The House could pass the Senate version of the health care bill verbatim, which would send the legislation to the president's desk without protracted negotiations.


"Whether there are 59 seats in the Senate or 60, we still have to work hard to get our economy back on track. We still have to work hard to make the promise of affordable, accessible health care for millions of Americans a reality," Gibbs said Tuesday.


Meanwhile, public support for the president and Democrats' plan to overhaul the health care system continues to wane.


In the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, 51 percent of Americans said they oppose health care overhaul efforts, with only 44 percent in favor.


At its peak, in September and again in November, 30 percent of Americans "strongly" backed the proposed changes. With the plan still undergoing modifications, that has dropped to 22 percent, a new low. Substantially more, 39 percent, are "strongly" opposed, a number that's held steadier.



The Newest Senate Republican

Brown, 50, will become the 41st Republican in the Senate after he's sworn in in the coming days.


The state senator, lawyer and former model is married to Gail Huff, a reporter at the Boston ABC affiliate and former co-host of a parenting show on the Lifetime television network, and has a daughter, Ayla, who was a semi-finalist on American Idol in 2006.


Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin said he would notify the Senate on Wednesday that Brown had been elected, even though he had said earlier it could take more than two weeks to certify the special election results.


Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Tuesday that Brown would be seated "as soon as the proper paperwork has been received."


A delay could give Democrats time to try to push through final passage of Obama's health care plan, though some have suggested Brown's victory should put the process on hold.


"In many ways the campaign in Massachusetts became a referendum not only on health care reform but also on the openness and integrity of our government process," Virginia Democrat Sen. Jim Webb said in a statement.


"To that end, I believe it would only be fair and prudent that we suspend further votes on health care legislation until Senator-elect Brown is seated."



GOP Says Brown's Senate Victory Sends a Message to Obama

While the many Democrats deny that the Massachusetts race is a preview of what's to come in the November general election, Republicans say the symbolism of Brown's victory is hard to deny.


"As we look forward to the midterm elections this November, Democrats nationwide should be on notice: Americans are ready to hold the party in power accountable for their irresponsible spending and out-of-touch agenda, and they're ready for real change in Washington," National Republican Campaign Committee chairman John Cornyn said after Brown's victory.


Massachusetts, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than three to one, has long been a Democratic stronghold, sending two Democratic senators to Washington for each of the past 31 years.


The last time a Republican senator was elected in Massachusetts was November 1972, when Sen. Edward Brooke won the coveted seat.


Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., the chairman of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee said the message voters sent in Brown's victory was not lost on the party.


"I have no interest in sugar coating what happened in Massachusetts," Menendez said. "There is a lot of anxiety in the country right now. Americans are understandably impatient. The truth is Democrats understand the economic anger voters feel, that's in large part why we did well in 2006 and 2008.


"In the days ahead, we will sort through the lessons of Massachusetts: the need to redouble our efforts on the economy, the need to show that our commitment to real change is as powerful as it was in 2008, and the reality that we cannot take a single thing for granted and cannot afford even a second of complacency."

 


    Photobucket


        The WeatherPixie


  Patriot

 


Photobucket&nbs

Pages

Community Leader
Registered: 04-05-2002
Thu, 01-21-2010 - 8:46am

"I think if Obama had come in with well-formed plans for the needs of America we would be seeing things taking shape by now. I think he has vision and good ideas; but because his plans aren't solid enough they've been ripped apart by opposing sides. I think it's incredibly counter-productive and unprofessional for our government to be at its own throat, waging a Hatfield/McCoy feud that is simply dragging the rest of us down in the dirt, too. "

I think Obama does have good plans but it's ripped apart by others and he tries too hard to find a middle ground and ends up pleasing no one. That's one part of the analysis paralysis that I mentioned. He has to realize that the GOP for the most part will tear down anything he presents. The government is no longer one of solutions but one where they're ready to shoot down anything the other side has to offer. I think most of us have been in productive meetings where people pull together to come up with a viable plan, each building on the other's ideas until something good comes to fruition and to counterproductive meetings where people are only interested in making others look bad and in CYA. Congress to the nth degree. As Lincoln said, a house divided...











iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2008
Thu, 01-21-2010 - 10:28am
From what I've heard Brown did indeed invoke the me and mine position. His message was that Massachusetts had implemented much of what liberals had wanted, and he didn't think it was right for his state to pay the bills for the other 49. That is the job of a Senator, to advocate for his/her state. Too many Senators forget this.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Thu, 01-21-2010 - 10:53am

I agree it counter-productive & unprofessional for our elected officials to create this tensions between the parties instead of buckling down to work.


>"Obama appealed to the voters' bottom-dollar hope that a new face in the White House would reverse the tide of misery. He did not have to offer specific promises: he only needed to give the voters the opportunity to kid themselves, which they were eager to do considering the unpleasant taste of the alternative.

The electorate is like Archilochus' hedgehog, which knows one big thing, rather than the fox, which knows many things, in the classical aphorism cited by Russian-British philosopher and historian, Sir Isaiah Berlin. In 2008, the voters knew that the capital gains and home equity cushion gleaned during the Ronald Reagan boom were at risk, and that the likes of presidential candidate John McCain as well as former candidate, now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, would not make things different. A vote for Obama under these circumstances had no downside from the vantage point of the ordinary household, and they held out the hope that Obama actually might have a magic wand up his sleeve. The voters were not entirely misguided, for the current economic situation almost certainly would have been just as bad under a McCain administration."<


Segment from.........

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Thu, 01-21-2010 - 11:04am

"Obama does have good plans but it's ripped apart by others and he tries too hard to find a middle ground and ends up pleasing no one. That's one part of the analysis paralysis that I mentioned. He has to realize that the GOP for the most part will tear down anything he presents."


You've said it in a nutshell.

 


Photobucket&nbs

Community Leader
Registered: 04-05-2002
Thu, 01-21-2010 - 11:43am
Screw America as long as my state is fine.





iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2008
Thu, 01-21-2010 - 1:20pm

I am a big believer in our Constitution.

Others don't put much stock in it I guess.

The Senate exists to represent states and state sovereignty. It also treats each state as an equal sovereign entity. Now if we could only get some of our other Senators to take their jobs seriously .....

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-06-2003
Thu, 01-21-2010 - 3:12pm

This IS an excellent article.

Community Leader
Registered: 04-05-2002
Thu, 01-21-2010 - 6:48pm

"The Senate exists to represent states and state sovereignty. It also treats each state as an equal sovereign entity. "

Hence the barreling of useless expensive pork that congress brings back to benefit their own states at the expense of the rest of the country. I wonder if McCain who admirably tried to stop that realized it was their constitutional right and he was preventing it. Again, about "me and mine", not about what's best for the country.











iVillage Member
Registered: 03-30-2007
Thu, 01-21-2010 - 7:58pm
Well, I figured out a way for the Democrat's to stop this "Just say No" from the Republicans. Let get the writers of that Defense of Marriage Bill to write the new bills. That way No means Yes or was it the other way around?
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-17-2009
Thu, 01-21-2010 - 9:58pm

((And it's a shame that the Republicans have worked diligently to destroy that. It is they who have stood in the way and/or worked to bring down anything that might possibly have had a chance of making things better for the average person.))

Can you give specific examples of what, exactly, the Republicans brought down or destroyed?

Pages