The president is going to campaign for Coakley on Sunday.
This seems like a huge gamble to me. He couldn’t help Deeds or Corzine, and it seems like his going to save health care is going to just make things worse, because that’s a large part of her problem. Brown has made it the issue of the race, and if Obama can’t pull this out, he’ll be politically impotent going into November. Of course, he put himself into this box by promising Dems that he’d support them in exchange for coralling their votes, so maybe he has no choice.
To quote Rush Limbaugh, I hope he fails.
“Girl, you better check yourself before you wreck yourself!” – Glenn Beck.
That certainly puts an interesting twist on things. This seems to be more of the high stakes political gambling that Obama and the Democrat party have engaged in over the past half year. I wonder what the turnout for the election will be.
When did it become Democrat party? Just out of curiosity, I’ve seen that around a lot lately.
The bet of the local best political guru is that the only reason that Obama is coming up is that internal polling shows that they CAN push Coakley over the top by appealing to the urban African American/Hispanic vote the day before MLK day. That sector is not energized to vote now – the suburban middle class is, for Brown.
But if the President says,”you must vote for Coakley to continue the King legacy” it may be all over for Brown. Any possible Brown voters in this so-blue state are just about already in the Brown camp, and energized – they don’t have enough numbers left to counter increased Coakley turnout.
If it’s at all close, expect them to recount till till enough “found” votes add up that Brown loses, then stop. So yes, Obama only has to push up Af-Am turnout enough so it’s close.
cynically
Porkypine
P.S. – Obama doesn’t even have to push core Dem turnout up enough so the actual votes are close. He just has to push turnout up enough that the graveyard ballot totals from core city precincts aren’t totally laughably implausible.
I don’t agree with any of this, actually.
First, I think Coakley is down and Brown is up mostly for reasons that have very little to do with the national events. I don’t think it’s a referendum on health care, for the most part. Massachusetts voters understand Martha Coakley pretty well, and for quite a number of them, she stinks. She’s a vicious self-serving amoral shit, not to put too fine a point on it, who has (ab)used her position as prosecutor to destroy innocent lives and fail to do justice to the guilty. She’s a good loyal soldier for the Democrats, and that counts for something, but I think she may just stink a little too much for too many people to hold their nose and vote for her.
And Brown is a good alternative. He seems like a regular joe, he’s in the Guard, he’s got a good accent — genuine but not too broad — and he’s a genuine moderate Republican in the old Elliot Richardson and even JFK tradition. You just know he’d be in Fenway hooting for the Sox and ordering two with mustard. Coakley, not so much — she’d be hobnobbing with swells at a Hahvahd Medical School reception. Keep in mind Brown’s pro-choice on abortion, regards MassCare as a done deal, and has decent “green” credentials.
Indeed, if the party labels were switched, and sending Brown to Washington just confirmed the current Democratic majority, I suspect it would be Brown in a blow-out.
There’s certainly people, however, in Mass, who dislike the present Democratic overreach. Actually, I’d say nearly everybody except the real ideologues despises the current national Democratic overreach. So there is some addition to Brown’s numbers there, yes. Probably more than are lost by those who fear losing the Democratic dominance.
I also disagree Obama going there can tip it for Coakley. Mass voters are just about as likely to resent the intrusion as be motivated. They’re pretty independent-minded. That’s one reason Brown has been very careful to not try to call in any Republican big guns, and why the Democrats were hoping someone like Sarah Palin would weigh in on the race. Nor do I think it plausilble Mass voters are going to be powerfullly motivated to save ObamaCare. Keep in mind they already have MassCare. I doubt they’re seeing a nationalized version as a big change for Massachusetts, and they don’t care that it will totally change life in South Carolina or something. Furthermore, having lived under MassCare, and experienced (for example) the massive lines that always accompany socialist free-lunch schemes — I’ve read that the average time for an appointment to see a new doc in Boston now tops 50 days! — they’re a lot less keen on the concept than more naive folks nationwide. I believe the latest polls suggest only 35% or so of Mass voters think MassCare has been a success. Those are poor numbers.
So why is Obama going to Massachusetts? In part it could be because Team Obama are naive idiots. As Rand says, this could be another Copenhagen, another Corzine belly-flop. Generally, the media-hyped perception that Team Obama are super clever smooth political operators is not well-deserved.
But another point might be for Obama to signal to House and Senate Democrats who are getting nervous about their votes for ObamaCare that the President is committed to it — that he will back them up, when they need it, this fall. Obama’s reputation for throwing people under the bus is now well-established. There have to be moderate Democrats up for election this fall, presently in negotation in Congress over Obamacare, who are wondering whether the President is going to go to bat for them this fall. If he throws Coakley under the bus, they may start to worry — and bail out of those health-care negotations.
In short, Team Obama may have concluded that even if Coakley gets caulked, it make sense for Obama to be seen trying, to hearten the Democrats in Congress who are trying to ram healthcare through.
Plus it might just be sheer swagger. Obama’s from the South Side of Chicago. In those neighborhoods you never show weakness or irresolution, even if it means a refusal to negotiate when negotiation is in your best long-term interest. The tradition is you act like you’re invincible, all the time, even when that means you’re going to get flattened. It’s one reason so few struggles in Chicago are resolved by negotiation and compromise. Those are dirty words.
Good analysis from Carl. I think Obama does have to show he is willing to weigh in. However, I also think he believes he CAN pull it out, and the only way to do it is to energize the Hispanic and African-American vote. So I think Charles is on to something there, too. The anti-Coakley voters are already hyper motivated so there isn’t a lot more that Brown can pull out of that hat. But because the Democrat voters aren’t revved up about this, they can still pull it off. If the Obama team can scare minority voters about Brown, their turnout could put Coakley over the top. And, since Obama is the Messiah AND from CHicago, I reckon he can do wonders with the dead electorate, too.
Looking at everything Obama has done so far for the Massachusetts race it would seem he is actually campaigning for Brown. His ad pleas with the people of Massachusetts to vote for Coakley or the they won’t have the votes to pass cap and trade….which will invariably raise everyone’s utility bills. And they won’t have the votes to pass health care reform and other programs. I suppose we can lump job creation into that other category; somewhere, sometime….maybe after he’s done campaigning for everyone in the House and Senate. You know he is just licking his chops waiting to get back on the campaign trail and dust off the “Let me be clear” speech
When did it become Democrat party? Just out of curiosity, I’ve seen that around a lot lately.
Ethan, I don’t know about other people, but I made a mistake here. In the future I will say “Democratic Party”.
I don’t know when it started, Ethan, but I do it because the Republicans are members of the Republican Party, and Democrats are members of the Democrat Party. Linguistic and grammatical consistency.
In addition, I don’t like to call it the “Democratic” party because it demonstrates by its daily actions that it is anything but, and I don’t want to allow them to steal an intellectual base, any more than I will call them “liberals” or “progressives” (or call the “Bolsheviks” that, because they weren’t). I believe in truth in labeling. The left thinks that language rules, and I fight a continuing fight to take it back.
In the future I will say “Democratic Party”.
They call themselves the “Democrats” the same way the Grand Old Party calls themselves “Republicans” Which is why I prefer their full title, “The Slavery, Segregation, Secession, Internment, Corruption and Intrusive Big Government Party”, even if that is a bit cumbersome.
I forget who was telling us that there was huge support for Massachusetts’s health care stuff, but apparently that support has degraded over the past year (more people were labeling it a failure than a success). That’s rather fast for a program, don’t you think?
It became the ‘Democrat’ party when Ronald Reagan started calling it that, because, he said, saying ‘Democratic’ made them sound more ‘democratic’ (i.e. for the people) than Republicans.
I have a long memory for a few things – this is one of them.
I just realized another thing here. Given all the effort Obama has poured into the current health care bills, even to the point he’s campaigning for a single senate vote, can we really say that they aren’t his plans, lock, stock, and barrel? Or are only the popular, positive parts of those health care bills owned by Obama?
No, because the buck stops somewhere else (under the bus?). His co-dependent enablers are in permanent denial.
I would like to say if Brown wins it will be because of healthcare. People do not want what the congress is trying to force feed us. It seems unfathomable that Mass would go Republican on that seat. Coakley was the best the Dems could muster in a state chock fulla libs….