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:
Hywel @paulwalter
They will do that anyway. Such Labour attack leaflets rarely have much allegiance that nuanced truth. If you are going to be a liberal party th...
Andy Hinton I can't think of any good reason why a liberal party worth its salt would make abstaining on a kick-the-marginalised amendment from the Tories a three line whip...
Jennie Big hugs for CJ
And a hearty two fingers to those sacking her and their flimsy crappy reasons for doing so...
James If this is true, then it seems both a ludicrous over reaction and an indication of how unimportant women and equalities are seen to be. One would hope that not ...
Tom King I fail to see 1) how voting against a Conservative amendment could possibly be dancing to their tune 2) why it precludes also opposing Labour's bill in its enti...