Tag Archives: scott brown

Opinion: Who to Blame for the Democrats’ Loss In Massachusetts? Blame Me.

By Karin Robinson | Wed 20th January 2010 - 11:45 am

Last night Martha Coakley, the Democratic candidate for Massachusetts Senate, lost by 5 points a race that just weeks ago everyone was declaring hers by right. And even before the polls closed it seemed like everyone was playing the blame game.

Coakley’s team and the White House pointed the fingers at each other. Some are blaming the economy, the excellence of Republican candidate Scott Brown (our first centrefold Senator, history should note), or Coakleys repeated Red Sox related gaffs. There’s even a “Drunk Electorate” theory. All of these factors surely played some part.

I’d add in that to …

Posted in LDVUSA and Op-eds | Also tagged barack obama, democrats abroad, martha coackley, massachusetts and supermajority | 13 Comments

Today’s Massachusetts Special Election

By Alex Foster | Tue 19th January 2010 - 10:15 am

Today there will be a special election in the US state of Massachusetts to elect a new Senator to represent the state after Ted Kennedy‘s death last year.

And boy, are the stakes high for this one.

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: