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:
Nigel Jones @Vince, your nuanced approach makes some sense and as you say it is a complicated situation. If we get gas from the Jackdaw field and not importing it, does tha...
Nigel Jones I agee with your main argument. We do not need to support many pensioners with the triple lock and those who are poor should be provided for in another way. I ...
Jana Two seats where Restore standing has probably cost Reform gains. If this becomes an ongoing pattern, Farage may have to swallow his pride and do a deal with Res...
Chris Bowers Thank you to everyone who commented on my post, even if, by the end, the responses had drifted into the realm of comments-about-comments-about-comments. I think...
Chris Perry What the Prime Minister actually said was that if a prices link or 2.5% did not keep up with earnings over time the government would correct it. But that would ...
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Nigel Jones 
Jana 
Chris Bowers 
Chris Perry 