Coakley's Loss: Pie in the President's Face

Barack Obama went to Boston to rally voters and got a pie in the face. He lost his innocence as the valiant young president and also lost his sixty-vote majority in the Senate. Now we will find out what the man is made of--either a true political leader or just another show horse. Dozens of explanations are being offered for why the Dems were humiliated in Massachusetts. Democrats incline to grab easy answers. The president, if he is tough enough, will instead face the hard message of this political fiasco.

The special election displayed monumental miscalculations by which Obama has governed, both in priorities and political-legislative strategies. It may seem perverse and unfair, but the president's various actions for reform generated a vaguely poisonous identity.

And not an AJ Burnett kind of pie either!

This was all Obamacare’s fault, had little to do with the candidates. Coakley was an experienced politician, a statewide office holder, with high name recognition, and decent favorability, and had just won a primary against 2 decent foes, so the attacks on her competence are worth zero. Brown is clearly a very good candidate, but a good Democrat beats a good Republican every time in Massachusetts.

Brown campaigned well, and Coakley started slowly and made some mistakes toward the end, but that doesn’t drop anyone 35 points in two months. It was Obamacare, and the despicable way it has come about - the Louisiana Purchase, the Cornhusker kickback, the C-SPAN letter, the Gibbs blow-offs, Nancy’s “he said a lot of things during the campaign” line, Arnold’s “Nebraska got the corn and California got the husk” message, and finally the unions escaping in a Cadillac. Coakley was handed a load no candidate could bear, and she had no way to throw it off.

This was basically Greta Van Sustern’s take from last night and the more I think about it the more I agree. Sure there were other issues, but if Obamacare had already been passed, or wasn’t on the horizon, Coakley would be the senator. And “The People’s Seat” would be an unspoken answer to an unasked question.

The Administration appears to still believe NY23 is the rule and everything else the exception - Westchester, Nassau, VA, NJ, MA... please, nobody wake them up, OK?

So kudos to everyone who has fought against Health Deform. Even Norm Coleman for fighting the good fight to hold off Frankenstein and delay. It is a battle of attrition and we are winning.

Keep fighting, it isn’t over.

One has to wonder at this author’s selective memory when he complains that 0bama couldn’t have anticipated the resistance from the Republicans. We’ve had eight years of stubborn, unreasoning, hate-filled rhetoric and the Dems’ very best attempts at a complete roadblock for Bush and he expects the victims to play nice? It isn’t happening, and especially not in the case of 0bama’s overweening ambition in terms of health care legislation. And it isn’t going to happen ever unless the working definition of “bipartisan” changes from its present “you have to agree with the Democrats on everything.”

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