I assume everyone is watching Massachusetts as anxiously as I am?<\/p>\n
I’m somewhat desperately — is “desperately” too strong? Maybe. But maybe not — hoping that Martha Coakley wins the election today, because although the Democrats certainly can pass health care reform no matter who wins today<\/a>, they might not if Scott Brown wins.<\/p>\n But if Scott Brown wins — as seems likely — I can see a silver lining. I don’t think a far-right tea-bagger type is likely to win a regular election in Massachusetts, so if Brown wins, he’s almost certainly a one-termer. In contrast, Martha Coakley — who has been exactly the sort of prosecutor I loathe, the sort who doesn’t give a damn about keeping innocent people in prison<\/a> as long as her conviction record looks good — would probably be in the Senate until the day she dies.<\/p>\n (Related: The reason the Dems are in such deep shit today is mostly the economy<\/a> and the usual mid-term problems. “To reinforce this point, try and list the times when the economy was in a downturn, but approval of the governing party was in an upswing. Outside of post-election honeymoons and the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, you simply are not going to find any examples. At all.”)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I assume everyone is watching Massachusetts as anxiously as I am? I’m somewhat desperately — is “desperately” too strong? Maybe. But maybe not — hoping that Martha Coakley wins the election today, because although the Democrats certainly can pass health … Continue reading