What Should Not Be Said Tonight
With only a few hours to go before we start getting results from the unexpectedly close Senate race in Massachusetts I am sure the spin doctors on both sides are prepping for whatever the outcome is. Just to save them a little time I thought I’d suggest what they should not be saying.
For the Democrats
Simply put there really is not any way you can spin this one. If you lose then you’ve lost a seat you should have won by 20 points. If you manage to pull out a victory then you’ve barely won a race you should have won by 20 points or more. The win (if it happens) will not be the result of Obama or a triumph over the evil nasty guys on the other side, rather it will be the luck of an overwhelmingly Democratic voting base actually delivering.
So if you lose, take your lumps, if you win then smile quietly and keep your mouth shut.
For the Republicans
To be fair, if you win you’ve got a little bit of crowing to do. After all you will have defeated the state AG with a previously unknown state senator and you’ll have done it with Ted Kennedy’s senate seat. That’s certainly something to celebrate.
However, don’t read too much in to it. It’s not a rejection of Obama but rather a rejection of the worst run campaign by a Massachusetts pol since Dukakis 88. It is not a signal of a pending GOP sweep, it’s one election.
If you lose, then you will have lost a race you were expecting to lose.
So should you win, celebrate a little but don’t get over the top with things.
If you lose, move on.
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Chris Matthews won't say this is giving him a thrill, unless Coakley wins after all.
I agree that a Brown win would need to be celebrated with some restraint…….at first.
If the exit polls of Independents voting for Brown say they just couldn't stomach Coakley, then name your favorite candy bar and I will send you one.
However, I'm not yet buying into this “it's all Coakley's fault”…….my favorite car is a Maybach in the event I am correct that there will be coattails leading to Washington.
Over half of the voters in MA are not registered in ANY party and another 1% are registered in third parties.
http://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/elepdf/st_county…
I doubt that all registered R or D's vote a straight ticket and R Governors (another state-wide office like US Senator) have been elected there. So your presumptions are way off.
I took pains to note that Coakley is bad. True. I did it, though, as part of insisting on reality rather than the excuses the libs-n-Dems have been making up, one fake excuse after another. Coakley is bad, but that obviously doesn't explain everything, especially all the commentary outside the state.
Here's what the Democrats need to do if Brown wins.
Blame Marcia Coakley. She should never have spent the last nine months pushing a health care bill nobody really wants to pass through Congress using massive bribes and shady deals with big corporations cut behind closed doors. What was she thinking? And spending a trillion dollars we don't have on a “stimulus” that was a massive grant of pork to her constituents, did she think nobody would notice? And how about Coakley's brain dead promise to close Gitmo, import terrorists to America, and hire them lawyers? Worst Candidate Ever!
“Here's what the Democrats need to do if Brown wins [a seat in mega-state Massachusetts]:”
Abolish the Senate. Then, no more icky filibuster, no more “undemocratic institution, giving enormous power to representatives of people in places like Wyoming.”
And the lib Dem-run House would, free of “obstructionism,” finally be able to do the right things “for” all.
“Worst Candidate Ever!”
Next thing you know, say the Dems next Sunday, she would have been wanting Bush and Cheney tried for war crimes, if not for crimes against humanity (the rest of the world and the American people, two trials in case they're acquitted in one).
Dems need to come out swinging. Who really needs nettlesome elections anyway? Look at all that money wasted that could be spent paying ACORN to organize communities, or the SEIU to drive up the size of government.
And it ain't over til it's over. Both sides need to keep their mouths shut until the votes are counted.
The most amusing thing so far is the early post-mortem by libs and Dems, claiming and looking at and blaming everything but the truth and themselves about this election.
The far lefty talkers on AM, and similar souls on NPR, will be a “delight” tomorrow, I'm sure. They already are, on AM, I noticed earlier today. (Dems have too conservative this past year, or it's the hated GOP's fault; this “explains” the surprisingly large GOP vote, yes, it certainly does. [chuckle])
Why should the Great Ones need our consent to be governed, anyway? Never mind advice and such.
If mass don't like Coakley, wait till they have Brown. They'll be regreting it for six years.
OK, here's some spin for you, but it might not be spin. If the D's lose this race it will be good for them. Think about it, better a significant – but hardly fatal loss now, when they still have time to learn a lesson – and galvanize, than huge legislative losses in November. If Healthcare reform really goes down the tubes, who exactly is going to celebrate it, and who exactly is going to be blamed? Cheer a dem loss if you like, but the cheering may end up being little more than noise in the long run. We shall see…
Actually FT he'd only be in until 2012 when the regular seat is up.
I won't go in to your disdain or anyone who disagrees with you, it's part of your charm
Righto, two years can race by pretty fast. . . unless the guy turns out to be a nightmare, in which case it can stretch out. In that scenario the MA voters would have ample opportunity to squirm over their little melodrama.
“when they still have time to learn a lesson”
That's if they are able and willing to learn the lesson.
“The real message of Massachusetts is that Democrats have committed the classic political mistake of ideological overreach.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240527487…
It's not as though some of the Dems haven't been trying to tell them.
“It’s why moderates and independents even in a state as Democratic as Massachusetts just aren’t buying our message … Whenever you have just the furthest left elements of the Dem party attempting to impose their will on the rest of the country — that’s not going to work too well.”
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2010/01/bayh-w…
Sure, we can “moderate” our way right down the tubes like we've been doing for the past couple dozen years. Guess what? The USA isn't the same country it used to be. We're running out of time and opportunities to fix things. Meanwhile the GOP sucks up to noisy cretins like Limbaugh and Beck, the phony scientists, the theocrat wannabees, the plutocrats who don't give a crap about them, all the while daydreaming for a return to the 1950's. Good luck with that.
Yes, please, keep thinking that. Keep trying to cram health care down the public's throat. Keep pushing pork-laden spending bills and the Liberal agenda.
Then say how it wasn't the voter's reaction against Obama or health care or Pelosi or anything Democratic when the Dems lose the House this November. Call it another “voter temper tantrum.”
“The USA isn't the same country it used to be. We're running out of time and opportunities to fix things.”
It's not the Sixties. Tell that to the lib Dems in Washington. Maybe then they'll reform entitlements before it's too late.
Oh yeah you are right.
Light at the end of the tunnel.