Re: Blue State goes BROWN! GREAT SCOTT!!!
deem...@aol.com
wrote:
> BLUE STATE GOES BIG FOR BROWN
> Epic upset over Coakley stuns Democrats, casts doubt on Obama health plan
>
> BOSTON -- Conventional wisdom said Republican state Sen. Scott Brown could not
> win a U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts.
>
> Not in a state with no Republican members of Congress. Not in a state that
> President Barack Obama won by 26 points only 14 months ago. And certainly not in
> a state where Edward M. Kennedy, perhaps the most beloved liberal in the history
> of the Senate, held office for 46 years.
>
> But last night Brown smashed conventional wisdom to pieces, easily winning a
> special election to replace Kennedy and possibly derailing Obama's agenda in the
> process.
>
> Political observers called Brown's five-point victory over Democratic Attorney
> General Martha Coakley the biggest political upset they have ever seen. Brown
> called it the beginning of an election year with "many surprises" in store.
>
> "When there's trouble in Massachusetts, rest assured, there's trouble
> everywhere, and they know it," said Brown, referring to Democrats throughout the
> country.
>
> The victory by the 50-year-old Brown is expected to have a profound impact on
> the midterm elections in November and Obama's political agenda.
>
> "Republicans are going get very energetic about their chances in November,"
> predicted Michael Shea, a veteran Democratic political strategist. "I think it's
> sort of one of the signs of the apocalypse that a conservative Republican can
> take Ted Kennedy's seat."
>
> Brown made stopping the health-care reform bill before Congress a cornerstone of
> his campaign. He vowed to send the legislation "back to the drawing board" and
> be the additional vote Republicans need to prevent the bill from going to the
> Senate floor for passage.
>
> An ABC News/Washington Post poll released yesterday revealed that only 12
> percent of voters are more likely to support a candidate that favors health-care
> reform, while 24 percent are more likely to oppose a candidate that supports
> reform. Making matters worse for Democrats, the poll shows independent voters
> oppose health-care reform by a 2-to-1 margin.
>
> But perhaps the biggest impact of Brown's victory will be seen this November
> right here in Massachusetts, when 160 state representatives and 39 state
> senators will be up for re-election. Brown supporters see his victory as the
> beginning of a movement that could alter the makeup of Beacon Hill, where there
> are 144 Democratic state representatives and only 16 Republicans. The state
> Senate has 34 Democrats and five Republicans, including Brown.
>
> "This is going to inspire more candidates to run for office," said Jordan
> Golson, 26, a Lowell resident who was at Brown's victory party at the Park Plaza
> Hotel. "Brown has been running on the fact that we need a balance of power in
> Washington. I think the same argument could be made in Massachusetts, and
> certainly we have a Democratic governor, House and Senate that people aren't too
> thrilled with, so I think there's a lot of opportunity there for Republicans
> this year."
>
> Massachusetts had not elected a Republican U.S. senator since Edward Brooke in
> 1972. He, in turn, was defeated by Lowell Democrat Paul Tsongas in 1978.
> Yesterday's race was to fill the first open U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts
> since John Kerry's election in 1984.
>
> Brown, of Wrentham, spent most of the campaign casting himself as an independent
> thinker, not a partisan Republican. He will succeed Paul Kirk, a Democrat who
> was appointed by Gov. Deval Patrick to fill the Senate seat left vacant by
> Kennedy's death.
>
> Inside the Park Plaza Hotel, Brown supporters were brimming with confidence well
> before polls closed. Hundreds of people, many of whom were checking the returns
> on their mobile devices throughout the night, packed closely together inside the
> hotel's hot ballroom to await the election results.
>
> Doug Flutie's band and The James Montgomery Band kept the energetic crowd
> entertained. At one point, a middle-aged man in a dark suit crowd-surfed as
> Flutie's group played a rollicking version of "Mustang Sally."
>
> One person held a homemade sign that read, "It's Our Turn For A Change."
> Throughout the night, the crowd joined in on a series of chants, including "Seat
> him now!" and "Yes we did!"
>
> When a large screen behind the stage showed Kerry during Coakley's concession
> speech, the people chanted, "You are next!" over and over.
>
> Brown took the stage to deliver a gracious speech that was peppered with
> spontaneous and folksy moments. He said his daughters, Ayla and Arianna, are
> available to date. Brown also revealed that when Obama called to offer his
> congratulations, Brown joked with him that Ayla, a basketball player at Boston
> College, would like to challenge the president to a basketball game.
>
> Before Brown left the state to a hail of balloons and confetti, he issued a
> final warning to those who may believe his victory was a fluke.
>
> "Let them take a look at what happened here in Massachusetts, because what
> happened here can happen all over America," said Brown.
>
> Source:http://www.lowellsun.com/ci_14229012
> --
> Couldn't be happier! Now that IS Change we CAN believe in! Goodbye Obamacare!
> Goodbye Cap n' Trade! Goodbye "Fillibuster proof supermajority"!! Goodbye to
> all Democrats that don't pull their heads out and realise that they are on the
> track of a runaway train and they need to get off!
>
> You can get the detailed results here:http://extras.lowellsun.com/documents/statewideresults.xls
>
> What say you?
>
> Ray
Goodbye the relevancy of Joe Biden? (He's no longer the "needed"
60th vote)
Ray O'Hara
<deem...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:d6c71a72-0898-4fcf...@14g2000yqp.googlegroups.com...
===========================================================
you mean Lieberman.
deem...@aol.com
> <deemsb...@aol.com> wrote in message
Oops. You are correct. Thanks.
Paul Carr
闻:o1jel5tqlhq6eu49l...@4ax.com...
<snip>
> 1) Don't put a .sig delimiter "--" between a cut-and-paste and your
> original comments. Any real newsreader will automatically clip
> everything after "--" off when someone goes to reply. To get your
> remarks quoted, they'll have to realize what you did and go back and
> make a special point of including your remarks.
Hey Fred,
I like the way your sigs rotate. I assume they do so automatically.
Is there a program I can download so that I can set something like
that up with multiple sig files? I have Outlook Express newreader.
deem...@aol.com
> "WhiteWolf! <rayh<spam>@iol.ie>" <r...@iol.ie> wrote:
>
> :Couldn't be happier! Now that IS Change we CAN believe in! Goodbye Obamacare!
> :Goodbye Cap n' Trade! Goodbye "Fillibuster proof supermajority"!! Goodbye to
> :all Democrats that don't pull their heads out and realise that they are on the
> :track of a runaway train and they need to get off!
> :
> :
> :You can get the detailed results here:
> :http://extras.lowellsun.com/documents/statewideresults.xls
> :
> :What say you?
>
> I'll say a couple of things:
>
> 1) Don't put a .sig delimiter "--" between a cut-and-paste and your
> original comments. Any real newsreader will automatically clip
> everything after "--" off when someone goes to reply. To get your
> remarks quoted, they'll have to realize what you did and go back and
> make a special point of including your remarks.
>
> listen to folks like you). If they run a bunch of hard-right
> candidates people will hold their nose and vote for Democrats.
>
> 3) The Democrats can still make their problems even worse (and at
> least some of them are making noises like that is exactly what they
> want to do). They really don't seem to get the point of what happened
> in Massachusetts. Nancy Pelosi has to be the stupidest woman on the
> planet. I've been saying for a while now that Obama needs to exert
> some leadership and get a new Speaker in the House.
I tried to tell Democrats I know the same thing after November. A
"mandate" is only good when compared to the other guy. The same
applied to the GOP after 2000. Governing from the center....be it a
bit center-left or center-right is what most of us want.
I believe we have two main problems. First, we need a viable third
party. We've never really had that....historically, new parties are
either absorbed into the existing ones or take the place of one that
has fallen apart. That fact makes me wonder if our system can support
more than two, but it's a nice thought.
Second, we need to look at how our House districts are set up.
Gerrymandering has twisted, turned, and warped way too many districts.
With 75%+ of House seats a slam dunk one way or the other, the biggest
challenges faced by candidates are in the primary. That leaves us with
too many House members who are too far to either side to compromise.
The reason the Senate is more moderate, is Senators have to be elected
across a whole state...there are no Red and Blue states, they're all
various shades of purple.
Oh, it would be also nice to somehow, someway get "public servant"
back into our elected officials.
Okay, now I'll go hold my breath waiting for meaningful change.
Allan
"WhiteWolf! <rayh<spam>@iol.ie>" <ra...@iol.ie> wrote in message
news:tubel5lv450uhus83...@4ax.com...
> BLUE STATE GOES BIG FOR BROWN
> Epic upset over Coakley stuns Democrats, casts doubt on Obama health plan
>
> win a U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts.
Well it looks like he's not going to win the Premier League with Celtic!
Allan
deem...@aol.com
> Another reason the Senate tends to be more moderate is because the
> terms are longer, so it doesn't swing completely every two years. That
> usually means that compromise is the only way to get something
> through, especially with the filibuster rules in place. Unfortunately,
> that seems to have broken down, despite all the rhetoric in 2008 about
> wanting 'consensus'.
>
All consensus means to both parties is "You guys agree with us".
Paul Carr
One could construct a global 2 dimensional political spectrum which,
for simplicity's sake, can be divided in 7 nodes. From left to right:
1) ultra-left, 2) hard-left, 3) left-of-centre, 4) centre, 5), right-
of-centre, 6) hard-right and 7) ultra right. To my mind, the
Democratic party in the USA is right-of-centre on this global
political spectrum and the Republican party is hard-right.. When the
US mainstream media talk about "moderates", they mean the interface
between these two political parties, i.e. somewhere between right-of-
centre and hard-right. That's not really centre in the universal
sense of things, not by a long shot.
Why did the Democrats lose the Special Senate election? I think a
major reason is because Obama hasn't been living up to the spirit (and
to some extent the substance) of what he was campaigning for back in
2008 and many people are disappointed. I mean we're talking about a
Special Senate election in Massachusetts of all places!! That state
is as far away from a red state as you'll get. On December 1st 2009,
Obama announced 30,000 extra troops to be sent to Afghanistan. Now, he
didn't specifically say he was going to draw down the troop numbers in
Afghanistan during his campaign but his supporters were led to believe
that he wasn't going to be escalating the war significantly like he is
doing. Obama is not taking on the military-industrial-congressional-
thinktank complex in the USA which, in my opinion, is the biggest
threat to global peace and security today. Dwight Eisenhower, a
Republican and Conservative, a man who was a 5-star General, warned
of the growing influence of the military-industrial complex on US
society and the need for it to be held to account by civilian
government in his farewell speech in 1961. Since then, it hasn't
been scaled back, as far as I can tell. Even since the official end
of the Cold War back in 1990, I don't think the military-industrial-
congressional-thinktank complex has been scaled back. It would appear
that Obama doesn't have the courage to stand up to and face down the
requests of the military and military contractors, their army of
lobbyists or the openly bought Senators and Congressmen. All this
legal and above board.
And then there's health care. His health care reform has been watered
down significantly because Obama has been trying in vain to reach
across to Republicans to find common ground. That "common ground" is
like the proverbial crock of gold at the end of the rainbow. It won't
ever be found.
Once upon a time, Obama promised a government-run insurance option.
In recent times however Obama has urged the Senate to drop plans for a
government-run insurance option.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/18/barack-obama-one-year-anniversary-ratings
As I understand it, his present plan aims to provide cover for 30
million people. I've read before however that there are 47 million
people in the US without health insurance. So what about the other 17
million people who still won't have insurance even if this health care
plan is passed?
During his presidential campaign, Team Obama would make great play of
the fact that Obama loves playing basketball. Since his election, the
pictures we're getting are of him playing golf.
deem...@aol.com
> One could construct a global 2 dimensional political spectrum which,
> for simplicity's sake, can be divided in 7 nodes. From left to right:
> 1) ultra-left, 2) hard-left, 3) left-of-centre, 4) centre, 5), right-
> of-centre, 6) hard-right and 7) ultra right. To my mind, the
> Democratic party in the USA is right-of-centre on this global
> political spectrum and the Republican party is hard-right.. When the
> US mainstream media talk about "moderates", they mean the interface
> between these two political parties, i.e. somewhere between right-of-
> centre and hard-right. That's not really centre in the universal
> sense of things, not by a long shot.
Who cares? We're talking about US politics. What Europe, India,
China, etc does has nothing to do with it.
>
> Why did the Democrats lose the Special Senate election? I think a
> major reason is because Obama hasn't been living up to the spirit (and
> to some extent the substance) of what he was campaigning for back in
> 2008 and many people are disappointed. I mean we're talking about a
> Special Senate election in Massachusetts of all places!! That state
> is as far away from a red state as you'll get.
But they have had Republican governors lately.....
On December 1st 2009,
> Obama announced 30,000 extra troops to be sent to Afghanistan. Now, he
> didn't specifically say he was going to draw down the troop numbers in
> Afghanistan during his campaign but his supporters were led to believe
> that he wasn't going to be escalating the war significantly like he is
> doing. Obama is not taking on the military-industrial-congressional-
> thinktank complex in the USA which, in my opinion, is the biggest
> threat to global peace and security today. Dwight Eisenhower, a
> Republican and Conservative, a man who was a 5-star General, warned
> of the growing influence of the military-industrial complex on US
> society and the need for it to be held to account by civilian
> government in his farewell speech in 1961. Since then, it hasn't
> been scaled back, as far as I can tell. Even since the official end
> of the Cold War back in 1990, I don't think the military-industrial-
> congressional-thinktank complex has been scaled back. It would appear
> that Obama doesn't have the courage to stand up to and face down the
> requests of the military and military contractors, their army of
> lobbyists or the openly bought Senators and Congressmen. All this
> legal and above board.
This has nothing to do with the election in Massachusetts. Even
the average Democrat isn't really concerned about this.
>
> And then there's health care. His health care reform has been watered
> down significantly because Obama has been trying in vain to reach
> across to Republicans to find common ground. That "common ground" is
> like the proverbial crock of gold at the end of the rainbow. It won't
> ever be found.
Actually, to the Democrats...and to be fair, the GOP
too...."common ground" means "vote with us". There has been no serious
attempt to bring Republicans over. The dickering has been between
Democrats.
>
> Once upon a time, Obama promised a government-run insurance option.
> In recent times however Obama has urged the Senate to drop plans for a
> government-run insurance option.
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/18/barack-obama-one-year-ann...
>
> As I understand it, his present plan aims to provide cover for 30
> million people. I've read before however that there are 47 million
> people in the US without health insurance. So what about the other 17
> million people who still won't have insurance even if this health care
> plan is passed?
You've finally hit it. This election was about health care reform
and the total screwup that the Admin and Congress are making of it.
>
> During his presidential campaign, Team Obama would make great play of
> the fact that Obama loves playing basketball. Since his election, the
> pictures we're getting are of him playing golf.-
Saying what you're going to do and then actually having to do it
are different things. Go figure.
Paul Carr
<snip>
> :Why did the Democrats lose the Special Senate election? I think a
> :major reason is because Obama hasn't been living up to the spirit (and
> :to some extent the substance) of what he was campaigning for back in
> :2008 and many people are disappointed.
> :
>
> So they voted for someone farther to Obama's RIGHT because they don't
> think he's governing far enough LEFT?
There was a third candidate, Joseph L. Kennedy, who ran as an
Independent.
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_L._Kennedy
"Kennedy is a member of the National Libertarian Party and holds the
position of reporting secretary for the Massachusetts Libertarian
Party."
Going to the wiki page for the Libertarian party.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_Party_%28United_States%29
"The political platform of the Libertarian Party reflects that group's
particular brand of libertarianism, favoring minimally regulated,
laissez-faire markets, strong civil liberties, minimally regulated
migration across borders, and non-interventionism in foreign policy
that respects freedom of trade and travel to all foreign countries.".
That policy platform doesn't strike me as particularly social
democratic or left-of-centre. Centre, maybe.
From the wiki page above, more on its policies:
"Among outside political watchers, some consider Libertarians to be
conservative (primarily because of their support of the right to bear
arms, including mace and pepper spray, their opposition to economic
regulation, opposition to entitlement programs in almost all forms,
and their views on taxes — with strong support for the repeal of the
Sixteenth Amendment - and states' rights, and the old Republican view
of a non-interventionist foreign policy, while others consider them
liberal because of their advocacy of the repeal of drug prohibition,
including restrictions on tobacco and alcohol, and the elimination of
laws that interfere with private consensual acts (such as prostitution
and gambling). Libertarians consider themselves neither conservative
nor liberal; rather, they believe they represent a unique philosophy
that is all their own."
Anyway, it appears that there wasn't anyone to Obama's left that the
people of Massachusetts wanted to vote for. All that was on offer was
Joseph L. Kennedy.
Paul Carr
闻:lbffl55qmssr0i7c8...@4ax.com...
<snip>
> So they voted for someone farther to Obama's RIGHT because they don't
> think he's governing far enough LEFT?
I don't think Obama is governing CENTER, never mind LEFT. Just to get
Obama to move to the center from the right would be an achievement in
itself.
Paul Carr
> Paul Carr <paulca...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> :"Fred J. McCall" <fjmc...@gmail.com> ??????????
> :??:lbffl55qmssr0i7c8...@4ax.com...
> :
> :<snip>
> :
> :> So they voted for someone farther to Obama's RIGHT because they don't
> :> think he's governing far enough LEFT?
> :
> :I don't think Obama is governing CENTER, never mind LEFT. Just to get
> :Obama to move to the center from the right would be an achievement in
> :itself.
>
> Irrelevant to the question, which you obviously want to avoid.
>
> You honestly believe that in their disappoint that Obama isn't left
> wing enough, the people of Massachusetts elected to vote for the
> candidate farthest to his RIGHT?
There's also the dynamic that people didn't turn out to vote. You had
the candidate, Martha Coakley, from the right-of-center party, the
Democratic party; the candidate, Scott Brown, from the hard-right
party, the Republican party, and the independent candidate, Joseph L.
Kennedy, who is a member of a center party (maybe), the Libertarian
party. There wasn't really that much choice on offer. Where's the
candidate from the left-of-center party? Where's the candidate from
the hard-left party? Of those people who didn't turn out to vote,
maybe they would have voted for Obama's party, if Obama demonstrated,
during his first year in office, that he was truly governing from the
center, rather than doing the center-right to hard-right pitch he is
doing presently.
The Phantom Piper
>
> Nancy Pelosi has to be the stupidest woman
> on the planet. I've been saying for a while now
> that Obama needs to exert some leadership
> and get a new Speaker in the House.
Yeah - that's a *very* Intelligent Comment: all he
would need to do would be to assume Dictatorial
Powers and declare the Constitution (you know,
that funny bit of paper that's always confusing you
Right Wingnutters - the one with all the details
on Separation Of Powers and how Representative
Government works) null-and-void in order to do that...
*Amazed* At Fred's Stupidity,
The Phantom Piper
The Phantom Piper
>
> Second, we need to look at how our House districts
> are set up. Gerrymandering has twisted, turned, and
> warped way too many districts.
Something you might want to tell Tom Delay...
Just Saying,
The Phantom Piper
The Phantom Piper
>
> Why did the Democrats lose the Special Senate election?
> I think a major reason is because Obama hasn't been living
> up to the spirit (and to some extent the substance) of what
> he was campaigning for back in 2008 and many people are
> disappointed.
That is why (according to polls out *yesterday*) a vast
number of people didn't even bother to Vote. Personally,
I think they were fools, who will suffer for their decision,
but I do understand the reason for their apathy, even if
I can't condone it.
Knowing It,
The Phantom Piper
The Phantom Piper
>
> You seriously think a sitting President has
> *NO* influence within his own Party?
You haven't been following this whole Health Care thing
very closely, have you?
Needing Only 70 Votes,
The Phantom Piper
The Phantom Piper
>
> Still waiting....
Try holding your breath.
Watching Fred Turn Blue,
The Phantom Piper
Harry Merrick
> "WhiteWolf! <rayh<spam>@iol.ie>" <ra...@iol.ie> wrote:
>> Republicans!
>>
>
> Good luck with that. I'm sure the Democrats will thank you.
>
>>
>> We tried your way with McCain and it got us Obama! No thanks! Next
>> time we'll pick a Real Republican not a Progressive RINO.
The animal? It has an "H" in it? Rhino!!
>>
>
> And you'll get pounded into the dirt, since about half your voters are
> people like me who would *NOT* vote for such a candidate. If you
> think Obama kicked your ass this time around, nominate a Pat Robertson
> and see how badly you get trounced.
>
> Stupid.
Indeed. Very.
--
Harry Merrick.
