Really, this is amazing. This is today’s Herald’s front page.
Apparently I am not the only one holding the opinion that Scott Brown’s election actually helped make health care reform the law of the land. From the story accompanying that front page:
Republican folk hero Sen. Scott Brown is being taunted by triumphant Democrats – and slammed by irked conservatives – after the historic health-care bill he was elected to kill was signed into law by President Obama yesterday.“If he were a milk carton, he would be expired,” said Massachusetts Democratic Party chairman John Walsh…. Democrats now say Brown’s election as the so-called “41st vote” to block Obama’s health-care overhaul inspired them to seek procedural means to bypass GOP efforts to derail the bill.
“Scott Brown’s election actually delivered health-care reform, because we didn’t need the 60 votes to make it happen. He delivered a significant victory in that,” Walsh said.
Also interesting is the growing disenchantment with Brown on the right.
Brown’s backers from the insurgent Tea Party movement want to know if they’ve been had. ”We start to wonder whether we helped a RINO (Republican in name only) get into office,” said Tea Party activist Jeffrey McQueen, who traveled from Michigan to campaign for Brown in the final days of the Jan. 19 special election that rocked the nation….Bill Whalen, a former Republican operative and research fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution, likened Brown to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, calling both a “political novelty.” ”The luster has worn off,” Whalen said, adding that Brown staked his campaign on health care and many Republicans don’t know where he stands on other issues.
In a way, the criticism is unfair to Brown, since there was really nothing he could do about health care. But, in a way, it’s perfectly fair, because what that means is that his whole “41st vote against Obamacare” shtick was basically a fraud on the electorate.
Brown, ever the profile in courage, himself refused comment to the Herald in the original story, but apparently this morning went on talk radio to try to defend himself.
Something about poo-poo on his election…
“You know they can try to pooh-pooh my election and try to minimize it and all that stuff,” Brown said.
Oh, “pooh-pooh.” I get it. Sorry — my mistake. ;-)
Anyway, poor Scott has been reduced to mumbling barely coherent, vaguely paranoid sentence fragments in trying to explain what happened. From the same story:
“I get what they’re trying to do. But the bottom line is they are going to start to carve out folks who are disabled and have some very serious medical issues and say, ‘See the Republicans want to take this away.’ ”
What’s that about disabled people? Is this another “death panel” thing? Seriously, what is Brown on about here? I would honestly like to know.
But Scott still thinks he’s got it covered.
“They can try to, you know, twist and manipulate and, you know, destroy the message and destroy as much as they want but the bottom line is people are very angry.”
Problem is, that’s not really true. Actually, most people like the bill that was just signed into law. Now, the tea partiers, they are angry, since nobody likes to lose. But my guess is that President Obama’s ginormous win on health care will significantly improve his standing with the public, and will allow him to move forward on other items on his agenda. In politics, nothing succeeds like success, and Obama just scored a big one.
Discuss
6 Comments . Comments are closed.He refused to talk to the Herald?
That's just pathetic, the guy is just in over his head. He can't even set up an email address so voters can reach him yet.
But he found time to talk to WAAF, together with these guys again?
Nice, I hope he tells all the people who have WAAF on their radios in their trucks working for themselves that he wants to take away their 35% tax credit this year, which goes up to 50% in 2014. Good luck with that Scotty!
One of my FB buddies is posting how the bill helps small businesses
and challenging the Republicans who try to repeal it, calling them anti-business and unpatriotic. Brown is in waaay over his head.
Lesser of Two Evils?
The problem is that Lynch's pathetic "forgainst" strategy makes me despise Lynch even more than Brown.
http://www.boston.com/news/loc...
How do you determine the lesser of two evils when doing so require "division by zeroes"?
Rats
Well, Brown's vote will suit perfectly for killing "card check."
Sucks, don't it, guy?
41 to 40DONE
Sadly though, Brown and the other 40 just-say-noers, can still cause a fair amount of havoc to getting things done.
But I gotta think if he votes against (filibusters) financial reforms and sides with the banks and their lobbyist hordes he will be nailing his coffin. Where he comes out on that stuff will define him either as a supporter of every day folks or as paid-for slave to Wall Street and its campaign millions.
And that medical device amendment may seem good for Mass, but the reason the tax on medical devices is in the bill is as a cost control measure. Republicans are as usual preaching fiscal rectitude while doing everything they prevent it from happening.
Fair or unfair, it was unavoidable
Scott Brown won election by combining two things:
1. The excitement of the right, including the teapartiers, by signaling that he was one of them.
2. Disgruntled Massachusetts Democratic-leaning mainstream voters, frustrated with the Democratic party, but on the whole more liberal than conservative.
During the campaign, due to the Coakley campaign's ineffectiveness, he was able to run with both messages for different audiences. But once elected, he was put into a very tough spot of trying to balance two contradictory, incompatible constituencies, and keep their support, while being an actual legislator and casting actual votes.
He's been trying. It's going to be an interesting act to watch.
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