Posts Tagged ‘Martha Coakley’

This could be a game changer in Massachusetts

Posted: January 9, 2010 by datechguy in elections, opinion/news
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As I’ve mentioned I don’t give Scott Brown much of a chance in the election, people aren’t as fired up over this as one might think here but a stunt like this has the potential to do it.

Today, a spokesman for Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, who is overseeing the election but did not respond to a call seeking comment, said certification of the Jan. 19 election by the Governor’s Council would take a while.

“Because it’s a federal election,” spokesman Brian McNiff said. “We’d have to wait 10 days for absentee and military ballots to come in.”

Another source told the Herald that Galvin’s office has said the election won’t be certified until Feb. 20 – well after the president’s address.

Since the U.S. Senate doesn’t meet again in formal session until Jan. 20, Bay State voters will have made their decision before a vote on health-care reform could be held. But Kirk and Galvin’s office said today a victorious Brown would be left in limbo.

In contrast, Rep. Niki Tsongas (D-Lowell) was sworn in at the U.S. House of Representatives on Oct. 18, 2007, just two days after winning a special election to replace Martin Meehan. In that case, Tsongas made it to Capitol Hill in time to override a presidential veto of the expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

I understand the tactic here is to suppress the Brown vote, making the case that it doesn’t matter if you turn out it won’t stop obamacare but I don’t know if state democrats understand exactly what they are doing here.

Let’s say that Brown actually wins and they pull this stunt. There is going to be a sense among the voters of the state that they have been cheated. Except among the hard core win at any cost left even democrats in this Boston Red Sox/sports crazy state would be outraged.

It would be the equivalent of the sneak attack on pearl harbor to the state in terms of effect, it would cause rage. Even worse for elected democrats, it would cause rage in JANUARY of an election year and motivate people to run on the local, state and even federal level with plenty of time to get on ballots and run.

It would motivate them during an election when the president and congress is at its lowest level of popularity, where Governor Patrick (Obama lite) is so unpopular that it will take a major miracle for him to win.

Democrats in this state are soft, they rarely get competition, what do you think will happen if they get real challengers all over the state with an electorate that is angry and motivated? If there was ever a chance for this state to be flipped on a more permanent basis that would be it.

Are State democrats really that stupid? Do they really understand what they might be doing? We know the national party doesn’t give a damn what happens in Massachusetts, it is a state that is losing population and influence it doesn’t matter in the short run. They will sell state democrats in a seconds and there is no Ted Kennedy who knows where the bodies are buried nationally to protect the state from this.

But for state democrats this is all they know, this is their money pit and they are about to risk it. This is a could be a defining moment for the state. The very suggestion that they would do this could be a game changer for this election. Do you as Martha Coakley want to answer a question on this subject?

If they don’t back off of this REALLY fast then all bets are off.

If the GOP has any brains they will get on the ground in Massachusetts at once and start recruiting candidates statewide NOW! This is the type of mistake that takes place once in every few generations, if we don’t take advantage of it then it is our own fault and we deserve exactly what we get.

Update: Jules Crittenden also a Massachusetts resident doesn’t think it would have that effect. He might be right, but it all comes down to what the GOP does with this. We are being given the best shot they will ever get and we’d damn well better take advantage of it.

Update 2: Hillbuzz is with me on this but then again he doesn’t live here.

Almost forgot that election ground report…

Posted: January 8, 2010 by datechguy in elections, local stuff
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…that I promised at the begining of the day.

In the diner nobody knew much about the election but when I talked about it every person but one expressed an opinion and that opinion was all Scott Brown. Once I mentioned that the difference was the passage of Obamacare or no that seemed to cinch it.

At the Butcher Shop it was empty but nobody was really talking about the election. Only Kathy expressed an opinion and it was in support of Coakley. It seemed as if nobody was really interested in the subject.

I don’t know if this is good or bad news, but it is what it is.

I wonder if Violet will put up a follow up Coakley post?

Posted: December 21, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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Back in November my favorite atheistic liberal feminist blogger Violet Socks at the Reclusive leftist wrote this:

On your blog, in your comments, everywhere. That’s how memes start. Coakley’s got the courage and the convictions. She’s raising her head above the parapet, right now, when it matters. Just as she did last year when she endorsed Hillary Clinton. Just as she did when she refused to surrender that vote at the convention.

Martha Coakley for President.

As you might guess by my description of her Violet and I have a serious disagreement on Abortion. Yesterday she quoted a post at a blog called Confluence:

There were a multitude of permutations that would have succeeded in covering poor and sick people but the Democrats picked the one that is most likely to piss off their own constituents in the highest numbers. Congratulations, guys.

But this abortion thing? I gotta wonder why it wasn’t sufficient to stick the knife into health care reform without adding the agonizing poison. You should have never even entertained Stupak and Nelson no matter how much they howled and screamed. That’s going to come back to bite you. And no matter how much theater comes up on the floor of the Senate during debate in the next couple of days to try to remove the amendments and compromises, taking them out is not going to make this bill smell any sweeter. The jig is up. We see through the distraction.

The actual post is interesting philosophically but bottom line is the abortion language makes the bill unacceptable.

Today the Boston Globe has this story about Martha the righteous:

“Let’s be clear on what’s principled here,’’ she said at the time of her opponent, US Representative Michael Capuano. “If it comes down to this in the Senate, and it’s the health care bill or violating women’s rights, where does he stand?’’

Obviously feeling the pressure, Capuano pivoted a few days later and said that while he voted yes in the House, he would vote no on final passage if the abortion restrictions did not change.

Coakley used her stark position on abortion rights to appeal to supporters for donations; in an e-mail, she declared her decision to make her position “a defining moment’’ in her campaign.

Asked last week whether she would vote against a bill that went beyond current law in restricting abortion coverage, Coakley said, “Yes, that’s right.’’

In a statement to the Globe yesterday, Coakley said that although she was disappointed that the Senate bill “gives states additional options regarding the funding mechanisms for women’s reproductive health services,’’ she would reluctantly support it because it would provide coverage for millions of uninsured people and reduce costs.

As Newsbusters put it:

Coakley is such a self-serving hypocritical flip-flopper than not even the Boston Globe could spin this story to make her look good. In almost any other state, Coakley would have very little chance in the general election but, hey, this is Massachusetts we are talking about here. Democrat candidates for senator aren’t so much elected as automatically coronated.

I have thoughts concerning Ms. Coakley, they are similar to my thoughts about Scott Harshbarger. Neither are printable so I didn’t say a thing at the time of the first post. As I want to keep my sense of decorum I’ll continue to restrain myself.

But I can’t wait to read Violet’s follow up post on this subject once she reads the Globe’s story. I’ll wager it is going to be an interesting but not work safe read.

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