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.
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:
Russell By committing to not raising the 3 main taxes but then raising taxes by over £70bn on stupid taxes Labour have done a lot of unnecessary damage to the UK econo...
Jana “ …the hard choices required to revive our economy and strengthen our security.”
If by hard choices you mean increasing taxes, I agree that that may be...
Paul Walter Peter, please see my ample answers above. I have made it perfectly clear what I believe. Best wishes, Paul...
Peter Martin @ Paul,
I accept you are agreeing to an extent. A limited extent.
"There are ample legal mechanisms for ensuring that the financial settlement with t...
Paul Walter Peter: “We shouldn’t tolerate the term “Crown Dependency” being a synonym for “tax haven”.”
I don’t know whether you are actually reading my ...
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Russell 
Jana 
Paul Walter 
Peter Martin 