The voters in Massachusetts sent a message that is unmistakable – that people are hurting and way too angry to suffer a party that can’t govern.\u00a0 With 60 votes in the Senate, a strong majority in the House of Representatives, and a Democratic president, they had no excuse for the lack of performance – real or perceived.\u00a0 However,\u00a0 the lost Senate seat in Massachusetts could be the much needed wake-up call that, if heeded, provides Dems with the motivation they need to get busy and do what they need to if they are to salvage majority control of the Congress.<\/p>\n
It’s clear that the Obama Administration gets it.\u00a0 And if the Dems in Congress can’t get their act together, it’s just a matter of time until Obama takes a play out of the Bill Clinton playbook.\u00a0\u00a0 The play in mind is a quick move to the populist center (we already see this in his recent anti-banks rhetoric), and the wholesale co-opting of Republican issues and proposals.\u00a0\u00a0 Which issues to coopt?\u00a0 More on that in a upcoming post.\u00a0\u00a0 Bill Clinton didn’t get the support of the Democratic congress in 93-94 for his legislative agenda either, and was re-elected in 1996.<\/p>\n
It should be sobering to Democrats across the US that, based upon polls in Massachusetts, President Obama would likely have been re-elected in Massachusetts if the had been running for re-election on last’s weeks ballot.\u00a0 The same pre-election polls in Massachusetts that correctly called the Brown victory, showed declines in Obama’s approval ratings but still with majorities approving his performance in office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The voters in Massachusetts sent a message that is unmistakable – that people are hurting and way too angry to suffer a party that can’t govern.\u00a0 With 60 votes in the Senate, a strong majority in the House of Representatives, … Continue reading