As the people the real only voice they have is in an election. So what did the election of Scott Brown tell us?
Jacob S. Hacker and Daniel Hopkins wrote in the Washington Post "If there is a lesson in the Massachusetts vote, it is this: pass a [health-care] bill. The nation needs reform. Democrats need an accomplishment. And Democratic activists and voters need a new cause: fixing reform, not abandoning it."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/19/AR2010011902846.html
Fred Barnes from the Weekly Standard, "The health care bill, ObamaCare, is dead with not the slightest prospect of resurrection. Brown ran to be the 41st vote for filibuster and now he is just that. Democrats have talked up clever strategies to pass the bill in the Senate despite Brown, but they won’t fly. It’s one thing for ObamaCare to be rejected by the American public in poll after poll. But it becomes a matter of considerably greater political magnitude when ObamaCare causes the loss of a Senate race in the blue state of Massachusetts."
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/health-care-bill-dead
Todd Purdum writes this from Vanity Fair, "If a wildly popular new president, with sizable majorities in both houses of Congress, couldn't bend the system to his will already, the fate of a single Massachusetts Senate candidate should hardly matter a damn."
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I would incline to agree with Purdum. I have been seeing news headlines saying the Dems have been dealt a death blow blah blah blah. News just uses sensationalism to sell papers, gain readership, increase traffic, what have you, and its fucking annoying!
ReplyDeleteThat being said, there is surely a reason that the people of MA elected Brown whether that is healthcare or not. i haven't read the news.
I think Purdum is right in saying that, but whats crazy is it does matter. Bush had less support of his party when he was in office and he was able to do whatever he wanted. I think all this shows a sign of the lack of leadership, and the lack of political insight on the part of Obama.
ReplyDeletewe had this conversation a while ago about how the presidential election has turned into a popularity contest. I'm not sure if the idea holds for congressional elections since the cool crowd doesn't really vote in those elections but i think that the news goes too far with their assessment of the implications of a arty change in any election. That is not to say that it does not have significance, i'm just saying that the results are not as catastrophic as the news would like us to believe. There are so many factors that go into any election and yet the news likes to boil the complicated issue down to black/white and say that any one particular election is a referendum on the losing party as a whole. To me, thats a pretty weak argument.
ReplyDeleteas far as bush getting things done in office, i'm am hesitant to agree that it was his leadership qualities that allowed him to accomplish things. I think he had a strong and competent staff working for him. His role seemed to be more of a demagogue building support for the party which i don't think has anything to say about his leadership skills.
I am not sure what you mean by "political insight" but i will agree that so far, Obama has not shown incredible leadership skills. For now, i am happy that the Dems don't have a super majority in the Senate. We'll see what this guy turns out to be when he actually starts working.