House of Eratosthenes

Amidst the innumerable excuses we’re bound to hear for Martha Coakley’s defeat, credit Keith Olbermann with likely the most loathsome. The Countdown host would explain away the Scott Brown victory by accusing his supporters of . . . racism.

Olbermann floated his despicable theory to Howard Fineman: “the Republicans and the Tea Partiers will tell you what happens with Scott Brown tonight whether he wins or comes close is a repudiation of Obama policies. And surely one of Obama’s policies from the viewpoint of his opponents is it’s OK to have this sea-change in American history—to have an African-American president. Is this vote to any degree just another euphemism the way ‘states rights’ was in the ’60s?”

HuffPo:

It took more than half a decade, countless American and Iraqi deaths in a war based on lies, a sinking economy and the drowning of an American city to finally kill Bush-Cheney-Rove’s dream of a conservative realignment.

Democrats, controlling the White House and both houses of Congress, have managed to kill their own dream of dominance in 12 months.

How did it happen?

Theories abound, but two diametrically opposed narratives have taken hold:

The first, promulgated by conservatives, is that the new administration has moved too far to the left and alienated a large swath of independent and moderate voters.

The second, pushed by progressive activists and bloggers, is that the administration hasn’t been true enough to fundamental Democratic principles, has embraced some of Bush’s worst excesses on civil liberties, and has ditched popular ideas (like the public option) in favor of watered down centrist policies, thus looking weak and ineffectual.

Five Thirty-Eight:

When a Democrat loses a federal race in Massachusetts, the default assumption ought to be that several factors are to blame.

Clearly the national environment has gotten worse for the Democrats since Barack Obama’s inauguration one year ago. This has been obvious from Congressional generic ballot polling, Presidential approval polling, early polling of 2010 senate races, the number of Democratic retirements, the outcomes of New Jersey and Virginia, the tenor of the political discourse in the country, and so forth. But perhaps it is somewhat more bad than we had previously realized.

Clearly also, the quality of the candidates and the campaign matters a lot, especially in open seat races. Although it might seem strange to have a Republican Senator from Massachusetts, it is not dramatically more strange than having a Democratic Senator from Alaska or Nebraska, or a Republican Representative from New Orleans, all of which our Congress already had before tonight. Martha Coakley, needless to say, was not a good candidate and did not run a good campaign.

Finally, there is a third category: contingencies specific to Massachusetts, but not specific to Coakley. This was a state in which Democrats had twice changed the rules governing Senate succession, first in 2004 to prevent then-governor Mitt Romney from appointing a Republican to take John Kerry’s seat (should he have been elected President), and then again last year to allow Deval Patrick to appoint an interim appointee. Moreover, because it was a special election, the time frame of the campaign was dramatically compressed, making it harder to define the Republican opponent or to recover from any initial missteps in the campaign. Lastly, Massachusetts is unusual in that it already has universal health care and the Democratic health care plan would not do it much good, which allowed the Republican to promise to oppose it without looking like a typical partisan hack.

TPM:

Message of the day to all Dems, Coakley, Rahm, Celinda Lake, national Dem committees, Axelrod, whoever, whatever: Shut the *$%& Up! I don’t know how else to say it. I’m watching MSNBC and hearing all the key players dumping on each other. As I’ve said, the Coakley campaign seems to have been run just terribly. And that’s just the beginning of it. But really, with all that’s at stake, the White House political office left this to Coakley, unsupervised? Really? I just have very little patience hearing all the people who are by definition all to blame have an argument about who’s most to blame.

What I’m seeing — and this isn’t just based on public comments but our reporting behind the scenes — is that there’s a lot more energy going into dodging blame for this unforced error of galactic proportions than there is going into the real issue: closing the loop on the health care bill. Which is the only issue in policy terms and political terms. That’s it. Everything else is water under the bridge.

I’m loving that last one: “The American People detest our plan. Let’s stop trying to figure out who’s at fault, and get it passed.”

Their vision of humanity is not fundamentally incompatible with the human race, but it damn sure is fundamentally incompatible with America. And they’ll never, ever see it. Ever. The idea that The American People figured it out for themselves, and showed sufficient independence to make up their own minds…it’s just inconceivable. Must be Coakley. She must have screwed up. Or maybe it’s Axelrod, or Emmanuel, or the Massachusetts democrat Party, or…or…or. Couldn’t be the riff-raff out there, they obviously can’t think for themselves.

Coakley, Oakley, Bo-Boakley, Bo-Nana-Bana Fo-Foakley, Fee-Fi-Mo-Moalkly. Croakley.

Pelosi, Osi, Bo-Bosi, Bo-Nana-Bana Fo-Fosi, Fee-Fi- Mo-Mosi. P’losi.

Ried, Eid, Bo-Beid, Bo-Nana-Bana Fo-Feid, Fee-Fi-Mo-Meid. Reid.

Obama, Ama, Fo-Fama, Bo-Nana-Bana Fo-Fama, Fee-Fi-Mo Mama. Obama.

The Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame Game!

Read this in a NYT article on the win and what it means:

Sentiment about how to proceed was mixed, with several lawmakers saying the House would not accept the Senate-passed plan. Top officials had said that approach was the party’s best alternative, and many members said they still believed it was crucial that Democrats pass a plan.

“It is important for us to pass legislation,” said Representative Baron P. Hill, a conservative Democrat from Indiana.

Not just for the sake of passing legislation, it isn’t.

I’d like just once for a Congress to meet and say, “Nah. We’re spending enough money. We’ll have to wait until next year” like the rest of us have to do.
- philmon | 01/20/2010 @ 10:23
why do they need to play the blame game? isn’t it obvious that it’s Bush’s fault?
- pdwalker | 01/20/2010 @ 10:44
It took more than half a decade, countless American and Iraqi deaths in a war based on lies, a sinking economy and the drowning of an American city to finally kill Bush-Cheney-Rove’s dream of a conservative realignment.

Perhaps inadvertently revealing what actually happened. The Democrats used the war for political purposes to derail a conservative realignment.
- philmon | 01/20/2010 @ 10:46
oh please, please, pleeeeeease move further left. Please double-down and show us with no spin exactly who (we already know) you are. And if possible, do it somewhere between May and August where it will have the biggest impact on the midterms.
- Jason | 01/20/2010 @ 20:11
I work with some hyper liberals who have been very quiet today.

I agree with Philmon that the quote from the Huffington Post is insightful. What is more insightful is the liberal position that the war was based on lies. I guess those planes didn’t really fly into those buildings did they? It also showes who is responsible for Scott Brown.

I think that the democrats in congress and to some extent Obama are caught in a corner. They cannot triangulate like Bill Clinton did because he was dealing with a Republican congress and only had himself to worry about. He could tell his liberal base “I am doing the best I can with an oppositional congress and I need my quality time with Moni….err …Hillary.” That may be Obama’s hope but it won’t help the Demonrats in the house. If they move to something even slightly less rabid then they lose their far left base in the primaries. The Moon-bats actually believe the GW Bush planned the 9/11 attacks. They actually believe that all Republicans are racist. They actually believe everything evil about the Republicans they say. They are not just saying it. If Demonratic members of congress don’t accommodate these lunatics they may not survive the primaries because the loonies will vote for Cindy Sheehan types instead. If they accommodate the moon bats they lose the election in November because I doubt that the conservatives or moderates will believe they’ve seen the light and won’t vote for them. So they can either lose there base and not get re-nominated or keep their base and lose the election.

So whose fault was it that Scott Brown got elected? The Koskids and the Huffington Post and the other hyper liberal blogs and rabble-rousers that organized the far left and allowed it to have a prominent place in the demonratic party. If it weere not for them the demonrats could have run less goofy candidates, Maybe could have had an actual bipartisan debate the nation would be better off
- Fai.Mao | 01/21/2010 @ 01:42

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Recent

Items of Interest

Monthly Archives

What They Say

Links

“Let’s Play the Blame Game!”Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

“Let’s Play the Blame Game!”
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010