Two-party election in a one-party state: the Massachusetts Senate race

One of the luxuries of living in a one-party state is that one need not pay attention to politics. Presidential candidates do not campaign here. Representatives and Senators, secure of being reelected, ignore communications from constituents other than large donors. Our TV and radio pleasure is not interrupted by political ads. We get to enjoy the full use of our airports and highways, without roadblocks and restrictions put up by the Secret Service. We can concentrate on our work, friends, hobbies, and family.

This charmed life has been rudely interrupted by the special Senate election for a successor to Ted Kennedy. Polls indicate that Republican Scott Brown has some conceivable chance of beating Democrat Martha Coakley, challenging the conventional wisdom that a Republican has a better chance of being hit by a meteor than of being elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts. One thing that the polls do not show is the huge number of voters who know nothing about either Brown or Coakley. They may not even know that an election is scheduled. However, when they drive by a school on their way to the supermarket and see a “vote today” sign, they will go into the booth and, just as illiterate Indians back in the 1960s looked for the hand symbol and voted for Indira Gandhi’s Congress Party, will vote for the party in which they are registered (in the case of Massachusetts, overwhelmingly Democrat).

The mailbox is stuffed full of appeals to vote for Coakley, each one from a different organization or committee. Each appeal is a four-color glossy double-sided 8.5×11″ sheet. Presumably the fear is that voters wouldn’t be motivated enough to open an envelope. There are photos of the hated King Bush II and Scott Brown is identified as a Republican. Radio stations are filled with ads by Coakley and affiliated groups. I haven’t heard any ads that say anything positive about Coakley; they all concentrate on what is bad about Brown. Mostly what is bad is that he is a Republican. The word is repeated like a curse in every sentence: “Republican Scott Brown is a Republican who will go to Washington and vote with the Republicans, just as he has voted with Republicans in the state senate.” The “do not call” registry does not apply, apparently, to political harangues, so the home phone has been ringing every day for two weeks. Machines with Obama’s voice urge us to vote for Coakley. People call up and ask us to campaign for Coakley. Friends have emailed asking me to campaign for Coakley.

[The Brown campaign, by contrast, must have only a tiny fraction of the financial resources. I have not heard a single ad for Brown and have not received anything in the mail promoting Brown. No Brown supporters or automated machines have called the home phone.]

So I finally decided to have a look at Coakley’s resume. She is a lawyer who has spent nearly her entire professional life collecting a government paycheck. It is difficult to see how she would add a new perspective to a U.S. Senate already stuffed with people who have similar backgrounds. Why should we have to give up our leisure time to assist with her promotion within the Party? The Russians under the old Soviet Union did not volunteer to get out the vote for the Communist Party. Coakley will win, but do we have to miss an episode of South Park?

[I also looked for the first time at Brown's biography the other day. He is also a lawyer. The biggest knock against him is that he has spent 15 years as a Republican in the Massachusetts legislature, both in the house and senate. Aside from collecting a fat salary and generous pension, what would motivate a person to do that? The legislature meets all year every year. As it has been controlled by Democrats for decades, the meetings serve no purpose. The Party's senior officials could decide what they want to do with the state, write it up in one big document, and have the Democrat-controlled legislature approve it in one hour. A Republican has the right to collect a paycheck, the right to attend votes, the right to sit in on some meetings, but could not possibly influence the outcome in any way (and indeed his Web site does not claim that he ever got any specific law passed). If Brown wanted to accomplish anything as a politician, he would have had to move to New Hampshire or switch to the ruling party. But he did not do either of those things, which means that he has essentially done nothing for a good chunk of his professional life.]

Terrified that the reliable sheep of Massachusetts will stray from the Democrat flock, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are visiting this weekend. Thousands of Secret Service goons have converged on the state, commercial flights from Logan will be interrupted, and the area flight schools are all shut down due to temporary flight restrictions (massive economic losses right there) in order to prevent the nation’s most faithful Democrats from shooting the nation’s most beloved Democratic politicians.

For decades the Democrats have been taxing the citizens of Massachusetts and handing the money out to their cronies. Now they are wasting our time as well.

This guy is the reason Democrats hold power in this country. I guess that he will be similarly annoyed the day they come to put him in a reeducation camp.

This guy is the reason Democrats hold power in this country.

I don't understand your comment. Reading Greenspun's blog, it's pretty clear he's an anti-liberal, perhaps libertarian. In this article he's complaining about the one-party system in Massachusetts and the intrusive visit of Obama trying to keep it that way.

Thanks, libh8ter, for posting this. I've known Greenspun's work from a way back, but I wasn't aware of his blog.

It seems to me that he is more than happy to live in a one-party dictatorship as long as they leave him alone. Of course, they don’t. They tax him, control his life, destroy his culture - but, he doesn’t seem to care as long as they don’t make a big fuss that he notices.

I've known Greenspun's work from a way back, but I wasn't aware of his blog.

Me too. I knew of him from his photo.net site from the early 2000's. He wrote some of the best articles on photography that I have read on the internet.

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