It’s always nice to have GD questions answered with 100% certainty.
Well, it was answered 100% from the start. Brown always could beat Coakley, just like McCain could have always beaten Obama, even to the day before the election.
ETA: Whether either is or was likely is a whole other question, but I though at first that went without saying. 
The race has been called as of a few minutes ago. It is a massive independent upset that you will hardly ever see in American politics at that level.
Good luck Scott Brown. Massachusetts obviously has extreme faith in you or this never would have happened in one of the most blue states in America with a gigantic Kennedy legacy. I know you will do well.
So… This is the absolute end of Obama and health care reform, no questions asked, right? Republican in '12 and all that?
A strange sound has been reported in Arlington National Cemetery.
A guy called Ted just turned in his grave.
In a sense, this is liberating. If it kills the health care bill, the Republicans get the blame (or credit, depending on your point of view). The Pubs can’t run on a platform of repealing a bill that never passes. And we can tell Joe Lieberman to go suck eggs. I say kick his ass out of the caucus, there ain’t enough difference between 58 and 59 to keep him around anymore.
Sorry Dio, but the margin of victory is at 112,000 with 90% reporting, higher than the number of absentee ballots that were requested. There’s no way that they can delay certifying this.
And “steal one”? “Normal off election stuff”? I’ve been assured by other Democratic dopers that this election was good for democracy.
Not just turned, he’s spinning like a top
Looks like a final margin around 5% - quite a surprising result. I thought Coakley would surge a bit at the end and make it close or even prevail.
This isn’t simply a poke in the eye from MA voters - more like a stout stick, wrapped with rusty barbed wire and jammed with a sharp twist into eyes, nostrils and other Dem orifices.
Quite the one-year anniversary present. It will be very interesting to see how Obama reacts (not his words so much as his actions).
By law, they can’t certify him for fifteen days. I suspect that the GOP will nevertheless blame Dems for the delay. Want to take bets?
This would never have happened under Hillary. We got taken to the woodshed today!
“Massachusetts voters evidently do not understand what is good for them. Additionally, it is becoming increasingly clear that the American people are unworthy of Me.”
Leaving aside the question of whether it’s appropriate to do so, it wouldn’t make any difference. 59 out of 99 is still less than 60%, so not enough for cloture. One would have to keep two Republicans out of the voting somehow to lower the threshold.
The really interesting thing about all of this, is that the Dems’ response is going to be to try to get the House to approve the Senate version of the bill without changes, and they may even succeed at that (since there’s no possibility of compromising on anything in the bill itself, some of the holdouts will probably play along). But the House version of the bill had the anti-abortion amendment, while the Senate version didn’t. So if that comes to pass, the net effect will be that the Republican party will have blocked the first anti-abortion legislation to come out of Congress since abortion became one of the defining issues of the Republican party.
There goes my faith in good old Yankee common sense.
I dunno, I find this kind of inspiring. Coakley looks so relieved at the podium right now- I don’t know that she wanted this. In the rearview mirror, all of her actions confirm this, she is not a politician, for better or worse. Scott Brown ran on a campaign of “I want this thing”, basically, and absent the same vibe from the other side, that ought to win.
People are hurting in Mass, people are hurting everywhere. You can’t tell them to wait and be good. Even if you think that is the right thing for them. You have to tell them, hey- I will work for you, I see that you are hurting, I have a plan.
My best to Scott Brown, I hope that he turns out to be a principled public servant, and I hope the surprise of his election makes the other 99 realize that they serve at the behest of the people and the people can and will kick them in the tuchus if they continue to fuck around. Massachusetts represents what happens when a party or a person feels too safe in political power. I can’t say I feel bad at all for the Massachusetts Democratic establishment.
Good on ya, Mass, and I hope you made the right decision.
I would have more respect for this particular law if state officials had scrupulously observed it in the past - but when it came to seating various Democrats after special elections they have shown that exceptions can surely be made.
I won’t pretend that circumstances are the same now as they were for Niki Tsongas or Ted Kennedy - however we surely shouldn’t pretend that this law is so absolute when it has been shown in the past not to be.
Does this mean I win my bet?
Just kidding. I have no idea at all of the history of this law. You’re telling me it was ignored to seat Teddy?
A principled Republican politician? In 2010?
Do you organize leprechaun hunts, too?
I know he has a truck. Didn’t hear about the plan. The Chamber of Commerce and the financial/insurance cabal must have heard about the plan, as evinced by their enthusiastic support.
It wouldn’t be lower taxes and deregulation, by any chance? With the trickle-down-on theory? Is it gonna be that old song and dance about how the best way to help the unemployed is to give more money to rich guys? What, they have more money, they tip better?
Been there, had that done to me. I want a different plan.
Ah, the most dangerous game.
Come on, man- it could happen!