Obama, health care reform, the economy… Whatever you feel like bringing into this.
They say “all politics are local.” Does this prove it wrong?
MA still supports Obama by a wide margin. If this was a referendum on anything national, it was on healthcare. Probably, the race was half about Brown>Coakley, and half about opposing “Obamacare.”
It’s not a surprise that health care reform is unpopular. The deeper question is whether it is unpopular because people know what’s in the bill, and oppose it, or because they’ve been deluded about what’s in the bill, and what it does.
And, perhaps, why any opposition is there. Each side certainly has very differing views on that.
Just goes to show that Obama should have gone to bat for single payor, and also stopped Reid from trying to compromise with stonewallers for the better part of a year.
The base felt betrayed, and stayed home to smoke a joint or two, rather than endorse a change that feels more like warmed over leftovers.
Obama and the Dems need to straighten up and fly left, if they know what’s good for them, and the country as well.
To quote a former president:
“It’s the economy, stupid.”
It’s the economy. Obama has been able to escape blame for the recession for most of his presidency so far, but it’s catching up to him. The longer we’re in a recession while Obama is in the office, the more responsibility for it falls on Obama and the Democrats and the less they can use the excuse that is was inherited from Bush.
I seriously believe the election of Brown has much more to do with unemployment than health insurance reform. People are unsure of what the health bill will do to them and the effects are going to be years away, but people are feeling the unemployment situation NOW and the Democrats haven’t presented a solution for it.
The idea that everything would be hunky dory if Obama went for single payer seems to be wishful thinking, to me.
The primary issue is a 10% unemployment rate and a mediocre candidate who shrieked “establishment.” That’s not a winning combination.
Brown certainly campaigned on an anti-Obama, anti-healthcare bill stance. And Obama made tentative steps to support Coakley. So both sides made it pretty clear that they meant it to be a referendum on healthcare.
For those claiming local issues predominated, just what local issues would those be?
And since this is an evidence based board, I’ll throw something out there to support my statement. The Rasmussen exit poll showed that some 22% of Democrats voted for Brown. If they had gone for Coakley at regular rates (e.g. 2008), she would have won, despite independents turning against her.
Some Democrats might have stayed home, but no one who is mad at Obama for not pushing single payer is going to go out and vote for Brown to spite him.
On the other hand, Republican turnout tonight was the same as 2008. Democratic turnout was 60% 2008.
The progressives are very unhappy with the metered improvement in health care and the financial industry. We expected more. People are pissed when they read about the bankers and their bonuses. Then the watering down of the health care to try and satisfy everybody a little, failed miserably. People without jobs go crazy when the guys who caused the financial mess are able to reward themselves huge bonuses while we are in a down economy that they caused.
Combine this with the election results in Virginia & New Jersey and you have trifecta. While the individual reasons may very, the overall message is one of how this administration has lost touch with the voting public.
Either one of the election results be themselves could have been shrugged off as an anomaly, but not three in a row.
But how do you explain why a majority of voters in MA and NJ (not sure about VA) still support Obama?
It means that the unemployment rate is still 10%.
People don’t have time to care about Bill Clinton getting a blowjob when the stock market is up and the unemployment rate is low. People have time to get worked up over ‘socialism’ when they’re not working and spend all day watching the news.
Ronald Reagan was is worse shape in 1983. Didn’t work out so bad for him.
Not sure, but polls can be manipulated much easier than voting results
So all the pollsters are manipulating them in the same direction? Seems unlikely to me. You’d think at least Rasmussen would be Fair and Balanced.
I’m not sure how much of a “referendum” the outcome may be, but I do believe that it is clear that Obama has wasted away the mandate he came into office with. He made poor moves by handing health care reform over to Pelosi & Reid instead of marshaling it through himself, and has struggled to instill the promised transparency (along with several other issues). I would like to say that his administration is not in trouble, but the momentum is definitely swinging away from his administration and if his next battle is to seriously reform financial regulation, then he’s in trouble.
Perhaps their support is growing tepid, and they don’t mind sending a wake-up call.
His next battle is going to have to be reforming the senate so as it can accomplish the nation’s business with something less than a supermajority of democrats.
That seems to be what he’s going to have to do isn’t it, Squink? I’m just basing my statement off of statements released by his office. I just don’t see anything happening with the complete lack of bipartisanship on any front, despite the public outcry for action.
I hope this means we actually see a gorram fillibuster, after all of this panty-wetting about the concept.
I want to see some old white dudes reading from the bible and grabbing their bladders before we get in a tizzy about 60 votes.