{"id":184674,"date":"2010-01-15T10:50:11","date_gmt":"2010-01-15T15:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"tag:business.theatlantic.com,2010:\/\/3.33580"},"modified":"2010-01-15T10:54:55","modified_gmt":"2010-01-15T15:54:55","slug":"could-scott-browns-victory-in-mass-kill-health-care-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/184674","title":{"rendered":"Could Scott Brown’s Victory in Mass. Kill Health Care Reform?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Massachusetts special election to replace Ted Kennedy’s seat next Tuesday was supposed to be cinch for Democrats. But a new poll shows Republican challenger Scott Brown leading Democrat Martha Coakley 50-46 percent. The coming Democratic freakout<\/a> might not have to wait until November. It could be here. This upset would have significant repercussions — not only for health care reform, but for the Democrats’ economic agenda.<\/p>\n

Brown’s victory would give Republicans 41 seats in the Senate, enough
\nto break the Democrats’ filibuster-proof margin by a single vote. In
\nother words, Tuesday’s impact would extend beyond health care. It would
\nhurt the Democrats chances to pass a jobs bill, which is already suffering<\/a> in the Senate; a financial regulation
\nbill which already receive zero Republican support; a cap and trade with dwindling prospects even though there are some Republicans like
\nLindsay Graham who have expressed interest in working with Democrats on
\nclimate change legislation; and immigration reform. Republicans have demonstrated remarkable party discipline (or shameful partisan cynicism) in opposing every step of Obama’s legislation. A 41-seat minority puts a guillotine over the head of Obama’s 2010 agenda.<\/p>\n

That said, health care reform might be safe — for a while. The interim senator Paul Kirk is a Democrat who has promised to vote for health care if he isn’t displaced first. Massachusetts
\nSecretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin has signaled that a final
\nwinner from Tuesday’s vote could take more than a week to determine,
\nbecause a federal vote allows for 10 extra days for military and
\nabsentee ballots to come in. Another source told<\/a> the Boston Herald that
\nthe vote might not be certified until February 20. If that’s true, it
\ngives the Democrats a lot of time to hammer out the final details.<\/p>\n

But here’s the X-factor. If Coakley loses, recriminations follow.
\nPundits would break down the defeat along various lines: 1) She was a
\nhorrible candidate. 2) Democrats didn’t show up at the polls because
\nthey assumed victory. 3) Health care reform’s growing unpopularity and
\nthe Democrats’ perceived dithering and weakness contributed to
\nCoakley’s erosion. 4) “The Tea Parties Win! In the very state where
\ncolonists first rose up against the tyranny of the Old World, the
\nAmerican People took a stand against the Leftist Agenda and dumped the
\ntea of tyrannical over-reach into the Bay of Oblivion…” The first two
\nwill be liberal explanations. The third will be the centrist read. And
\nthat last one is made ready-to-order for Glenn Beck and his ilk.<\/p>\n

Brown’s victory would represent both a tactical blow to the
\nfilibuster-proof majority and a mojo killer, which could make liberal
\nDemocrats start to wonder whether they could be Coakleyed in November.
\nThat would tie huge anchors to the Democrats already plodding economic
\nagenda. Stay tuned. Tuesday is huge.<\/p>\n

Update<\/b>: Passing along this<\/a> RealClearPolitics list of polls. Coakley led by 30 points in September. The two latest polls have her up by 8 points and down by 4.


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The Massachusetts special election to replace Ted Kennedy’s seat next Tuesday was supposed to be cinch for Democrats. But a new poll shows Republican challenger Scott Brown leading Democrat Martha Coakley 50-46 percent. The coming Democratic freakout might not have to wait until November. It could be here. This upset would have significant repercussions — […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184674\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}