Nominally an extremely safe seat for the Democrats, the Democratic candidate Martha Coakley should be a shoe-in.
And yet Republican former centrefold star Scott Brown, once voted by Cosmo as America’s Sexiest Man (the link is fairly safe for work, but does contain a tastefully cropped naked man) has been closing the gap in the polls, and in some cases even taken a lead.
Of key importance in this battle is the senatorial supermajority, which we have covered on The Voice in the past. In the US senate, a party with 60 of the 100 senators – or the votes of 60 senators – can move a vote of cloture which can end a filibuster. This removes from the minority party a powerful tool to veto legislation by talking it out. This has become all the more fraught recently since Obamacare, the extremely controversial healthcare legislation currently under consideration. If the Republicans win the Massachusetts, the Democrats lose their right of veto and they could lose Obamacare.
Here’s a video for each candidate to give you a flavour of the battle.
First, President Obama is staking his political reputation to support Martha Coakley and underlining the future of Obamacare:
Mick Taylor Thank you all for your comments. My aim was to encourage a debate and to suggest LibDems might want a policy on future public sector procurement.
Simon McGrath...
Simon McGrath I am afraid this article is an example of someone applying simplistic solutions in an area of which they are wholly ignorant. Even a cursory study of the vario...
Lin Macmillan I am very supportive of Christine and her decision. I am very unhappy that our MPs were not whipped to vote against the dreadful Tory amendment. I am also ver...
Richard Dickson Thank you Christine for all you've done, and doubtless will continue to do with great style, with and for people in our communities whose voice is often not lis...
Nigel Quinton “Whipped to abstain” - isn’t that the very definition of virtue signalling irrelevance? What an utter Westminster bubble farce....