The NYT lays it out in the kind of clear language that moves independent voters:
Actually, it was the Republicans’ relentless opposition to constructive policies that has kept unemployment high, from their resistance to the 2009 stimulus to their blockage of Mr. Obama’s proposed $450 billion jobs bill in late 2011. Federal aid to states was a mainstay of both of those efforts. As the stimulus ended and further aid was delayed and denied, the effect on state budgets — and on jobs — has been catastrophic.
Scott Brown’s record is one of unmitigated economic failure. He hasn’t delivered any jobs himself, and he has repeatedly voted against jobs programs for Massachusetts because they were proposed by a Democratic president.
One can’t get more partisan than that: voting against jobs bills for one’s own home state purely out of partisan spite.
It’s sad, really, because when he was elected Brown had a chance to work with the Democrats and support common sense proposals, or he could have proposed workable new independent-minded bipartisan proposals. Instead he chose to spend his time writing a memoir and siding with Fox, out of state extremists, and trash talking radio Republicans — we are the 13 percent! — to keep women’s pay down, and limit women’s right to health care coverage. A “Scott Brown Republican,” it turns out, is just a Republican after all.
Discuss
8 Comments . Leave a comment below.NYT thinks Obama is a better choice than Romney and that Democrats are better than Republicans.
.
I might have to go elsewhere, which I’m sure would make some happy.
It’s just the same old stuff again and again.
Second news flash: Most people don’t read the NYT
Third news flash: Of the people that read it, the majority do not read the opinion page
Fourth news flash: Of those that read the opinion page, the majority have made up their mind already (because they already read a lot and draw their own conclusions)
Fifth news flash: So of the tiny number of people who read this and agree with it and base their vote on it, if they live if a blue state except MA they will have no impact on Obama/Romney and can’t vote for Warren.
Most of which had to have been known to Bob_Neer and so it’s not an informational post but just another rah-rah post, the number of which increases daily.
… I think you probably have a point about the overall effect of this editorial. I have to believe that the majority of Massachusetts’ readers of the Times’ editorial page are not on the fence re: Warren vs. Brown.
That said, this is a partisan website. And we’re moving deeper into a very important election cycle. You have to expect that the “rah-rah” posts are going to grow as the campaign heats up. That’s only natural.
The Grey Lady is still the paper of record, and even if direct readers of the NYT editorials and columns have their minds made up, it is still helpful to see how others present it so as to hone our own arguments.
From the NYT itself 5/1/12
Those numbers include digital.
I have done a rough calculation for my local newspaper, the Eagle Trib based on readers comments when an editorial parallels an article and it appears that at most 1 in 10 read the opinion pages. A number of years ago the NYT put op-ed behind a pay wall and nobody cared and they decided that was a bad business strategy.
So 150,000 people read that nationwide. Even if I’m off by a factor of 2, still add in the other factors and I bet this influenced 1,000 people. Maybe I’m off by 10X, so it’s 10,000 nationwide.
Anyone think a WSJ editorial has the same effect that the NYT does? It does after all have a wider circulation, and there’s plenty of unenrolleds that I know that read it.
This “newsflash” doesn’t appear in the WSJ.
BMG exists in part for fulmination, let us not forget.
« Blue Mass Group Front Page
Wed 22 May 9:36 AM