That's kind of a bummer for Obama's one-year Inauguration anniversary tomorrow.
No exit polling was done because nobody was paying attention to the race until the last moment. So, everybody is free to speculate about the causes in a fact-free manner.
My guess about the demographics would be that Today's Youth, who turned out for Obama in large numbers in 2008, have moved on to a new fad.
After 2008, you heard about how Obama's big turnout among people under 30 guaranteed the Democrats victory for the rest of eternity. When it comes to electoral strategy, however, never trust anybody under 30 to notice any elections besides Presidential races.
Here are some details from Rasmusen's last pre-election poll:
In the end, Brown pulled off the upset in large part because he won unaffiliated voters by a 73% to 25% margin. The senator-elect also picked up 23% of the vote from Democrats. [Our polling shows that 53% of voters in Massachusetts are Democrats, 21% Republican and 26% not affiliated with either party.]
Coakley also barely carried a usually reliable Democratic constituency. Union workers went for her by just six points, 52% to 46%.
(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.
Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters in the state say health care was the most important factor in their voting decision. Brown made it clear in the closing days of the campaign that he intended to go to Washington to vote against the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats.
Twenty-five percent (25%) of Massachusetts voters say the economy was most important.
Forty-seven percent (47%) favor the health care legislation before Congress while 51% oppose it. However, the intensity was clearly with those who are opposed. Just 25% of voters in Massachusetts Strongly Favor the plan while 41% Strongly Oppose it.
Fifty percent (50%) say it would be better to pass no health care legislation at all rather than passing the bill before Congress.
Looking back, 30% say the bank bailouts were a good idea. Thirty-four percent (34%) say the same about the auto industry bailouts.
Today’s voters in Massachusetts are evenly divided in their opinion of the Tea Party Movement.
Fifty-seven percent (57%) of voters in the state offer a favorable opinion of Brown while 47% say the same about Coakley.
Twenty-eight percent (28%) say Brown is Very Conservative politically; 44% say he’s Somewhat Conservative, and 22% view him as a political moderate.
Thirty-five percent (35%) say Coakley is Very Liberal; 36% say she’s Somewhat Liberal, and 21% view her as a moderate.
Fifty-three percent (53%) approve of the way that Barack Obama has handled his job as President. Thirty-nine percent (39%) approve of the way Deval Patrick has handled his job as governor of Massachusetts.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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83 comments:
What's next, the Jets win the Super Bowl?
For every advantage, there is a disadvantage. Brown can serve as a scapegoat for why NOTHING is being accomplished by the Obama administration.
Maybe this is because it's generally men who are interested in politics, but have people properly discussed the issue of how incredibly hot Scott Brown was when he was 23 years old and of how attractive he is now for a 50 year old man?
Very good looking man takes very ugly (inside and out) man's seat.
obama is on a road to getting nothing done in office. however, his popularity will be the inverse of his ability to effect the ultimate democratic agenda, so get ready to say hello to a second term...
Someone really needs to autopsy the brains of several people on MSNBC. I saw Madow first. She simply couldn't understand how anyone could spin Brown's win as a repudiation of Obama policies. Matthews tried to explain it to her, but in the end, he gave up, and seemed to agree with her.
But just now, I caught this video of Olbermann and his buddy. Don't you just know ole Keith is convinced that racism is the real reason for the defeat and he is convinced the pick-up truck Brown used as a symbol in his ads was just "code". UN-FREAKIN' believable.
http://www.breitbart.tv/olbermann-cries-racism-in-massachusetts-uprising/
Can't stand the guy on football either.
Could it be that Americans realize that divided/split government is as close to limited government as we are going to get?
Anyways, this win is a big deal. The last three Republicans **elected** governors of the Commonwealth (via @baseballcrank on Twitter): Weld got 50.19% of the vote in 1990, Cellucci 50.81% in 1994, Romney 49.77% in 2002. Not exactly rousing majorities. 52-47 is somewhat comfortable. What Brown did shows 1.) the importance of candidate recruitment as Brown was articulate and professional 2.) the importance of a unity a center-right coalition that believes in limited government and 3.) America is not quite ready to turn into Western Europe. So, the handwriting is on the wall for the GOP - cut spending, cut the size and scope of government and provide an environment that lets individuals lead us out of this economic crisis, not government.
For fun, see here: http://twitpic.com/ywb2x
Maybe, just maybe - there is hope for the GOP.
http://michellemalkin.com/2010/01/19/is-george-voinovich-going-to-screw-the-gop-on-health-care/
Uh-oh.
With Senator-for-Life Teddy gone, the ghost of Mary Jo Kopechne finally has risen to haunt Democrats.
Scott Rasmussen did do some last minute stuff. Should have more of it up tomorrow.
There have been some statements about exit polling. Feminists have stated that Women supported Coakley by only 4%. THAT is a seismic shift.
It would appear from Frank Luntz's comments (he had trouble getting people to appear as Democrats) and others that White Working-Middle class people switched decisively to Brown. About 20+% DEMOCRATS voted for Brown.
And yes, much of it was an explicit message to Obama wrt Health Care.
Given that Brown is really a moderate Dem from 1983, with a lot of support from White Union workers, this would tend to lend support to Steve's contention that more Union-friendly Reps can win, and against mine that reaching out in that way is futile.
Statement against interest.
It remains to be seen if that is replicable in the People's Republic of Kalifornia, however.
But there it is. Steve in fact may be quite right and I quite wrong on this (appealing to White Union workers by Reps.)
Jim Webb and Evan Bayh have basically said, "start over" on ObamaCare.
Do you think the Youth Vote figured out that the cost of Obamacare is going to be borne chiefly by them in their healthy, but low-income-earning years?
Probably not, but just thought I'd toss that out.
I hope Ted Kennedy was released from his fiery pit for just long enough to watch the results.
I suspect that many in MA, and that would include some Dems and many indies, were tired of a Kennedy seat and resented his holding it for so many years. Yes, he was powerful. Yes, being powerful, he could bring home the bacon, but unless you were Irish and had tribal loyalties, I think you might have wanted someone new. Problem was, no one until now had had a chance to take the seat. That would have required money, big money, to even get the campaign off the ground, and even then, a challenger would have been met with Kennedy money and a business population afraid to buck Ted.
The Voinovich thing is a rumor. Someone, I think Levin, debunked it.
"It would appear from Frank Luntz's..."
I always enjoy Luntz' analyses and his focus groups, but the one he was running tonight was interrupted and I never saw the end of it.
Scott Brown is really your grandfather's Democrat.
oh yeah: this is change we can believe in! flip a few more senate seats and we will be working our way back to the loving embrace of......
(wait for it)
.....majority leader mitch mcconnell.
oh yeah baby......the kentucky general and his fellow patriots like big john mcpain can lead us to the promised land if we only give them one more chance. give the senate back to the republicans and we can get going with get another huge push for amnesty! and more patriot act security measures!
the future is so bright.......i see jindal romney palin and jeb bush ushering in a brand new era of....
(wait for it)
...bankster sponsored invite the world & invade the world globalist empire building........
yeah baby!
Boxer is very, very beatable, but somehow GOP candidates find a way to screw up here.
No matter their feelings about the wars, I can tell you that people here were really, really ticked at her for her treatment of that officer whom she was questioning-- --when she stopped his testimony after he addressed her as Ma'am and told him to call her "Senator."
A clever ad campaign will include that, for sure. Key word-"clever." Let's see if the GOP can run a clever candidate (Fiorina?) with a good message and clever advertising.
Do you think the Youth Vote figured out that the cost of Obamacare is going to be borne chiefly by them in their healthy, but low-income-earning years?
Most voters want the government to fix our inefficient health care system so that it resembles the efficient health care systems in all of the other industrialized nations. That's what Obama promised. Instead, he delivered a bag of goodies to the corporations who are to blame for our mess.
In other words, people voted for a Democrat but got stuck with a Republican. After the Skip Gates affair and the Wise Latina brewhaha, perhaps people decided an Affirmative Action Republican is not what they want.
If the Republicans hadn't catastrophically bungled the NY-23 election, this would pretty much be a sweep, right?
Brown can serve as a scapegoat for why NOTHING is being accomplished by the Obama administration.
I'm not sure how that works.
The Dems have far bigger majorities in Congress than Bush ever had, and he somehow managed to get things done.
Bad things in some cases, yes. But he managed to get things done and there is no excuse for Obama not to be able to do the same.
Scott Brown is really your grandfather's Democrat.
Nah. Your grandfathers Democrats were quite socially conservative.
Most voters want the government to fix our inefficient health care system so that it resembles the efficient health care systems in all of the other industrialized nations.
Have you had much experience with those "efficient health care systems in all of the other industrialized nations"? I doubt that you have.
They're cheaper, yes. And you get what you pay for.
Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters in the state say health care was the most important factor in their voting decision.
And there is the rub in this victory. The voters of Massachusetts are willing to oppose liberalism if they think they will personally suffer the consequences, but in all other cases they willingly work to promote it to the rest of us.
To be really honest these people seem to lack any fellow feeling towards the rest of us, else they would have not kept on reelecting Ted for so many years.
What amazes me -- and, in an uncharacteristic moment of compassion, even saddens me a tiny bit -- is that Ted Kennedy is barely cool in his grave, and his home state has thrown away his life's work. Just cast it aside, perhaps for many years (inshallah)...
...Which makes me wonder, does Kennedy's half-century in office signal support for his beliefs, or all along was it about something closer to celebrity worship, pork fever, and/or tribalism?
-TAG
"Can't stand the guy on football either."
Olbermann is just unbearable, a smug joke.
Besides Scott Brown's Pick-Up Truck being a blatant Dog Whistle to White Racists, there's the issue of his daughters.
Both of his daughters are very beautiful and clearly of pure-blooded Aryan Descent.
Plus the Blonde one looks like a Poster Child for the Nazi Master Race!
Why do you think Scott Brown had his daughters play such a prominent role in his Campaign Advertising? That's right! To get the powerful Neo-Nazi Vote on his side!!
This starts in Massachusetts, but ends in Death Camps and forced sterilizations of the Unfit.
Well, I went to politico.com tonight for a little lefty sad sack commentary and there is the famous media maven Arianna Huffington staring back at me. Just one more reason to support an immigration timeout was my first thought.
Anyone else notice the recent American female political website strategy of placing "hard" political news & commentary directly alongside a vertical column of "soft" celeb gossip crap?
This strategy is in effect at Huffington Post and also a slick website I stumbled upon that turned out to run by that woman from England who ran Vanity Fair once upon a time. I can't remember her name or what her new web magazine is called but it should be called global citizen talking points celebrity chatfest.
btw the gossip-simulcast-with-politics web strategy is taken straight from the British paper called the Daily mail.
Steve knows these people. These are the kind of people that won't hire Steve Sailer. They have frozen him out of a big career in journalism. But maybe it's better not to be associated with the mainstream in any way at this point. The news media in this country is a farce.
Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters in the state say health care was the most important factor in their voting decision.
Yes, and those are people who already benefit -- if that's the right word -- from RomneyCare. There doesn't seem to be any media explication of how that works politically. Do voters think they have enough coverage already and don't need more? Is RomneyCare such an expensive screwup that they don't want anything like it federally? Or something else? Any Massholes out there who can shed any light on the matter?
Voters under 30...
All those hip young gunslingers who were 30 in 2008 are now boring, has-been, 31 year olds.
that woman from England who ran Vanity Fair once upon a time
That would be Tina Brown.
Arianna herself was also at one time a member of the British punditocracy, she didnt spring fully formed as Greek immigrant turned pundit onto the US stage. There was a time I can rememeber her pontifcating regularly in the British media.
"But just now, I caught this video of Olbermann and his buddy. Don't you just know ole Keith is convinced that racism is the real reason for the defeat and he is convinced the pick-up truck Brown used as a symbol in his ads was just "code"."
I have to agree with Keith. Barrack Obama has made white identity politics cool again.
Tina Brown and The Daily Beast.
I was hoping the vote would be a little closer, so Democrats would whine about Libertarian Joe Kennedy ruining things, just like they whined for 8 years about Ralph Nader throwing the 2000 election.
Not that elections mean anything. I just like hearing libs cry.
Can't say that the Republicans are much better than the Democrats, but I'm glad that Scott Brown won. And he's just so handsome and dreamy.
Anonymous said: "Have you had much experience with those 'efficient health care systems in all of the other industrialized nations'? I doubt that you have.
"They're cheaper, yes. And you get what you pay for."
Ditto. (I know because I'm livin' in one right now.)
Democrats are committing hara-kiri in January, to prepare for kamikaze in November. We are dealing with Banzai Donkey now.
Drudge's headline this morning is "Now will he run for president?"
As I said in a previous comment, Brown is an impressive cat, and I'm a straight cynic. So often when looking up the deets on a politician I can find a reason to dislike them but with Brown, and before that Palin, I'm just not seeing anything, not anything major anyway.
"And there is the rub in this victory. The voters of Massachusetts are willing to oppose liberalism if they think they will personally suffer the consequences, but in all other cases they willingly work to promote it to the rest of us."
Yup. Which is why Massachusetts needs more Somali refugees to "enrich" their 99% which townships allow their "openness to experience" open their eyes to what liberal policies are like up close and personal.
"Ronduck said...
Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters in the state say health care was the most important factor in their voting decision.
And there is the rub in this victory. The voters of Massachusetts are willing to oppose liberalism if they think they will personally suffer the consequences, but in all other cases they willingly work to promote it to the rest of us.
To be really honest these people seem to lack any fellow feeling towards the rest of us, else they would have not kept on reelecting Ted for so many years."
Yes, I agree. This does not absolve them for having kept that drunken, obnoxious, homicidal swine in office all those years. Or for sending Ed Markey, Barney Frank, and John Kerry to Washington either.
I don't expect too much from Brown - he's all on board with the program of endless, pointless wars. Think of how much bigger his win could have been if he'd come out for speedy withdrawl from Afghanistand and Iraq? (BTW, Whiskey: Don't bother replying - I'm not interested).
A real danger now is that the Republicans will become insuferable despite having learned nothing. I won't vote for a Republican until he dumps on George Bush as much as he does on Obama.
Scott Brown should visit Iowa soon. He has New Hampshire locked up.
What is striking to me is how did such a dumb woman get herself elected as the Democratic standard-bearer in the most intelligent state in the union? This was the most doltish campaign in my lifetime.
This seems to me to be a worthy topic for Steve to research.
The facts according to a Politico article are the following:
*In the primary, Martha Coakley ran against three men and got 47% of the vote.
*Rep. Michael Capuano finished with 28%. Civic activist Alan Khazei and Boston Celtics co-owner Stephen Pagliuca, both received about 13% of the vote.
*It's never said what her advantage was, but I assume it was because she was the attorney general.
*According to wikipedia:
She was elected the attorney general in 2006 with 73% of the vote against the Republican. Before that she was a district attorney (starting in 1997/98 when she won that election). She racked up accolades for being an accomplished woman during this time. It was during her tenure as district attorney that she lobbied against clemency for Gerald Amirault. Other controversies ensued, but for a layperson, the significance would be missed.
*Wiki:
She joined the DA's office in 1986. She left briefly after being invited, only one year in, by the U.S. Justice Department to join its Boston Organized Crime Strike Force as a Special Attorney. She returned in 1989; no reason given.
*Wiki: She practiced as a lawyer after her graduation in 1979 until 1986.
As a layperson and outsider, problems don't seem evident until her time as the district attorney, and I'm looking for them. For a passive constituent, the Amirault case may be the only thing negative thing they ever heard about the woman.
The question is how did others allow her to get her foot in the door? Once she had some success, it seems it was hard to stop her. She was both a Democrat and "child and woman advocate" and this biography seemed to help propel her above and beyond her actual abilities.
Finally, the identity politics that propelled an inept and bungling candidate with a support apparatus to match seem to be the same factors that led to the presidency of Obama (and the general leftward tilt that's been going on since I've been alive) with all its attenuate consequences.
Anonymous said: "Anyone else notice the recent American female political website strategy of placing "hard" political news & commentary directly alongside a vertical column of "soft" celeb gossip crap?"
I noticed it on HuffPo. (I don't frequent any other American female political websites, I read The Grauniad daily for my sins and figure that's penance enough.)
"This strategy is in effect at Huffington Post and also a slick website I stumbled upon that turned out to run by that woman from England who ran Vanity Fair once upon a time. I can't remember her name or what her new web magazine is called but it should be called global citizen talking points celebrity chatfest."
I think you mean The Daily Beast, edited by Tina Brown.
Today's homepage asks "Will We Forget Haiti, Too?" and then moves on to the equally compelling "One-
Shoulder Gowns At The Globes Awards" and "Timothy Hutton: Literary Sex God".
I have to hand it to them, they know how to please and appease their demographic target.
The appeal of this winning combo platter of soft news and hard gossip exemplifies better than anything I can think of just why I'd like to see that demographic disenfranchised.
All you need to know about the women's vote was evident onstage with Martha when she conceded. I was on the phone with my girlfriend and she said "Have you ever seen so many femi-Nazi schoolmarms outside of school?" The fight against the Democrats is the fight, at the risk of sounding like ol' Whiskey, against the radical feminization of this country. Women who actually like the company of men, not the penis carriers you see walking 3 steps behind these fems, have rejected their agenda.
And it didn't hurt that Scott Brown is the vision of a man's man. He grew up in the town next to mine, and people who knew him say he always got more pu$$y than a litter box!
Brutus
Funny. I never heard a word about Scott Brown "distancing" (I hate verbalized nouns) himself from George W. Bush. He made no declarations that he wouldn't vote to "invite the world, invade the world". He found it unnecessary to repudiate tax cuts or victory against terrorism. He kept the focus directly on Coakley and Obama. And yet he won in what was considered a cesspit of Bush Derangement Syndrome. Wonder why no one has pointed this out yet? Or did I miss it? I think the MSM would have trumpeted such a declaration worldwide.
Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters in the state say health care was the most important factor in their voting decision. Brown made it clear in the closing days of the campaign that he intended to go to Washington to vote against the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats.
...
Forty-seven percent (47%) favor the health care legislation before Congress while 51% oppose it. However, the intensity was clearly with those who are opposed. Just 25% of voters in Massachusetts Strongly Favor the plan while 41% Strongly Oppose it.
Did Obama really think he could fund this thing by taxing the health insurance plans of the union members and SWPL females who elected him?
Also, I have read in obscure places (the point is a little too complex for the MSM) that the insurance industry was teed up to tell Obama: health care reform = tort reform.
IOW, if society is going to pay for all medical casualty in this country, then you had better do something about the gazillion dollar pain-and-suffering awards society is already paying the freight for. Unless you don't mind $5 loaves of bread, that is. So Obama was going to get the plaintiff trial bar mad at him as well.
Obama, not being particularly bright or savvy, thinks in this sort of wide-eyed, cargo cult way, that business is a magical, money-printing machine for he and his law review buddies to tap whenever they dream up some social engineering scheme.
"Most voters want the government to fix our inefficient health care system so that it resembles the efficient health care systems in all of the other industrialized nations."
Nope, you couldn't be more wrong. People are not as stupid as you think. They know that the systems running in the UK, Canada, etc. have severe problems delivering quality health care quickly for anything other than emergencies.
You can't live in the US w/out knowing a neighbor, colleague, friend, who has a Canadian relative who's on a long waiting list or whose relative has come to the US for treatment of something serious.
And, once they got into the details of this mess, most Americans who've worked hard, and who have given up some wages in exchange for quality health care, don't appreciate giving up some of that care plus having to pay for the care of others--extension of the welfare state. Nope.
"The Dems have far bigger majorities in Congress than Bush ever had, and he somehow managed to get things done.
Bad things in some cases, yes. But he managed to get things done and there is no excuse for Obama not to be able to do the same"
Politics is the art of persuasion and other than persuading a majority of Americans to cast votes for him after barely being introduced to him, it has become clearer and clearer that Obama and his boy Rahm don't understand that you can only get away with the practice of bull-rushing in the early stages. After that, you need more of the personal graces, the kind that helped Reagan and O'Neill to forge a relationship.
You lose political capital very quickly with bull-rushing. We are discovering, I believe, that Obama has NEVER built any close personal friendships with other Dems, that he has never even considered forging such relationships with any Repubs. All he had are flimsy coalitions with like-minded lefties like Waxman, Pelosi, etc.
This defeat has given guys like Jim Webb an opening. Others will follow.
Yawn. Just another example of why 2 party totalitarian systems are much cleverer than 1 party totalitarian systms. Most Americans believe they are living in a "democratic" society and that when they pick between the two dominant parties they are in fact making a "choice" as to which direction their nation is going. In this way the ruling elite is even less accountable for it's actions than are one party totalitarian elites like China's CCP and is free to act with even more impunity. This is because the Chinese people have no vent; they correctly see the CCP as holding all the power, and if the CCP steps too hard there is always the danger that opposition could take the form of violent unrest.
On the other hand, Americans incorrectly divide their ruling elite into 2 "parties," and because of this the ruling elite, which in fact is quite monolithic, has no fear of consequences and can do whatever. What have they to fear, when opposition to their rule takes the form of people voting one of the elite's parties out of power and voting the other one in? lol.
"is that Ted Kennedy is barely cool in his grave, and his home state has thrown away his life's work. Just cast it aside, perhaps for many years (inshallah)..."
His life's work was for himself and those whom he feared. Two brothers were assassinated; he himself was no innocent, and he could be blackmailed easily. He was so controlled, and anyway, his policies didn't matter to him. His "stuff" was safe, as was his job for life.
The voters are voting in their best interests. Voting for Kennedy was pure tribalism, and now he's gone.
Matthew Richer at VDare thinks immigration was the big issue (New Englanders don't want their "little platoons" disrupted by Somalis, Salvadorans, etc.).
The whole idea, wake up, is NOT to be in the "loving" embrace of government. But being a dumbfuck lib you'll never get it.
John Seiler:
With Senator-for-Life Teddy gone, the ghost of Mary Jo Kopechne finally has risen to haunt Democrats.
And the ghost of Violet Amirault has risen to haunt Martha Coakley. Finally - some justice for the true victims of the Satanic Panic hate crimes of the 80s and 90s.
So, everybody is free to speculate about the causes in a fact-free manner.
Thank you for official permission, but some of us have on our own initiative have already adopted a fact-free speculative approach.
Hollywood movies are not burdened with a slavish adherence to actual historical events. Politicians follow economic policies that are self serving fantasies. Our media pundits are revered for their ability to ignore and deny plain truths.
So why should we humble blog commenters alone be tasked with making sense and adhering to documented facts? I'm glad that we now have license to join the mainstream.
The Dems have far bigger majorities in Congress than Bush ever had, and he somehow managed to get things done.
Sure, but the things he got done were all center-left, like NCLB and Medicare Schedule D. I doubt Bush would have been able to accomplish much if he'd tried to enact a conservative agenda.
Brown's perfect storm is not the result of any realignment and one should not read too much into it.
Martha Choakley was unelectable, a visibly loathsome candidate who won the primaries because Democratic kingmakers were asleep at the wheel. Democrats in MA were very uneasy with her and many did not come out to the polls for the choice between a witch and a Republican.
http://dailycaller.com/2010/01/19/pollster-frank-luntz-having-difficulting-finding-coakley-supporters-for-focus-group-on-the-eve-of-massachusetts-senate-race/
Had Croakley lost the primary to someone credible, such as runner-up Michael Capuano (former mayor of the Graduate Student Township), the Democrats would have rolled as usual.
Because of a victory of a Republican over a left-winger, people who can't afford health insurance may be in less danger of being fined or jailed for not being able to afford it.
We live in interesting times.
"Brown's perfect storm is not the result of any realignment and one should not read too much into it."
"Democrats in MA were very uneasy with her and many did not come out to the polls for the choice between a witch and a Republican."
"Had Croakley lost the primary to someone credible, such as runner-up Michael Capuano (former mayor of the Graduate Student Township), the Democrats would have rolled as usual."
Oh, poo. The turnout was HUGE for a midterm non-Presidential special election in January. Something like the biggest since before 1990.
Nice try at spin, though.
The Massachusetts Senate election result has been analysed by many commentators already. Some saying it is a rejection of the health bill and others saying its about the economy. How about that its just that people have fallen out of love with President Obama or just don't want him in the White House. He just does not look right there.
t.
Democrats in MA were very uneasy with her and many did not come out to the polls for the choice between a witch and a Republican.
A witch-hunting witch, too!
You gotta admire the indefatigability of the neocons (National-security strength lifts Scott Brown). They will simply not go away.
I think there is potential that this is the kind of ethnic/class realignment that may have been surpressed as long as Teddy was alive. It is very intriguing to me, a Mass native living in NH (aren't we all).
While I personally don't feel it, I have come to realize that many of the older generation of Catholics would never vote directly against Ted because they do recall real exclusion from Republican/WASP ruling class (in the old days)
I'm not saying this is as big as the realingment of the South, but there are some elements that are somewhat similar.
"Nah. Your grandfathers Democrats were quite socially conservative"
You know, is the phrase "socially conservative" a euphemism for "I don't care if gays marry?"
I can't think of anything else it really means anymore. I'd say the nation is still at least 60-40 against gay marriage and IF they felt that activist judges wouldn't simply overturn however they voted, I think the numbers would be more like 75-25 against gay marriage. However, most are okay with domestic partnerships, civil unions, etc.
To Curvaceous,
I can't even agree with your responder that it was a "nice try at spin." It was a pathetic try.
Sorry, Curvaceous. The comment above should have been directed to Ivy League Bastard.
Oh, speaking of the Ivy League. Obama's dissing of the Cambridge cop, his pre-election "guns and Bible" remark and now his remark about Brown's pick-up truck...you now have the average voter seeing him not as a smart guy, but as "one of those elites" ... and that spells trouble for him.
Dahlia, she was elected AG for the same reason as almost all of them have been: she was the DA of Middlesex County, just like the last 3.
Brutus
"People's seat"!!!!!
My guess about the demographics would be that Today's Youth, who turned out for Obama in large numbers in 2008, have moved on to a new fad.
Yes, along with their idiotic parents, who were and still are determined to prove their bona fide non-racist credentials. These kids didn't come out of nowhere. Gimme another black man to vote for, so I can show what a noble, race-blind person I am!
Have you noticed that when the "independent" voters do not help out the rightwing, these talk show hosts go ballistic about those "fence sitters." What kind of people must they be, whines Mr. Rightie, Why, they must have no principles. However, when the fence sitters vote right of center, then they are holy patriots who are making Jefferson proud and behaving just as the Founders would like Americans to behave.
oh yeah baby......the kentucky general and his fellow patriots like big john mcpain can lead us to the promised land if we only give them one more chance. give the senate back to the republicans and we can get going with get another huge push for amnesty! and more patriot act security measures! the future is so bright ....... i see jindal romney palin and jeb bush ushering in a brand new era
You are funny and so, so, right! Ain't it the truth!
Anyone else notice the recent American female political website strategy of placing "hard" political news & commentary directly alongside a vertical column of "soft" celeb gossip crap?
And very often the so-called soft gossip is nothing more than porn. And also, very often, Ms. Arianna's photo is on the home page MULTIPLE times! Talk about immigration time-out -- that woman has been in this country for over 30 years, and yet has not modified that thick, sometimes excrutiating accent.
One hardly finds the words to comment on Tina Brown's Daily Beast. Is she serious?
I don't expect too much from Brown - he's all on board with the program of endless, pointless wars.
I'm hoping this isn't so. I realize it can be genuinely suicidal to express any sort of animus towards worthless wars in which we can merrily kill off our young soldiers. Although Brown had to make the usual mention about "security," he didn't seem to play it up too much. And why would Massachusetts' types be warmongers anyway? How many military bases are in New England?
... a visibly loathsome candidate who won the primaries because Democratic kingmakers were asleep at the wheel.
Doesn't it seem that "kingmakers" of both parties are asleep at the wheel? Would awake and alert kingmakers have allowed for that McCain-Palin ticket?
"Dahlia said...
What is striking to me is how did such a dumb woman get herself elected as the Democratic standard-bearer in the most intelligent state in the union?"
I think the question should be: why is the "most intelligent" state in the union so stupid as to have repeatedly elected Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Barney Frank?
"Most voters want the government to fix our inefficient health care system so that it resembles the efficient health care systems in all of the other industrialized nations."
Nope, you couldn't be more wrong. People are not as stupid as you think. They know that the systems running in the UK, Canada, etc. have severe problems delivering quality health care quickly for anything other than emergencies.
airtommy is a liberal moron. The French system in $9 billion in debt. Yeah, that's what the US needs, more debt...
Scott Brown is really your grandfather's Democrat.
Are you sure about that? This guy is already sounding weird to me. I hope he doesn't turn out to be the kind who can't think on his feet, and requires his every public word to be pre-written for him, or else he sticks his foot in it. I only heard a snippet of his acceptance speech, and he was saying something like, "My daughters are available." What the hell does that mean? Why would a father make such a stupid announcement, even in jest? Available for what? He's already sounding dopey to me.
You know, is the phrase "socially conservative" a euphemism for "I don't care if gays marry?"
No, I'm pretty sure that's not it.
Doesn't it seem that "kingmakers" of both parties are asleep at the wheel? Would awake and alert kingmakers have allowed for that McCain-Palin ticket?
The kingmakers wanted Obama and thats what they got. They also wanted McCain to pretend to be a Republican candidate, they got that too.
Victoria,
Available for courtship, of course.
Try to get your mind out of the gutter. There was nothing wrong with Scott Brown's joking announcement that his daughter is looking for a boyfriend.
On the one hand the "left politics + gossip" combo leaves me cold. It's interesting however to identify it as such, because while it seems weird, that combo is female oriented.
What if you flipped the polarity? Then it would be "right politics + gadgets/tech/science". Hmmm. Now that sounds like a lot of blogs that I read as a man.
You knew it wouldn't take long for someone to blame Diebold:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7656
Available for courtship, of course. Try to get your mind out of the gutter.
Well, you know, I reacted to Brown's comment before I read about Glenn Beck's over-the-top remarks. My reaction came because of photos of Brown and his partially clad daughters. Fathers usually don't engage in grinning photos with their half-naked post-teen girls. At least, not those "grandfather's Democrats" that were suggested.
>Given that Brown is really a
>moderate Dem from 1983, with a
>lot of support from White Union
>workers, this would tend to lend
>support to Steve's contention
>that more Union-friendly Reps can
>win, and against mine that
>reaching out in that way is
>futile.
Whiskey,
There are several things at play here.
Too begin with, Scott Brown looked, spoke and talked "Guy." His CV was of a "up by his boot straps" guy who climbed the economic ladder, who had made good and had raised some really attractive kids.
He had all the cultural markers of the kind of Male leader white blue collar men and not a few white women women want in times of trouble. He even drove a four year old GM truck!
Those cultural markers drive Leftist SWPL/multi-cultural Democrats nuts.
Coakley, OTOH, was a female, empty suit, Kennedy machine aparatchek.
She appealed to that low turn out Democratic leftist primary voter to get the nomination. So she kept using those inside the Democratic primary voting base put downs with an absolute tin ear for the wider general voting public because all she ever had to run against were Democrats whom she could never allow to get to her left. That echo chamber is where most Democrats and main stream media types live.
This set her up for a lot of really good shots by Brown she never did respond to, like this:
³You can run against Bush-Cheney, but I¹m Scott Brown,¹¹ Brown responded. ³I live in Wrentham. I drive a truck.¹¹
This also let Brown hammer Coakley over on jobs, jobs, jobs and higher taxes.
The first words out of Brown's mouth in that reply to Gergan over Brown's filling Kennedy's seat and killing health care was that "this health care bill will cost Massachusetts jobs, it will cost us real jobs."
Brown was speaking directly to the NUMBER ONE interest of American voters...and both the Democrats and Big Government Republicans like Gergan wanted to talk about where a dead Kennedy put his butt.
Finally, Massachusetts Democrats are so deeply into Bush Derangement Syndrome that they missed the real fact of the 9/11/2001 attack for their local community.
American Airlines Flight 11 & United Airlines Flight 175 both departed Boston-Logan International Airport. That makes Boston the next biggest place hit by 9/11 deaths after the NY metropolitan area. A lot of the people who died on those planes had their biographies and relatives on local news for _years_.
This is a part of the local Massachusetts cultural DNA for independent, centerist Democratic and Republican voters who make up 75% of the Massachusetts general voting population.
Of course things like the Khaled Shiek Mohamad trial would be on Massachusetts general election voter's minds!
Then, on 24 Dec 2009, we have the failed terrorist attack, while Coakley was on vacation, and the Obama Administration put the terrorist into the US federal judicial system.
Then Coakley choked on the Afghanistan terrorist question and hit that local cultural hot button that was all over talk radio but completely notices inside the Democratic/MSM echo chamber.
And Brown was a Massachusetts Army National Guard Lawyer with multiple tours of War on Terror Service who hammered Coakley over that hot button again and again.
All the "Hate E-Vile Republican" TV spots in the world could not get past that local cultural DNA that Scott Brown was speaking too.
"You know, is the phrase 'socially conservative' a euphemism for "I don't care if gays marry?"
Yikes, I didn't proofread my post.
Someone said Brown is "not a social conservative." Does that phrase mean "I don't care if gays marry."
Thanks for the correction.
Mr Sailer, you said the Asian minority vote would trend GOP since those groups emulate and associate with the "winners".
Well Scott Brown is a winner, and that makes him attractive. He's not a winner in the unachievable Peyton Manning, or Warren Buffett sense, but a winner normal guys could hope to emulate, a male version of Sarah Palin if you will.
The Huffington Post posted a video of his wife in a music video and she looked really pretty. I hope it wasn't an attempt to smear him since it backfired!
Seeing how pretty she was, it made me realize that she had a lot of options and she chose Scott, so why shouldn't I?
Yeah, you can assume the "white party" and the "winners party" means the same thing, but "a winners party" is a more palatable way to attract voters.
Anyone notice Scott Brown kinda looks like Sailer without a mustache? I wonder if there's a Sailer centerfold floating around.
"Anyone notice Scott Brown kinda looks like Sailer without a mustache? I wonder if there's a Sailer centerfold floating around."
No he doesn't, you weirdo.
Victoria,
I'm sure Scott was smiling at something other than how flipping hot his bikini clad daughters are.
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