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:
David Blake I agree with much of what Richard Cripps says - and I've been a member for 54 years. If I wasn't already a member I'm not sure that what the party has become w...
Richard Dickson Thanks for this. Kindness - to people, businesses, whole communities, our environment and to nature, to our past, present and future - requires us also to be br...
Richard Cripps I've been a Lib/Lib Dem voter for 50 years. However, I'm finding it more and more difficult to justify this to friends and family (snd sometimes even myself) as...
Steve Trevethan P. S. Here is an article from the current edition of "Counterpunch" which may be of relevance and/or interest.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/10/23/france...
Steve Trevethan Thank you for a most incisive article which, so precisely, presents the cruelty and greed of Neolibealim.
Would that the L.D Party renounced and denounced Ne...
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David Blake 
Richard Dickson 
Richard Cripps 
Steve Trevethan 