Thank God the tyranny of the far left is over!

Congrats to Senator Brown. First time MA has had an R senator since the 1970s

The White House will obviously try and spin Croakley’s loss in a way that blames her but judging from the fact that -0bama’s presence in NJ and MA did not bear the desired fruit, it seems that America is experiencing an awakening–all that “hopey changey” crap is being seen for what it is.

Speaking of fruit, now maybe MA can rid itself of an “undesireable fruit”–i.e. “the Banking Queen.”

There’s still the option of reconciliation. The super majority may have been lost, but the majority remains, and with reconciliation, that’s all that is needed.

@pyrope
The White House will obviously try and spin Croakley’s loss in a way that blames her

It’s already started – dueling memos went out before the polls had even closed.
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2010/01/democratic_officials_respond_to_finger_pointing.php

Scott Brown will be the person that saved the Democratic Party from self-destruction.

Looks like Teddy just paid his dues bigtime!!! I am sure you are all happy to see this.

Still not at all sure why anyone suggests this may be bad for the GOP. The article was weak in theory.

Congratulations to Brown! Ted must be turning over in his grave about now.

I heard the White House and Coakley are pointing fingers at each other already.

Congrats to Scott Brown on his win. Kudos to Coakley for not drawing this out. Classy.

@pyrope & @MartiniShark: It may sound like an excuse, but she did run a terrible campaign and he was much better at coming across as a man of the people. I mean, I’m thousands of miles away, but his “I’m Scott Brown from Wrentham” pretty much diffused any chance of (belatedly) tying him to Bush.

No doubt she did a horrible job, but honestly she should have coasted to a win. Less than a month ago she held a double-digit lead but as soon as Brown was on the radar the tide shifted. I think it was equal parts her bad job and the voters making a statement. It was telling that the President campaigned this weekend and did not mention the health care bill. They must have sensed something in the poll numbers.

Snipzor says:
January 19, 2010 at 9:35 pm

There’s still the option of reconciliation. The super majority may have been lost, but the majority remains, and with reconciliation, that’s all that is needed.

I find it astonishing that tonight you see the Democrats lose Ted Kennedy’s seat.. and this is your solution. It says a lot about the people who have hijacked and fallen victim to the lies of this horribly elitist movement, which will end very soon.

Watch Martha Coakley’s incredibly depressing concession speech: http://www.gotchamediablog.com/2010/01/martha-coakley-concedes-to-scott-brown.html

“I find it astonishing that tonight you see the Democrats lose Ted Kennedy’s seat.. and this is your solution. It says a lot about the people who have hijacked and fallen victim to the lies of this horribly elitist movement, which will end very soon.”

You know, I never got the whole “elitism” thing. I mean, shouldn’t one technically want a politician to be smarter and much more capable than the everyday voter? Not important, I’ll save that topic for another day.

But remember that not long ago, the majority of the country (Averaging polls, awesome) wanted the public option. To deny them the override of a never ending filibuster would be foolish.

@MartiniShark: Especially in an off-year, off-date election, motivated voters are the ones that go to the polls and though I’m sure many of those who were motivated to go to the polls today in Massachusetts wanted to send a message, it doesn’t necessarily indicate anything except that those individual voters were motivated.

With that said, I also have to say that I’m a lifelong Dem, whose first volunteer position was with the Carter campaign, but I have voted for and have supported a few Republicans over the years. On more than one occasion, I supported the Republican because the Democrat felt entitled to an office and in those elections, you might say that I was “motivated”.

IOW: Add the Tea Party to the 60-vote thing, mix-in a sense of entitlement and stir it all with a very poor campaign, the image of Bill Clinton coming to the rescue might have slowed the boil, but there was obviously more than enough motivation to go around.

There’s a difference between being intelligent and working together with others, and being an elitist who looks down and merely mocks those with differing viewpoints.

But hey, I wanted a public option too. I don’t make enough to get taxed heavily so I’d get free health care paid by someone else. It was win/win for me. Oh well.

@Colby: (BTW) Insurance Reform being dead is a product those opposed to the bill are going to try and sell and because it’s easy to frame as a question, it’s a meme that the media will help advertise from coast to coast.

But it’s not necessarily dead and at least one high-profile moderate has put his head in the chopping block, as I’m sure others have with less national press, so I don’t know that they’ll stand idly by to watch their sacrifice be in vain.

Snipzor says:
January 19, 2010 at 10:49 pm

Those poll questions determined much of the results, and how are most americans supposed to understand this bill and its repercussions when the ‘smarter and much more capable’ politicians cannot. Still.. you can act like Maddow, look like you’re about to cr,y and act like this isn’t a major earthquake in politics.. but it is. That is why I begged the question, your intention is to become more forceful against the obvious will of the People? Do you not understand what has happened in MA?

Senator Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia, is calling on Senate leaders to suspend any votes on the Democrats’ health care legislation until the winner in the special Senate election, Scott Brown, is sworn into office.

Webb Statement

@Magister

There are two reasons I cited voters making a statement, first being this is Mass., a huge Dem stronghold. Second, Coakley had a number of huge name pols come to her aide; Obama, Clinton, Kerry, Kennedy. Brown did not have that from what I saw (Palin may have come but I heard nothing of it.) Weigh those factors in and I think this is even more surprising.

rmbltmbl (You’ve got to fix that name),

When politicians say they do not understand the bill, here’s a fun fact, they are lying. Whatever happened to the stereotype that politicians were all liars? Out of all the common sense knowledge out there, this one is quite based in fact (The cultural hegemony had something right for once).

Also you keep saying “the will of the People” as if the seemingly liberal party wasn’t elected to get healthcare reform passed. I wonder why. I also wonder if you’ve perhaps taken into consideration the campaign run by Coakley, because most outside spectators have stated multiple times that she was running a bad campaign.

Remember, Scott Brown isn’t your average republican, people haven’t exactly fractured that into their strategy for defeating him. Does it represent the republican party coming back? Hardly.

Rasmussen been publishing exit polls from MA (1,000 voters).

won unaffiliated voters by a 73% to 25%
23% of the vote from Democrats
Union workers went for Coakley by , 52% to 46%.
(56%) of voters in the state say health care was the most important factor in their voting decision
(25%) of Massachusetts voters say the economy was most important.
47%) favor the health care legislation before Congress while 51% oppose it
(50%) say it would be better to pass no health care legislation at all
78% of Brown voters Strongly Oppose the health care legislation before Congress
61% of Brown voters say deficit reduction is more important than health care reform.
88% of Brown voters say it’s better to pass nothing at all

liberalontogeny says:
January 20, 2010 at 12:04 am

That is one hell of a poll. It would be nice if this actually made the presidency better.

He deserved to win, unfortunately. Coakley didn’t.

The little headline on Yahoo’s featured stories list is kind of cute; “Senate Result Stuns Democrats”.

Well again, I could establish my bonafides with the Democratic Party, but if Coakley had won, it would’ve been “stunning” and if you weren’t prepared for a Brown win, you weren’t paying attention.

You got that right, M. Coakley was a terrible, terrible candidate. Arrogant, aloof. Brown was a very good candidate. Approachable.

As for health care, both bills, the House and the Senate, are dreadful. Meaningful reform was gnawed away by the lobbyists and the likes of Holy Joe Liebermann and Ben Nelson. If the bill dies, I don’t think it is any big loss to anyone. To be sure, our nation is in desperate need of health care reform. Cost reform, access reform, to be sure, but also basic delivery of services reform. We may not see it in our lifetimes, and Lord knows the Republicans will do their very best to make sure nothing happens. They are accomplished obstructionists. Still, this may be a case of nothing being better than the special interest mess now before us.

King – I’ve been hearing from friends of mine that Coakleys’ attitude all along has been, I really don’t want the job but if elected, what the hell, I’ll do it. Brown on the other hand behaved as if he really wanted the job. Who would get your vote?

I also agree with you on the health care bills; it’s a disjointed mess and I won’t lose any sleep if it goes away.

We should be so Lucky! :
JimW says:
January 19, 2010 at 9:26 pm
Thank God the tyranny of the far left is over
-
They don’t Quit!- – - this “election”, is just a small ‘set-back’
I’m sure that those who don’t make it past November – ALSO have FULL un-employment BENEFITS!