Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) told a local reporter, “It’s probably back to the drawing board on health care, which is unfortunate.” Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.) told MSNBC this morning he will advise Democratic leaders to scrap the big bill and move small, more popular pieces that can attract Republicans. And Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) said his leadership is “whistling past the graveyard” if they think Brown’s win won’t force a rethinking of the health care plan.
Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), who now might draw a challenge from Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), said the party needs to rethink its entire approach to governing.
[b]Thank You![/b] Massachusetts!
Will this wake up call really be heeded? I hope so, but time will tell.
Maybe I’m a bit cynical, but despite the big shock administered by a huge upset like this, we human beings (not just Dems either) have an extraordinary capacity for remaining in denial, hitting the snooze button, and going back to sleep.
But while we’re waiting to see how many politicians do in fact wake up and smell the coffee, we can rejoice that at least for now, the notorious policies of the Obama Administration and leftists everywhere have been temporarily thwarted. In the most dramatic and gratifying way possible.
So yes, thanks, people of Massachusetts. And thanks be to God.
David Handy+
What this election showed, I believe, is that the people of this country are fed-up with backroom deals, bully boy tactics, cronyism and tax payer funded bribery. In 2009 Obama and the Dems promised an open, transparent and ethical government. What did we get? A corrupted process that would make the members of the Grant administration cringe.
Remember the scene in “Animal House” when Otter said to Flounder, after they wrecked his brother’s car, “Flounder you ____ed up. You trusted us.”
Not any more Mr President, Ms Peosli and Mr Reid.
Evan Bayh may be the sanest, most sensible Democrat in the Senate. If I had been Obama (well, that’s a stretch, but…), I would have picked Bayh, not Biden, for the veep spot.
#3, I think the voters of Massachusetts had Obama on double secret probation.
[blockquote]Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), who now might draw a challenge from Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), said the party needs to rethink its entire approach to governing.[/blockquote]
Exactly. A rejection of New Deal progressivism and statism and a return to federalist constitutionalism would certainly make me more willing to vote for Democrats on a state and federal level.
This is a major over-reaction on all fronts. The talk-radio inspired tea partyers believe that they have somehow changed politics. The conservatives actually believe this will matter and the Democrats are paying attention to both sides. The reality is that this was no referendum, no representation of opinion on a larger scale – simply a local State election. Will there be major reforms? No. Will voting be dramatically altered? No. It’s alot of sound and fury…
No. 7: Hate to see facts get in the way of your theory, but all the polls, surveys, and analyses based on them indicate that Mass. voters were clear that this election was on national issues. These voters made their choices with these issues and the repercussions of their votes clearly in mind. Even the leading Democrats in Congress and President Obama, judging from their statements, do not agree with you.
I agree that too much is being made of it on one level. The blogosphere is full of heart-rending cries of doom and gloom from liberals proclaiming the end of democracy (as if one-party rule equalled democracy) and the death of the republic. I exaggerate only slightly. It’s an election, and it’s good for democracy because it reflects the will of ordinary people. And doggone it: this election should be good for Obama too. A professor in a course is typically better off, if the course is not going well, doing a quick mid-semester course evaluation rather than waiting to do one at the very end, when everybody is really p.o.’d.
I think I’ll have to rethink the whole “M*sshole” epithet the next time I get cut off driving through Springfield on my way home from skiing in VT! well, at least for a few weeks.
It’s anecdotal, but an independent we know from Holyoke voted for Brown, and reports that 5 of his registered Dem friends did as well. We gather that the whole “hopey-changey” thing is not playing well in middle America.
“We gather that the whole ‘hopey-changey’ thing is not playing well in middle America.”
Difficult question, isn’t it? Apparently the hope / change motif is alive and well; it’s just no longer identified with Obama / Democrat Party. So if by “hope / change” you mean the latter, then you’re right. But even there the message seems to be that people thought that Obama was going to bring real change–such as in bipartisanship–but he didn’t. He still gets high marks from people on “personal appeal” or whatever the pollsters call it, but I’m not sure what that means. I still sense that people have not warmed up to Obama the leader (distant and cool) the way they warmed up to Obama the candidate (a media creation, to a large extent, like all previously unknown candidates). But this election could be good for him.
I do not think that supermajorities (of either party) are good for democracies. Krauthammer recently made the point that American politics function best with the game occurring between the 40 yard lines — the whole “govern from the middle” thing. Hopefully, we’ll see a 1994-like correction (pray God without Newt at the helm) that will temper Obama and bring him to the middle.
No. 11: Yes, and that could redound to the benefit of the presidential incumbent, if indeed it’s true that the nation is more toward the center than the Democrat-led Congress is; and I have no reason to believe that that’s a false assessment. Again, given what you say, which I believe to be unassailable, I can’t help wondering at the incredible Sturm und Drang on the Left today–unless somehow they really did have a sense of entitlement, whether to that seat, to the Congress, or whatever.
I realize I may have answered my own question, though, by distinguishing between Democrats (like Obama) and the Left. Obama wants to win. I don’t think he wants to be a liberal at all costs. Hence he will, I think, start to tack a bit in his approach to the harbors of 2010 and 2012.
#7 all the polls, surveys, and analyses based on them indicate that Mass. voters were clear that this election was on national issues. These voters made their choices with these issues and the repercussions of their votes clearly in mind.
I agree that the MA voters were voting on national issues, what I don’t agree with is that MA is in any way representative of the nation as a whole.
No. 13: What you said was:
“The reality is that this was no referendum, no representation of opinion on a larger scale – simply a local State election.”
Well, obviously it was a state election. But do you really not think that the voters of Massachusetts reflected sentiments that are present to a greater or lesser degree nationwide? The polls and analyses I’ve seen suggest a significant tracking of Mass. voters with the electorate at large.
#12: “I don’t think he wants to be a liberal at all costs.” I would be pleased if that were true, but I’m not convinced. I don’t think he really understands any proposals other than the leftist ones. For instance, stimulus spending, no matter what it’s spent on, will improve the economy, he said, and he shows no signs as yet of understanding that this has been demonstrated wrong. It’s not only that he rejects conservative or “moderate” proposals; I don’t see that he knows what they are, much less ever considers them.
I concur with Katherine above. Obama is little experienced in the in’s and out’s of national politics and, more importantly, the essential art of comprimise and consensus. His Senate career was short and nothing to write home about. I have always had the sense that he is a true idealogue, who really believes what his professors told him, which was that leftist, socialist solutions can really work. This despite the overwhelming evidence of history to the contrary.
Nos. 15 and 16: I take your point, but the operative phrase is “at all costs.” I think that, notwithstanding his leanings (and, hey, I lived in Hyde Park when I was in graduate school at Chicago; I know what the culture there–or in Boulder, or in Madison, or in Berkeley–is like), his desire for political survival trumps all. Look at what he was willing to give away on health care. It was the Left he was having problems with; he was willing to drop public option precisely in order to get something passed, which he could claim to have passed–like in his State of the Union. Or: take his position on Afghanistan. He’s supported by conservatives, opposed by the Left. I agree about his personal druthers, but the evidence just doesn’t support your assertions, as far as I can tell.
David Hein, you may be right, but then, on health care, we’ll end up with something, if possible, even worse than the present mess of a bill, because giving goodies to special interests has been their way of moving forward with it.
Brian from T19 wrote:
I agree that the MA voters were voting on national issues, what I don’t agree with is that MA is in any way representative of the nation as a whole.
You’re absolutely right that MA voters are not representative of the nation as a whole. They’re much more socially liberal, fiscally socialist, pro-union, democratic leaning than the nation as a whole…
Y’all need to hush up and not tell this stuff to Brian. We need him to stay in the dark and keep believing that this election has no bearing on national politics. That way the Repub’s will take over the Congress in 2010 instead of 2012.