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Abby Thernstrom blogs about the change in the political scene in Massachusetts.
…When we left the greater Cambridge fallout area two years ago and migrated to Virginia, we were well-known and heartily disliked by the Harvard chosen — although not by Steve’s adoring students. But our car in a Harvard parking lot regularly prompted questions about a little American flag decal; it was a clear sign of disloyalty to the “right” values. The Harvard version of unpatriotic. We had long ceased to be invited to Harvard dinner parties. Steve had remained unfailingly polite and respectful; not me.
But every election night we had a tiny crowd of Republican intellectuals over to watch returns. Roughly 25 friends would come. And everyone who walked in the door would mutter some variation on the theme: OMG, you must have every Republican intellectual in the whole state here.
Harvard is undoubtedly unchanged, but my old friends from that tiny crowd tell me the atmosphere in much of the state the last few days has been nothing short of electrifying. One pal recently drove through an intersection in suburban Wayland; on all four corners supporters held Scott Brown signs high, despite the freezing weather. Cars were honking in celebration. Others have been drawing the same picture. …
In the Corner, Shannen Coffin has a post on the Dems political maneuverings in the Massachusetts state legislature.
Massachusetts Democrats changed the rules of the game after Ted Kennedy’s death, granting to Democratic Governor Deval Patrick the power to appoint an interim Senator pending today’s special election — a power that it had expressly denied to Republican Governor Mit Romney in the 2004 election cycle. The reason was to maintain the 60th vote on the President’s health care legislation and cement Ted Kennedy’s “legacy.” The plan didn’t work on that front, since Democrats couldn’t come to an agreement on the specifics of the bill in the time allotted. And the political maneuvering in the State legislature had enormous political ramifications, feeding a sense of foul play by the Democratic establishment. As much as anything, this unfair play helped propel Scott Brown to a competitive position — and he and Martha Coakley have done the rest. We’ll find out tonight whether Brown will succeed, but you have to wonder whether some state Democrats are second-guessing their decision to change the rules of the game after Kennedy’s death.
Rich Lowry posts an e-mail exchange with a reader, in the Corner.
E-mail:
Hey Rich. I haven’t seen anyone point out that if Scott Brown wins, he’s the logical choice for the nominee for President in 2012. A state senator, followed by 2 years of experience in the US Senate! Aren’t those the job requirements now?
…
I’m not so sure. Was Brown ever a community organizer?
Also he needs to be careful not to actually *serve* in the US Senate, but rather to start running for President tomorrow morning and show up for his day job as little as humanly possible. That will help him avoid any inconvenient legislative fingerprints for the haters to pick away at. (Come to think of it, his actual service in the state legislature, where he worked instead of just killing time until he could reach for the next rung on the ladder, may disqualify him entirely.)
Jonah Goldberg comments on Rich Lowry’s post.
Rich — It’s funny, I had a very similar conversation with the missus last night.
About a year ago, I was up in New York to do a panel for Commentary magazine (I was sitting in for you, I believe). I was talking to John Podhoretz beforehand and he was saying how Bill Kristol was probably right: The lesson of Barack Obama may well be that none of us have even heard of the next Republican standard-bearer. After all, prior to his 2004 DNC keynote, Obama was a political “nobody,” too. A year ago, I thought how implausible it was that there really could be someone who was not a familiar name, at least to professional political junkies, could be the next GOP nominee. Then again, I also thought that the Democrats were going to be in strong shape for a very long time. But here we are.
Now, I do not actually think that Brown — if he wins — is obvious presidential material (Indeed, I think a senator should actually be a senator for a while, rather than use the title to run for president as Obama did).
But how well known was Bob McDonnell a year ago? The point is we are living in amazingly fluid times, politically. Who knows what’s coming next?
Mark Steyn likes Scott Brown’s speechwriters.
…By contrast, Scott Brown seems to deliver very nice lines on a regular basis:
“It’s not Ted Kennedy’s seat, it’s the people’s seat”: Brilliant. Popular democracy vs the House-of-Lords Democrats.
“Scott Brown believes in evolution, but in the case of Bob Kerrey he’s willing to make an exception”: Lovely. A genial throwaway response to a demented line of attack that makes the attacker look ridiculous.
“The leader of the free world is talking about my truck“: Bullseye. It underlines the David-vs-Goliath nature of the race, and also reminds you that, by having to intervene to prop up his flailing candidate, the President of the United States demeaned himself. …
From the Telegraph, UK, Toby Harnden has election thoughts.
… So if Scott Brown does beat Martha Coakley what will it mean? Here are 10 suggestions:
1. Health care reform is dead. Even if there was (and it’s doubtful) some procedural way the Democrats could push it through, such a move would be political suicide.
2. Obama will have failed to achieve his signature reform despite Democrats having had a healthy majority in the House and a 60:40 advantage in the Senate. That is a huge blow and could render him not just a one-term President but a one-year President in terms of his political authority.
3. Obama’s will have failed to achieve his signature reform in such a way as to destroy any chances of fulfilling a signature pledge: to bring a new bipartisanship to Washington. By pushing through a bill on a party-line vote in the Senate, he left himself vulnerable to an electoral surprise or a death – it was a win-or-bust strategy. …
Also from the Telegraph, Gerald Warner.
It takes a real mental effort to come to terms with the notion of a man named Brown being an effective and worthwhile politician, but in Massachusetts that is the reality. Brown created an electoral insurgency. He articulated all the resentment of decent Americans against the liberal establishment. In doing so he has overturned the Democrats’ 60-seat presence in the Senate which until last night made them invulnerable to a Republican filibuster and made it possible for them to railroad Obama’s insane, statist, totalitarian health care “reforms” through Congress.
No more. If the Democrats even attempted to use procedural tricks to rush the healthcare dog’s breakfast through before Brown takes his seat, America would not stand for such a blatant evasion of the popular will on so controversial a measure. It simply isn’t going to happen. Nor is any of the rest of the Obama fantasy. The Republicans are now poised to take control of the House in November. Obama has had his year of power, but now he is a busted flush.
And what a year it was. Retreat, abasement and blunders in every area of foreign policy, from North Korea to sell-out to Russia on nuclear weapons. This blog always insisted Obama would be a one-term president. Even I, however, had not counted on his being a one-year wonder. Even Anne of the Thousand Days had a longer run than that. Americans have proved they can spot a phoney in 12 months. That shames Britain’s record: the deluded electorate here voted three times for the Great Charlatan Blair.
To see the pricking of the Obama balloon is delightful. Congratulations, America. Happy anniversary, Mr President.
The WSJ editors comment on the Left’s self-destruction.
…What explains this precipitous political fall? Democrats and their media allies attribute it to GOP obstructionism, though Republicans lack the votes to stop anything by themselves. Or they blame their own Blue Dogs, who haven’t stopped or even significantly modified any legislation of consequence.
Or they blame an economic agenda that wasn’t populist or liberal enough because it didn’t nationalize banks and spend even more on “stimulus.” It takes a special kind of delusion to believe, amid a popular revolt against too much government spending and debt, that another $1 trillion would have made all the difference. But that’s the latest left-wing theme. …
…The lesson of Mr. Obama’s lost first year is that an economic crisis is a terrible thing to exploit. As they have each time in the last 40 years that they have had total control of Washington, Democrats are proving again that America can’t be successfully governed from the left. If that is the lesson Mr. Obama learns from Massachusetts, he might still salvage his Presidency.
Mike Allen’s piece in Politico shows that liberals are going to try the same community-activist inspired political tactics.
…But the president’s advisers plan to spin it as a validation of the underdog arguments that fueled Obama’s insurgent candidacy.
“The painstaking campaign for change over two years in 2007 and 2008 has become a painstaking effort in the White House, too,” the official said. “The old habits of Washington aren’t going away easy.” …
…Already Obama’s rhetoric is reflecting what aides acknowledge is a strong undercurrent of populist anger. By these lights, impatience with the status quo — rather than any rightward turn in the mood of the electorate — is what would fuel a Brown victory.
Reflecting his new tone, Obama last week announced a new fee on big banks by vowing, “We want our money back, and we’re going to get it.”…
Jennifer Rubin comments on one of the divisive issues in Obamacare.
The Democrats have long insisted that ObamaCare can be sold to the public if only the poor, uninformed masses understood what was in it. But with every revelation about the specifics of ObamaCare, one is obliged to exclaim, “How could they vote for that?” A case in point is Medicare Advantage. Jeffrey Anderson explains:
According to Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections, in its real first ten years (2014 to 2023), Obamacare would cut Medicare Advantage benefits by $214 billion. Medicare Advantage plans vary by company and region, so cuts would vary from person to person. But, on average, Obamacare would cut Medicare Advantage enrollee’s benefits by $21,000 — per person.
As Anderson notes, Medicare Advantage — which allows patients to choose their own private providers — won’t be fairly and equally administered if the Cash for Cloture backroom deals go into effect. “Thanks to the ‘Gator Aid’ deal that Sen. Harry Reid struck behind closed doors with Sen. Bill Nelson, seniors in South Florida would be exempt.” So seniors in California represented by Sen. Barbara Boxer and those in Pennsylvania who rely on Sen. Arlen Specter to look out for them will get a worse deal, and worse health-care coverage, than the Gator Aided seniors. Where’s the “reform” in that? …
Bret Stephens explains how aid given to a poor country destroys the local economy.
…For actual Haitians, however, just about every conceivable aid scheme beyond immediate humanitarian relief will lead to more poverty, more corruption and less institutional capacity. It will benefit the well-connected at the expense of the truly needy, divert resources from where they are needed most, and crowd out local enterprise. And it will foster the very culture of dependence the country so desperately needs to break.
…But this still fails to get at the real problem of aid to Haiti, which has less to do with Haiti than it does with the effects of aid itself. “The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape,” James Shikwati, a Kenyan economist, told Der Spiegel in 2005. “For God’s sake, please just stop.”
Take something as seemingly straightforward as food aid. “At some point,” Mr. Shikwati explains, “this corn ends up in the harbor of Mombasa. A portion of the corn often goes directly into the hands of unscrupulous politicians who then pass it on to their own tribe to boost their next election campaign. Another portion of the shipment ends up on the black market where the corn is dumped at extremely low prices. Local farmers may as well put down their hoes right away; no one can compete with the U.N.’s World Food Program.” …