It’s remarkable, really. There is, to my knowledge, exactly one US Senate race happening in the country in the next 30 days. It’s for an open seat, as the incumbent is not a candidate. And if the GOP won it, it would give them the 41st vote they desperately need in the Senate to stave off all manner of depredations that President Obama and the Democrats are trying to visit upon the unsuspecting American populace. Heck, it might even do so in time to stop the health care bill. The Republican candidate is an underdog, but is at least credible, and holds positions that in many respects mirror those of the national party.
So why is the national Republican party ignoring Massachusetts?
There’s only one plausible answer: they think Scott Brown can’t win. No, actually, it has to be worse than that, since if they were merely pessimistic, they’d surely at least try, given the stakes. They know Scott Brown can’t win.
Presumably the thinking is that if a popular sitting Congressman from Somerville could barely get within 20 points of Martha Coakley and her statewide organization in a low-turnout primary, what chance does a less popular sitting state Senator from Wrentham have in a low-turnout general election? Why, right you are. Still, it’s quite a tell that the national GOP is being so obvious about it.
…if the Democrats stay at 60, GOP can’t take the blame themselves for blocking legislation. They can just say, “The Dems have a filibuster-proof majority; they could get things done if they really wanted to so don’t blame us.” Unfortunately there’s a ring of truth to that.
If we elect Brown, then that would blow a huge argument that they are hoping to run on in 2010 when a lot more seats are up.
They want more than anything in the world to stop the health care bill. If they had a prayer of doing that by winning here, they’d be all in. But they don’t, so they’re not. Simple as that.
in 2010 or 2012. Or at least, they want to run on the promise of undoing it. Wouldn’t they be able to undo it or change it, even if it passes in some form over the summer? If it was truly the last chance to stop it, they’d be all in, but it isn’t, so they’re not.
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p>They need 41 votes in the Senate to stop a bill. But once it’s law, they need 51 votes in the Senate, plus 218 in the House, plus the president’s signature, to “undo or change it.” That certainly won’t happen before 2013, and I think it’s unlikely that it’ll happen for years after that.
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p>Actually, the Republicans will need 60 votes, assuming the filibuster still exists, and then 67 after Obama vetoes any changes (of course, at least if he wins reelection in 2012). Thus, once this bill is law, it is not going anywhere (except, hopefully, to be improved in some of the ways talked about here).
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p>Of course, this just goes to bolster your point that if the Republicans want to stop it, they must do it now. That they don’t is strong circumstantial evidence that they have some considerable internal polling suggesting that funding Scott Brown would be nothing more than a waste of cash.
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p>They can run, but they are really hiding: hiding from the fact that they have nothing but ‘NO’ to run upon.
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p>As a practical matter, wholesale repeal will not be possible barring two straight political landslides: they have to win approx 80% of all possible gains in both 2010 and 2012. And, though the the Dems have been feckless, they aren’t as corrupt as in 1994 (house banking scandal.. Dan “Stamp Collector” Rostonkoswki… etc) As a strategic matter, failure in supporting Scott Brown in the upcoming makes no sense whatsoever: it’ll be easier to support him in 2010 as the incumbent, should he win. But it’s not your fathers GOP… years ago the Republicans were not the party of all-or-nothing as they are now.
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p>Piecemeal repeal, likewise, will be nearly impossible: the HCR parts that go into effect immediately, like care-denial regulation (pre-existing conditions etc..), profit regulations/rebates and bans on care limitation are exceedingly popular and even the denser parts of the GOP recognize this. Despite the brouhaha over public option/medicare extension etc, even conservative dems like Snowe and Nelson aren’t going to go backwards on those issues. So, if they try to do it peicemeal, than they’ve already broken their promise on wholesale reform. Should they weather that storm it’s fairly certain momentum will be blunted before they can go after the exchanges and the individual mandate, which don’t go into effect until 2014.
The males split the male vote, if it had been just Capuano, he probably would have won. That’s why she wants the libertarian to siphon off male voters from Brown too.
…that she would win a head-to-head against Brown without Kennedy’s help, though that’s not really what this particular diary was about.
The fact is she only got 47% of the vote, so I don’t think David’s right that that’s why the GOP is not supporting her. (And if you want to stick to what this diary is about, I gave a response to you on that above.)
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p>The fact is that “only 47%” is a pretty big deal in a four way race. It’s pretty darn close to 50% and, considering it to have some predictive value, it’s what consultants would call ‘political gold.’
From a CBS News analysis*:
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p>I googled for “exit polls” and couldn’t find any. All I found was this statement that “there are no exist polls in this race.” Wtf? Is that because they would show a ridiculous gender gap?
There are no exit polls because no one did them. They’re expensive to do right, and my guess is that the media consortiums that run them didn’t feel the money was worth spending.
That’s a honking big plurality. I seem to recall a certain 8th District congressman who won his critical primary race with half of that.
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p>I’ve written posts here in favor of IRV and against plurality rules, but I have to admit that IRV would likely not have made a difference in the final outcome of this race. (It might have in the 8th in 1998, though.)
I would be shocked if all of the Khazei and Pags voters went to Capuano. My guess is that if we had instant runoff voting the final round would have been something like 55 – 45 in favor of Coakley.
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p>While identity politics definitely influence voters, your view is ridiculously simplistic and frankly insulting.
You’re being way too generous to Mr. Capuano with those projected run-off totals.
But I think Coakley’s 47% is a very solid constant block that all went and voted in the primary, and when you expand the voting pool to a general election, there are way more not-Coakley voters than there are former Khazei and Pags voters coming to her column.
When you expand the voting pool in the general election, the vast majority of primary voters stick with the member of their party, unless there’s a reason to be otherwise. With Martha’s astronomical favorability ratings, everyone’s sticking with her.
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p>There’s no basis, whatsoever, for that assertion. The only thing that you can assert, with any confidence, is that a one-on-one primary between Coakley and Capuano would have been a race of an entirely different character… but that says nothing about who would win it.
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p>If we go by the numbers, and give every single vote cast for Khazei and Pagliuca, to Capuano then the result would have been 53/47. But if we only give the the male votes to Capuano (as you assert) then issue would have been decided by the women and we still can’t say who would have won.
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p>I don’t get your understanding of voting habits of NE males. Such reasoning is lost on me. I get that there are males who can’t bring themselves to vote for a women, but they are subject to a great deal of cognitive dissonance, thus obviating their outlook as any sort of predictive measure. In addition, they are both fractional in number and probably as willing to stay home as to vote. As a (gender-neutral) political situation, having an opponent who is both weaker in standing AND is fighting a flanking action by a third party is a wholly advantageous position to be in. If it was Mark Coakley vs Scott Brown, a male Coakley would still wish for the advantages of the situation: it would still be held with a libertarian in the race, biting at the GOPs ankles, if at all possible.
That’s hilarious. Mark Coakley would still be a living in North Adams, pumping gas or something.
It’s not that “there are males who can’t bring themselves to vote for a woman”, it’s that there are males who won’t vote for a feminist. Sarah Palin, for example, gets those male votes, just like Obama and Ted Kennedy probably didn’t.
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p>irrelevant if, as I already explained, the situation holds true whether the Dem candidate is male or female. A male candidate in Coakley’s position would act exactly the same way with respect to inclusion of a libertarian in a debate. Hoping for a “splitting the male vote” (as you assert) is not the reason for Coakleys actions wrt debates.
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p>And… ??
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p>You’re making rather weak tea here: you’re somehow asserting that those individuals who did vote for Khazei and Pagliuca, would, under other circumstances vote for Sara Palin and who probably wouldn’t vote for Obama and/or TK and couldn’t possibly vote for Coakley. You know all of this, of course, strictly based upon the fact that Martha Coakley is a female. Impressive. Maybe decaf is called for…?
A male candidate wouldn’t have as strong a hold on the female voters, and would lose more voters to the libertarian than Coakley will.
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p>And…Coakley won’t get those votes, but a Palin-type female candidate would. Point being that it’s not not “men who won’t for a woman”, though there may be some of those as well, but “men who won’t vote for a feminist”.
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p>And I’m not suggesting that the individuals who voted in the primary for a male will vote for a male Republican, they will probably vote for Coakley because she’s the Dem. Those 350,000 votes plus her 310,000 votes is 660,000, out of about 2 million voters who voted in 2006 and 3 Million who voted in 2008 (Kerry got 66%, Republican Jeff Beatty got 31%, the Lib got 3%). I’m saying that her support tops out with those 310,000 Coakley voters and those 350,000 committed Dems, and, well, this year, the Libertarian votes might really matter.
You’re comparing different elections. More importantly, Martha Coakley was on the ballot in 2006.
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p>You said: “I’m saying that her support tops out with those 310,000 Coakley voters and those 350,000 committed Dems”
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p>How many votes did she get, in the 2006 election, you might ask? The answer is 1,546,582. The Republican in that race got 574,388.
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p>Don’t believe me? Look at the actual results: http://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele…
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p>The more people vote, the more people vote for Martha Coakley. That’s just how it goes.
It was no big deal to vote for someone for AG, who cares? All we want for that job is a minimally-competent figurehead, preferably stereotypical and uninteresting. Coakley was fine for that, votes came easily, without much thought, from men and women. But people care more now, we’ve seen Sarah, we’re in the middle of a contentious national debate, the whole Congress is ready to flip.
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p>I bet she doesn’t break 1 million votes this time, and Brown plus Kennedy get 1.1 (and both lose).
I could swear it was your party that’s been lambasting feminists over the years. What was that term again? Oh yeah, feminazi.
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p>Who are the conservative feminists? Please don’t insult us by saying Sarah Palin.
If that’s what PP means, it would refer to women who are pro-choice, low-tax, get-the-government-off-of-my-money-and-my-body anti-government libertarians. Tea-partiers, but pro-choice not pro-life.
PP’s hero Barbara Anderson most emphatically does not:
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I’m not even sure what you’re arguing anymore. An example would help…
I can think of two possibilities, either be pro-life like a conservative but also be pro equal pay and other feminist beliefs, or one might be pro-choice but also for low taxes and small government. I too would like PP to offer some examples and explain what she means.
Your thoughts on the “male split” is absurd and not based in any fact. I highly doubt their was any chance for Capuano to win based on the turnout and the vote totals. Just hard to see a path to victory for Capuano, looking in rear view mirror at least.
…would be about progressives rather than men. It’s anybody’s guess who would have won, but I’m confident a two-person race between Coakley and Capuano would have gotten to within ten points.
To bring this forum back to the topic at hand I have several interesting observations.
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p>At this stage in the game I find all three candidates deplorable for one reason or another and might just sit this one out, though if he endorsed health care reform I might have supported Kennedy. Brown is parroting right wing talking points on the wars, gay marriage, health care, and taxes and is way out of the mainstream for Massachusetts. Coakley is a craven calculator who has never held a political principle she didn’t find pliable and temporary. Kennedy has some interesting ideas, but is adopting many Ron Paul talking points regarding the ‘tyranny’ of government health care and the fed demonstrating he is a bit delusional too. Might just write in for Capuano.
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p>The thing is-I know a lot of people that feel this way and who just simply dislike all the candidates and might stay home. Also the number of voters who will come out for Coakley will likely dip since most people perceive the general election to be over. Furthermore I have seen polling showing Brown within striking distance, and his fundraising numbers are impressive for a GOP candidate in MA and are still competitive with Coakley’s (excluding PAC and union money). To be clear I say this not because I like Scott Brown, but there is enough anti-incumbent, anti-Beacon Hill, anti-Obama sentiment right now that with more resources Brown could have been competitive. His candidacy was championed by Bill Kristol just a few weeks ago so it is surprising that the GOP has basically punted on the race, especially because they have the money now.
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p>Forcing the Dems to waste money on this race, and closing the gap to even just within 5% would be spun into a pretty symbolic victory, and the unlikely shot at a Brown win would cause significant embarassment for the President and the Democrats. I’ve been told by my right-wing friends that part of the reason was because Brown was pro-choice, and not ‘pure enough’ for the party of Palin. If thats their attitude I really don’t see how the intend to be viable anytime soon.
…who is more likely to vote the way you would prefer most of the time. For me the answer is obviously Coakley. Do you really think there is anti-Obama sentiment in MA of all places? I’d need to see numbers to believe that.
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p>Where are these numbers available? To my knowledge no major polling has been done on this race (oddly enough), and I don’t think they’ve released financial reports since the primary.
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p>As of November 18 Brown has raised less money in his entire campaign than Charlie Baker did just last month, and Brown is allowed to collect donations that are five times bigger than Baker can. While Brown isn’t broke, I wouldn’t consider his fund raising “impressive” – certainly not impressive enough to be a US Senator.
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p>2. I simply don’t believe that you’ve “seen polling” that shows Brown within striking distance, unless by “striking distance” you mean less than 40 points. Unless you’ve got a link, that’s worth zero.
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p>3. As already mentioned by someone else, Brown’s fundraising numbers are not “impressive.” To the contrary, they are pathetic. Charlie Baker’s numbers are impressive. Bill Weld’s numbers were at least adequate. Brown’s are a big part of why he will lose.
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p>4. Closing the gap to anything like 5% was never even a remote possibility. That is exactly why the GOP is ignoring this race — because they know it would be flushing money down the crapper, and because if they actually try to win it, it will be embarrassing when he loses by 30 points.
Again huge disclaimer I think that Scott Brown is one of the dumbest elected officials in the Commonwealth, next to Cahill and Galvin, so by no means were my comments in any way endorsing his candidacy.
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p>As for the first notion I resent this
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p>For the record I have voted for women candidates to the Cambridge City Council, including our fine Mayor Denise Simmons. I voted for Coakley for AG in 2006 back when I respected her. I will likely vote for Mary Connaughton for Auditor presuming Glodis wins the Democratic nomination, maybe she is a Republican so she doesn’t count, but she is a female. Voted for Libby Firenze against Will Brownsberger, again that’s a Republican so I’m not sure if she counts in your book either. Voted for Jill Stein for Secretary of the Commonwealth against Galvin, lost cause, but I still felt she was more qualified. In no way do I have a bias against female candidates.
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p>Like Neil Sagan, I have a bias against lying, flip flopping, opportunistic candidates with few core political principles. I respected the fact that Coakley opposed the health care bill for a principled reason, she felt that abortion rights outweighed equal health care for all, an odious position, but a principled one. Now apparently she is willing to throw it all under the bus, making her attacks against Capuano seem hollow, and allowing me to once again trust her political judgment and efficacy. She is certainly not progressive having been on both sides of the fence on the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Patriot Act, and the death penalty. My friends father is a prominent defense attorney who went up against her and derided her as a prosecutor that repeatedly skirted the limits of her authority to get quick convictions with little respect for due process. Those atrocities of justice have also been well documented. So I reject the notion that I am a sexist. Perhaps NeilSagan won’t get this treatment because he is pro-choice, but if I am a sexist for disliking a candidate because of their positions, then I guess I hate men to due to my similar treatment of Mitt Romney, John Kerry, Galvin, Cahill, and other phonies from our state.
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p>More to the point I could even say “David Kravitz voted for Deval Patrick for Governor and then Barack Obama for President-wonder what they have in common?” and argue you are a black supremacist. Or better yet “He was against Joe Lieberman in 2006 and against Norm Coleman in 2008 wonder what they had in common?” and argue you are an anti-semite. Really these fallacies are low, even for you David. Also the Coakley campaigns and its surrogates tired play of the sexism card anytime they get attacked is really getting old.
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p>Moving on to the second contention, RedMass group had fairly suspect polling showing an even race, but it was from an independent agency http://redmassgroup.com/showDi… and again the polling might not be accurate but it could rally the national GOP behind the race, THATS the point I was trying to say.
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p>3. Again the qualifiers, ‘for a conservative candidate’ ‘for a Republican in MA’, compared to Ed Case Brown is rolling in dough. An infusion from the RSCC could be merited by these numbers, especially considering they are giving money to Barbara Boxer’s opponent and Mark Kirk who have had worse fundraising prospects. Also right now a lot of the money the RNC raises has to be spend in 2009 so I see no reason why they can’t casually dump some cash here now-they could easily recoup it later.
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p>4. I think Scott Brown’s base of support is a lot more excited to come out, the minority in this state that opposes Obama, Beacon Hill, and the Governor, while a minority, is also a more vocal one and will be more likely to show up. I suspect a lot of Dems, even Coakley supporters, won’t bother to show up knowing this race will be a rout. The low turnout could benefit Brown in Cape Cod and the South Shore, and in the North Shore. Enough to win? No, but I would not be surprised to see this race mirror the Ogo-Tsongas race with the Republican getting within 10% of the Dem due to low turnout, excitement on the GOP side, and apathy on the Dem side. With that being the baseline-some GOP cash could put this within 5%, and a lot of GOP cash could eek out a win, and I was merely arguing that either of those two outcomes would be more beneficial for the GOP than sitting on the sidelines and doing nothing. But again the party of Palin really is blowing these elections.
Michelle Malkin’s Hot Air blog also ran a “why isn’t the RNC helping Scott” post.
http://hotair.com/archives/200…
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p>If Brown could run on that platform maybe the RNC would support him. It’s certainly their message. Look at healthcare in Massachusetts! We don’t want that! But Brown supports what we have here in Massachusetts, making it pretty much impossible for the RNC to fully support him. It’s actually Joe Kennedy who is saying things more in line on healthcare with what Republicans want to hear. And Joe also comes out of the Tea Party movement.
Right, Brown supported mandates and wants to protect jobs in the Massachusetts health care/biotech/insurance industry. His early objection to the health care plan was that it might jeopardize jobs. Now he’s changing though, he’s recognizing the expanding entitlement problem and changing his message.
Drat! My cover’s been blown!
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p>Seriously, though, the difference is that you express your intense dislike of good Democrats like Clinton and Coakley (as opposed to conservative nitwits like Lieberman and Coleman) in such over-the-top, obviously sexist terms that it’s impossible to avoid extrapolating. Here’s just one example, right after Clinton won the PA primary (and there’s plenty more where this one came from):
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p>So maybe you should tone down your rhetoric, and people won’t get the wrong idea about you.
Well glad you had the spare time to dig that one up. Again I would have said “guess we are stuck with the asshole until August” if it had been Edwards instead of Clinton Obama supporters had to contend with. Was it insulting, condescending language? Sure-and that’s language I would, and have used against many of my political foes on this here website. I have been pretty pejorative towards Deval and Cahill as of late, and calling Hillary a witch is like calling Galvin the prince of darkness, which I and others have done. Its not because she was a woman, its because at the time, I felt she was evil.
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p>As for your other point, that they are good Democrats, I would argue that NeilSagan is the good Democrat doing a lot of hard work to pin Coakley down on a number of positions where she has been on both sides of the fence. Ditto Hillary in the 08 election. Hillary tried to have it both ways on Iraq, both ways on health care, both ways on Iran, and used right wing talking points regarding Wright, Obama as a Muslim, her campaign helped spread the birther bull shit before anyone else did, and she used Obama’s gaffe about god and guns against him to win over working class whites. Bill even used race based attacks against Obama comparing him to Jesse Jackson. Similarly Coakley viciously went after Capuano’s commitment to choice, an issue he fought his entire public life to protect, and claimed she was for it and he was against it because of Stupitts. Now she has reversed herself on that. She is an intellectually dishonest politician with few core principles, and I would argue that does not make her a good democrat.
It took 5 seconds. I remembered you had used the word “witch,” since it was so egregiously offensive, and search tools work.
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p>No it’s not.
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p>Yes it was. ‘Nuff said.
And Hillary isn’t magical…
Just because you say it is doesn’t make it true. Again I consider both Galvin and Hillary to be unprincipled politicians driven by their own ambitions, thus I think they are evil, thus the comparisons to a female figure of evil, a wtich and a male figure of evil, Satan himself. Next time I will call her a wizard, Harry Potter has helped make that a neutral term, and perhaps that won’t offend you. Is Princess a sexist term?
People like Harry Potter and Harry Potter does ride a broom.
The Herald article mentions RNC support for Weld and Romney, but omits Ogonowski. Maybe the NRSC is a bit shy after the Ogo debacle.
I’m sure the RNC would be delighted to see Charlie win, but do you really think they’ll go all-in for a gay-marriage-loving, gay-running-mate-naming, pro-choice candidate? I don’t.
If he can defeat an incumbent Democratic who shares both a friendship with Barack Obama along with a very similar campaign narrative and record of high soaring rhetoric clashing with an inability to govern. I think they score big points taking Deval down. That said don’t expect them to ever back Baker for anything beyond being Governor of MA, he’d fail their purity test.
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p>Also seeing how liberal this Republican is and how disappointing our incumbent Governor is will you give Charlie a fair hearing or vote your party regardless?
Not sure if you’ve noticed, but the differently realitied here (e.g. billxi and Peter Porcupine) favor Mr. Mihos. Mr. Baker has to make it through the primary, first.
Either he asked for very little in which case he is a moron, or he thinks we don’t know the RNC is giving him very little, in which case he thinks the voters are morons. Not a good tactic either way.