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Nightly Ramble Friday

Welcome one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the ‘sphere… The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble

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  • YEAH, I KNOW... Where was yesterday’s Ramble? Sorry about that…I had a last minute schedule change. I warned you guys that would happen as I get closer to the new job.
  • BROWN AHEAD IN MASS SENATE RACE: With only four days to go before the election, the polling is universally showing Brown ahead in the Senate race there in Massachusetts.  A Republican is going to take the seat occupied for so long by a Democrat they began long ago to regard the thing as Democrat party property. I say the change in status was eminently predictable. The Boston Herald claims it’s a shocker [2].  Gee, who do you suppose they’re spinning for?  Byron York at the Washington Examiner meanwhile is reporting that the bottom has dropped out of Coakley’s polling [3], even according to the Democrat party’s own internal polls.  He also suggests that there is a serious move afoot for the Democrats to explain their defeat, without all bomb a losing in the face.  They are trying desperately to implant the idea that this race and its outcome has absolutely nothing to do with the Democrats and their overall neo- socialist agenda.  They’re going to fail at it.  It’s as I said the other day; there is no way that this race does not turn into a major negative for the Democrats. The remaining question is whether or not the White House will risk showing up in the state to back its candidate.  Obama already has a number of personally accountable net negatives.  Adding one more, particularly with his government takeover of health care online, would be a risky play indeed.  It’s might take, he won’t.  He will instead abandon Coakley to the voters of Massachusetts .
  • BUT WHAT”S CAUSING THIS PATTERN? THE HEALTHCARE TAKEOVER ATTEMPT :About that pattern, Brian McGrory at the Boston Globe, [4] observes:

    Martha Coakley made a jaw-dropping declaration earlier this week at the only live televised debate in Boston that she has deigned to do. She said, and I quote, “I’ve traveled the state and met tremendous people.”

    If she did, it was under the cover of darkness, with an assumed name.

    Brian McGrory [5]

    Brian McGrory

    Because if she had really traveled the state, if she had taken the time to meet voters, Coakley wouldn’t be in the position she finds herself in now, heading into the final weekend of this special election campaign in a perilously close race against a GOP state legislator nobody had heard of a mere six months ago.

    Back in December, Coakley beat her closest opponent by 19 points in a primary in which she got stronger by the day. She strolled into the general election with high name recognition, strong favorability ratings, and as the Democratic candidate in a state that hasn’t elected a Republican to the Senate since 1972. It looked as if it would be impossible to lose.

    So what did she do? Apparently, she’s tried to accomplish the impossible.

    Literally, she all but vanished. She refused to debate on TV unless it was exactly on her terms. She went days without venturing out in public. When she did appear, it was typically to accept endorsements from elected officials or union heads in front of supportive crowds. She may have gone the first month of the campaign without ever meeting an honest-to-goodness rank-and-file undecided resident.

    Campaigns are an opportunity for candidates to hear from the public they want to represent, but Coakley doesn’t seem to believe this is necessary.

    I pull that extended quote from McGrory’s article to make a point.

    I submit to you that one of the reasons why this approach was taken was so that the race did not become a microcosm for the Healthcare debate.  The Democrats who you will recall are desperately trying to pass this monstrosity over the objections of the electorate, apparently figure they can’t withstand the added scrutiny and get the bill passed.  Coakley, if she had more public exposure would most certainly have been forced into the role of defending the Democrat party and their  government neo-socialist takeover plans for health care. That would have been the front and center issue, without a doubt.  Thing is, the  Democrats have been finding out it is indefensible to defend their plan. Which, is precisely why the President has not bothered putting the debate on the current health care bills on C-Span as he promised, and why actual public debate on the issues at hand have surfaced so rarely, and when they do they are usually cloaked in the usual “working families” rhetoric instead of actual dollars and cents, to say nothing about questions on actual freedom and the losses of freedom imposed by their plan.   Being forced into that defensive role would have made Coakley’s position in this special election even more untenable. I point to all of this as an example of how wildly unpopular Democrat Party policy is.  Jonah Goldberg agrees, saying: [6]

    Meanwhile, the liberal press establishment is in near-total denial. Yes, the race is getting a lot of attention, but Coakley’s problems are being chalked up to the fact that she is a bad campaigner and this is a bad “climate” for the Democrats.

    [7]

    Jonah Godberg

    They use “climate” to suggest that things are bad for Democrats for reasons beyond their control (ironically, they don’t talk about the climate that way when it comes to global warming). Orange growers in Florida can’t be blamed for a bad crop if the climate won’t cooperate, and Democrats can’t be held accountable for their crop failure now. It’s the economy! It’s the obstructionism of the Republicans and that satanic whatchamacallit, the filibuster. Jupiter is aligned with Mars, NutraSweet has poisoned the water supply, Lost has been on hiatus too long, Mongo likes candy: It’s the climate, you see, the horrible, horrible climate! Democrats didn’t do anything wrong!

    Except they did.

    The Democrats’ “bad climate” is a direct result of how they’ve governed. The populist backlash is fueled by a sense that Democrats are acting on their preferred agenda and by their own rules. From the shenanigans of the people who write our tax code and collect our taxes to special deals and secret arrangements for big businesses and legislators who play ball, the Democrats have abandoned transparency in favor of transparent arrogance.

    Coakley is a creature of this climate. She hasn’t been running for “Ted Kennedy’s seat,” she’s been strolling to it like someone who knows it’s been reserved for her and all she needs to do is swing by the will-call window to pick it up.

    Well, exactly, and I dare suggest to you once again, there’s no way that this race does not come up a massive net negative for the Democrat party and it’s agenda.

  • THE OUTCOME IN MASS? My take on the  end results in voting is at least a fifteen point advantage for Brown.  I reason that the Democrats, and their house organs in the press will invariably gild the lily by several points. This is particularly true where Democrats are going to lose ground on their neo socialist agenda in the overall.    We saw the same thing in the 2000 presidential election for example. And Looky, Looky: Pajamas Media [8] agrees with my take. [8]
  • THE LAST DECADE OF LIBERALISM IN QUOTES: John Hawkins has put up “The Last Decade of Liberalism in 40 Quotes.” [9] A few examples:

    39) I propose a limitation be put on how many sqares [sic] of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting. Now, I don’t want to rob any law-abiding American of his or her God-given rights, but I think we are an industrious enough people that we can make it work with only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where 2 to 3 could be required. — Sheryl Crow

    23) The entire country may disagree with me, but I don’t understand the necessity for patriotism. Why do you have to be a patriot? About what? This land is our land? Why? You can like where you live and like your life, but as for loving the whole country… I don’t see why people care about patriotism. — Natalie Maines

    15) Now I believe, myself, that the secretary of state, the secretary of defense and you have to make your own decision as to what the president knows: that this war is lost, that the surge is not accomplishing anything. — Democratic Senator Majority Leader, Harry Reid

    2) As to those in the World Trade Center…Let’s get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. …If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I’d really be interested in hearing about it. — Ward Churchill

    Amazing.