Losing in Massachusetts

David Lindsay

Nice try, but, as you undoubtedly know, Sunderland Central is a new seat this time, with lots of Tory wards in it. So the Tories are widely expected to take it. With a candidate who voted Labour in 1997 if not also later, but let's not go there from here.

So, this erstwhile Cosmo centrefold (seriously), what's he going to do then? Not "What is he not going to do?", vote for the not-very-good-anyway Senate Healthcare Bill. What is he going to try and get onto the Statute Book while busily not voting for that Bill?

Closing the borders and enforcing immigration laws? Opposing using American troops as the world's police force, instead only putting the military in harm's way when American territory or lives are in jeopardy? Making America energy independent?

Opposing any treaty or organisation that seeks to undermine American sovereignty or weaken our Constitution? Making English the official language of the United States? Opposing the bailouts? Fair trade, not "free" trade? Auditing the Federal Reserve? Repealing the Patriot Act?

What, exactly?

Or is sitting around not voting for the Healthcare Bill sufficient in itself?

David Preiser

Don't be daft, Lindsay. A freshman Republican Senator isn't going to be getting and nasty old laws through in the Democrat-controlled Congress. And even if by some remote chance one of those awful laws over which you're wringing your hands gets through both Democrat-controlled houses of Congress, your beloved Obamessiah can always veto it.

Your ignorance of the way Congress works is evident here.

RMH

Amazing. Romney won Gov. in Mass, and Kerry and Kennedy were incumbents since teh 70s, and brought home the bacon.

The New Jersey race is not valid as they had a donkey running who was hated.

RMH

The Obama campaign has come uindone because of its pursuit of gay marriage imho.

Vulture

2010 is getting off to a great start for conservatives.

The wheels have come off Obummer's chariot spectacularly. Americans aren't just disillusioned with him : they're in a raging fury. If they feel this way now - imagine how they're going to feel in 2012.

All this, and the totally unreported victory of a Conservative President in Chile after 20 years of leftie misgovernment.

I tell you, it's almost worth waiting up for to watch fatty Mardell of the BBC eating his words spoken as recently as 13/1/10: 'I don't actually think they (the Dems) Will lose the seat...'

Oh, I think they will Markie. And control of Congress in November. It's so delicious that after half a century of rotten Kennedy nepotism, that scummy family are losing their feudal fiefdom.

This Brown is quite a guy - can we swap him for our Brown?

KT everytime

I always thought America was loading ridiculously desperate aspirations onto Obama's shoulders and that when they found out that he wasn't really 'the saviour' - the keeper of the magic wand - they would turn on him and his with vehemence.

Is this election scare/loss the first sign of a return to realism in the USA - or a strange diversion?

Michael Booth

He's not the messiah, he's .... (finish this yourself)

David Lindsay

So what's the point of him, then, David Preiser?

And which of these would Obama veto? The anti-war ones? The fair trade ones? The immigration control and English as the official language ones, causes very dear indeed to black hearts? The repeal of the Patriot Act? The auditing of the Fed, a cause very dear indeed to all hearts?

It looks to me like this person is going to be drawing a salary for doing nothing. Before losing his seat at the first opportunity. It is not even as if healthcare is going to go away; it will just be brought back over and over again until it is passed out of nothing more than exhaustion or sheer boredom.

So, not much a victory at all, all things considered.

David Preiser

The "point" of Brown winning the election would be that democracy still exists and that national political parties cannot run roughshod over US citizens and deny them their voice. Candidates who do not represent the interests of the voters cannot just waltz into a "safe seat", expecting that it will be handed over on a silver platter, in order to vote against the will of the people.

This is much more about preventing legislation that people don't want then creating legislation that you may not like.

Of course, whoever wins will get a committee seat or two, participate in votes with all the other Senators, and maybe even the chance to co-sponsor some bit of uncontroversial, photogenic legislation that wouldn't offend you at all. That's what Senators do. They're not human rubber stamps, as you seem to think. What a strange and naive view of government you have.

Augustus

"PS As Alex cautions, the result isn't actually in yet." And doesn't MA have a fairly large % of dead voters, as well as registered voters who've moved somewhere else?

TGF UKIP

Augustus is dead right, the Obama bunch in DC are every bit as evil as the Brown gang over here and you can bet your bottom dollar that Acorn will be voting many many times and that the Mass. Attorney General will have no wish to investigate any "irregularities." If Scott Brown does win but by 5% or less look out for an endless stream of complaints and audits to delay the finalising of the result.

There seems to be a self-inflicted blindness over here, especially among Tories, over exactly who and what Obama is.

Roy Smith

It has to be said, that many in America and elsewhere could see through the facade of Obama before he gained office. He has instigated leftist programs regardless of circumstances requiring some deeper thought. He is asking to come a cropper and seemingly will.

David Lindsay

David Prieser, John McCain and Olympia Snowe have a baby, but you have to pretend to be delighted. I feel for you, I really do.

He’ll vote against the Healthcare Bill? What, and that’s it? That’s good enough for you? Lindsey Graham voted against the Healthcare Bill. Susan Collins voted against the Healthcare Bill. Even Joe Lieberman – have you got that? Al Gore’s running mate, whom McCain also wanted – nearly voted against the Healthcare Bill, and might yet.

And anyway, there’ll only be another one, as many as it takes until, however many years or decades hence, a despairing Congress finally relents. If the Republicans really were one tenth as pro-life as the Democrats really are pro-healthcare, then abortion would have been very greatly restricted a long, long time ago.

Frank P

The fat lady hasn't warbled yet; but by God! It's looking likely.

One Brown in - one Brown out? Whoopee! That's politics for you - a sort of alimentary canal.

Obama and Rob-errr-t Gibbs are both making excuses and blaming the Ma. machine tonight, "We came when they asked us - perhaps they should have called before".

Pelosi is looking the way Mad Aggie from the KPH Pub in Ladbroke Grove looks at turn-out time when she hasn't found her all-night punter, yet. (Is the KPH still that kinda boozer, or is the KPH gentrified now, too? Friends of call-me-Dave should know that).

We shall see, and can only hope that the American public have aroused from their slumber - they can't say we didn't warn 'em.

But already they are talking rigged votes, even before the count. 'Vote early and vote often.' I'll bet every cemetery in Baaarston has been busier with more visitors than usual today.

Gerard Vanderleun has the best blog on the election. And why isn't there a picture of Scott Brown on this thread with the caption "Winning in Massachusetts?" Don't bother to answer. The love of Obamessiah in firmly entrenched in the Westminster Village among the hack handmaidens and Cameron will have to kiss his ring next Spring, regardless. But with less enthusiasm one hopes. Get your mourning suits out guys, you may just need 'em. But this is Massachusetts .... dark smoke filled rooms and Chappaquiddick type fix-ups being the norm. Half the FBI in Barston go nicked last time I was there for facilitating the Mob. Great State, Ma.

A tectonic shift in geopolitics tomorrow if Scott Brown wins. I'm off to bed and will find out in the morning if a 'new day has dawned'. Sleep well Obermeister! Not!

Frank P

Mark Steyn in the Corner:

>Get Me Rewrite [Mark Steyn]
Several of us have noted below President Obama's descent into ever drearier sludgelike rhetoric, to the point where even the most drooling media Obammysoxers have given up swooning over his silver tongue.

By contrast, Scott Brown seems to deliver very nice lines on a regular basis:

"It's not Ted Kennedy's seat, it's the people's seat": Brilliant. Popular democracy vs the House-of-Lords Democrats.

"Scott Brown believes in evolution, but in the case of Bob Kerrey he's willing to make an exception": Lovely. A genial throwaway response to a demented line of attack that makes the attacker look ridiculous.

"The leader of the free world is talking about my truck": Bullseye. It underlines the David-vs-Goliath nature of the race, and also reminds you that, by having to intervene to prop up his flailing candidate, the President of the United States demeaned himself.

All these lines are beautifully poised, certainly when compared to the Hopeychanger's leaden oratory. I dunno who Scott Brown's writer is, but if Obama wanted to do himself a favor he'd hire the guy.<

Wonderful stuff; remember when we had it on top here? those were the days.

Frank P

I just got up to pee and decided to turn on the telly. HE WOOOOOOON!!

A freakin' landslide. The tectonic plates just shifted again - this time for the better. Roll on November - Screw March or May - much less important. Leave the Obummer Trojan Horse rotting as its cargo get dumped in the mid-terms. Thank you God!

Woot woot!

porkbelly

A 52 - 46 victory isn't simply the result of an unappealing candidate, or general ill-will towards incumbents, or the fact the God's personal envoy to Earth hasn't delivered all he has promised. It is a direct repudiation of the abrupt leftward turn Obama and his Congressional henchmen have attempted to impose upon the United States. It is a direct repudiation of the culture of privilege and entitlement that pervades the ruling class and its institutions - such as the blithe assumption of Martha Coakley that the Senate seat had been bequeathed to her by the ghostly hand of Ted Kennedy. It is precisely because Mass. has an expensive, unworkable healthcare plan that its voters oppose replicating it on a national level. They are not punishing Obama for failing to deliver; they are telling him to stop trying to deliver thinly-veiled Euro-socialism. We will surely hear every threadbare excuse for Obama from his acolytes (including those posting here) but there is no way around it: this election was about him.

Stewart

The result IS in now and how ironic it is that one of the most liberal states of the union that has a defacto universal healthcare system in place could be the state that denies one of the most liberal US presidents in history and a Democrat dominated congress the chance to deliver it to the rest of the US. Delicious! Though there are, I understand other ways that the bill can still succeed. I wonder if Obama will call it the Ted Kennedy Bill?
On a wider note, this is a triumph of democracy over the scourge of rotten boroughs, the advantages of national level incumbancy on local candidates, complacency and local political dynasties.

Roy Smith

Marvelous news; Kennedy fans eat your heart out.

David Preiser

David Lindsay,

"David Prieser, John McCain and Olympia Snowe have a baby, but you have to pretend to be delighted. I feel for you, I really do."

That doesn't even make sense. As for the rest of your comment, ObamaCare is merely the wedge issue people wanted to stop at the moment. Brown's election means much more than that one piece of legislation. As porkbelly explains above, it's about ordinary citizens sending a message to Washington - and to both parties, mind - that they aren't happy about the wasteful, debt-ridden, Socialist path down which the President and especially the Democrat-controlled Congress are dragging us.

Most important of all: we are not sheep, and "safe seats" are best left as a quaint British custom.

I can't put it any more plainly than that.

Major Plonquer

If Ted Kennedy was alive today he'd be turning in his grave.