Republicans Should Vote For Her Because She Believes America is a Republic

This is all it takes to be a Libertarian?  Really?

But after a packed rally in this seaside Massachusetts town the Harvard Law Professor talked briefly with Reason about why libertarians should vote for her over Senator Scott Brown.  

Warren’s response was unlike anything this journalist has heard when asking candidates of both parties across the country the simple question, “Why should libertarians vote for you?”  

“I believe in contract law probably more than most people,” Warren said in a small classroom in the basement of a Baptist Church. “I’ve taught contract law for 25 years and contracts are about private ordering, about parties and voluntary exchanges who engage in transactions that make all of us better off. I love contracts and I think it’s a core part of the libertarian principles,” said Warren.  

“It is an important part. Libertarians believe in social ordering, right? That the social ordering is by private arrangement, so, that they ought to believe in contracts and in fact I think they do.

Based on this, Catholics should vote for her simply because she believes in God, even if that God is an inanimate carbon rod.

A Little Class Warfare For Breakfast

Before I get started on a mini-rant, let me say something about the subject of this rant.

Elizabeth Warren was my bankruptcy professor in law school.  She was a terrific teacher -- unlike most of my professors, I didn't have a problem attending her class... and it wasn't just because she had an attendance policy.  And she's a nice person, she really is.  I enjoyed our discussions during office hours.  And she will have absolutely no reason to remember me, and is a hell of a lot more accomplished (then again, that last part is not saying much).

With that said, she's completely wrong here. Let's start with the video.



Okay, allow me to retort, Professor...

1. Last I checked, the factory owner in your hypothetical does pay taxes.  We're apparently arguing about whether he or she needs to pay a greater share of their income to pay for all of those wonderful services that government provides pursuant to the social contract you're referencing.  Guess what?  The factory owner who's making more income already pays more in taxes than the non-factory owners who make less income do, both in terms of total income and as a percentage of the income.  I know, Warren Buffett's secretary and all that crap might have convinced you otherwise, but go see the AP factcheck on that point.

2.  She's also missing an extremely important point here regarding what the factory owner contributes to society.  To wit, he or she is now producing goods that are a benefit to society.  He or she is purchasing good and services from suppliers and vendors.  He or she is employing people who now have jobs and are not a burden on the social safety net.  Those employees earn paychecks and spend money that in turn helps stimulate the economy.  The factory owner and the employees pay taxes -- employment taxes, income taxes, sales taxes on things they purchase... and those taxes help pay for government.

Get it?  Because of the factory owner's work and business, the factory owner is already providing additional benefits to society -- they are paying it forward in a far more important way than they do via additional taxes. 

Do they get credit for these benefits that they provide to society?  Perhaps the answer is that these benefits also come with costs in the form of an increased need for regulations, and that the increased activity leads to greater usage of public resources (by other people who are also presumably paying into the system).  But none of this is addressed in the silly analysis we see on the video.

3.  Why is it that every time we hear a liberal story about the services government provides, it's focused on the essential services that conservatives will happily concede as duties of government (fire service, policemen, roads), but not on all the insane services government now provides (and largely does a crappy job providing) that people find far more questionable?  And does government have a responsibility to spend our taxpayer dollars with care and account for it?  If they don't do so, doesn't the factory owner have an even greater reason to take offense to claims that he or she is not paying their fair share, if government seems to be wasting the money that the factory owner otherwise might have used in a productive manner?

4.  I'll let Jonah Goldberg handle the next point...

Of course conservatives believe in a social contract, albeit a more bare bones version than the one liberals believe in. Insinuations otherwise are a red herring. But you can believe in a social contract and also believe the Left is pursuing class warfare. The suggestion that one contradicts the other is entirely bogus.

Going from this video, Ms. Warren thinks the deficit Bush created is terrible because it put our kids in greater debt but the deficit Obama has created is fine, even though it does the same thing. And something called “the social contract” requires us to look the other way as we pile up ever more debt on policies that haven’t worked until now. Again, I’m sure that sounds great to people who want to hear liberals “fight back.” But I think she’ll have to try harder if she wants to persuade people who don’t already agree with her.

That last part is key.  Warren's articulating a form of class warfare that is poisonous to the social contract she's allegedly trying to defend.  There's an argument to be made that the factory owner should want to give back to society, sort of a moral obligation one may feel they should fulfill (think about when people return to their hometowns to "give back" through charitable endeavors).

But Warren is arguing that the factory owner owes that obligation to everyone else.  To begin with, it's not always true.  Maybe this factory owner doesn't owe it to society -- maybe his factory (now using masculine pronouns because I'm sick of using he or she) is actually a home office where he created some fabulous new app that allows us to determine just how many jobs President Obama will destroy every month.  And maybe he was home-schooled in the Alaskan wilderness and lives in a small privately-policed community located on an offshore island that's still a U.S. territory.  I suppose he should be thankful for protection from marauding bands of pirates or something.  However, he's already paying into the system, as noted above.  You're saying that he owes more simply because he's been successful -- you're punishing that success by obligating him to do something.  That's an affront to personal liberty.

5.  When you tax something, you tend to get less of it.  Do we want less successful people?  Fewer factory owners?  Fewer rich people?  Fewer people getting jobs?

Sorry, I just lapsed into a general description of the Obama Presidency.  Unrelated, I'm sure.

6.  Last point, which is unrelated to the substance:  I'll let Allahpundit take the floor...

The reason this is a viral hit on the left, of course, is because they think most of their political problems boil down to “messaging.” Their platform is foolproof — genius top to bottom — but the sheer ingenious complexity of the scheme means they have trouble explaining it to the common voting yokel.

I think the world of Elizabeth Warren as a law professor.  But she's not convincing anyone near the right-hand side of the political ledger to support more income redistribution with shoddy arguments like this.  She might win her race against Scott Brown (it is Massachusetts, after all), but she won't sell this policy around the country, and the problem isn't messaging.  After all, three years ago, I remember hearing how the liberals had a fabulous law school professor who could explain anything to anyone and get them to buy all of the brilliant liberal programs they had lined up.  And if he couldn't convince people to embrace bigger government, maybe the messaging wasn't the problem.

Wonder what happened to that guy?

What Brown Is Doing For Us

Courtesy of blog reader MS, we've been told that Scott Brown has a petition up to support a moratorium on earmarks.  I knew there was a reason I liked that guy.

The HealthCare Follies Continue

If I could make sense of the health care mess.... well, maybe I can, but let's start with the storyline.

First, over the weekend, the Democrats announced that they were pretty much giving up on getting everyone in Bart Stupak's coalition to come back into the fold...

Stupak notes that his negotiations with House Democratic leaders in recent days have been revealing. “I really believe that the Democratic leadership is simply unwilling to change its stance,” he says. “Their position says that women, especially those without means available, should have their abortions covered.” The arguments they have made to him in recent deliberations, he adds, “are a pretty sad commentary on the state of the Democratic party.”

They may get some of stupak's coalition, but not all.  Stupak's more electrifying charge (that Democrats actually argued that the amendment created more costs due to more babies being born) is apparently an argument he's heard from individual Democrats, but not the House leadership. It's still pretty appalling, and sure as hell sounds like a death panel, as Allahpundit noted. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who previously backed the House bill, have now jumped ship. Perhaps they don't believe the Senate simply made a typo in another provision that could lead to publicly-funded abortions...

Liberals wanted to expand the reach of community health centers, which have provided low-cost health care to people in underserved areas since the 1960s. And they wanted the health care bill to commit $7 billion for these health centers. The moderates agreed, and new language was hurriedly added to the Senate bill.


"This is all stuff that was inserted late at night and they were trying to reach a final agreement" on the bill, says Timothy Jost, a professor and health law expert at the Washington and Lee University School of Law. Unfortunately, no one remembered to write in an explicit provision explaining that this $7 billion in spending for the health care centers would be subject to all the usual restrictions on how federal money is spent. One of those restrictions, the so-called Hyde Amendment, prohibits most federal funding for abortions.


..."It seems that this is something that slipped by," Jost says, "because elsewhere in the bill they made [funding] subject to [the Hyde amendment]."


And that's how a silly slip-up allowed the anti-abortion forces to issue the dubious claim that this bill will unleash a flood of federally-funded abortions. But though the Democrats' omission makes it easier for anti-abortion rights groups to claim the community health care ceneters funding could pay for abortions, it doesn't make it true.


Community health centers don't perform abortions. They never have—not even in the 1960s and 1970s before the Hyde Amendment was introduced. And they don't plan to in the future. In a statement issued last week, the clinics' umbrella organization, the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC), said that "health centers do not plan to, nor are they seeking to, become providers of abortion." And Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius has pledged that none of the money from the health care bill will be used to fund abortions at community health centers.

The problem is that leaving a loophole like that is an invitation for someone to abuse in the future.  None of the points mentioned above prevent someone from using the loophole to fund abortions in the future. Even if you agree that it's a typo, then it brings to mind the question of why we should trust Congress enough to believe there aren't additional "typos" that will come to light later, when they're rushing to try and pass a bill before the President heads overseas (and before their members go home for an Easter recess that might not be so restful). Maybe they can use Nancy Pelosi's latest stupid argument in favor of the bill -- unemployed artists will no longer have to find jobs to finance their health care, since the government will subsidize it, allowing them to not work and pursue their life's dream!  Hey, I can finally puruse my dream of being an "artist" who watches TV all day!  But that's all backdrop for the real remaining issue -- the vote count.

The White House is confident it will have passage of the week -- so confident that two major advisors essentially guaranteed it on the Sunday talk shows.  Of course, the House Majority Whip (you know, the guy who actually has to count the votes for the Democrats) says they don't have the votes yet.  Which means the White House is still looking for votes, which might be why they're suddenly backtracking on the President's pledge not to have any more special deals in the legislation...

Still seeking votes for his proposed health care overhaul, President Barack Obama appears ready to reverse his position and allow unpopular deal-sweetening measures in the hopes of finding Democratic support for legislation whose future will be decided in coming days.


...Clinching support, though, might require Obama to back away from his insistence that senators purge the legislation of a number of lawmakers' special deals.


Taking a new position, Axelrod said the White House only objects to state-specific arrangements, such as an increase in Medicaid funding for Nebraska, ridiculed as the "Cornhusker Kickback." That's being cut, but provisions that could affect more than one state are OK, Axelrod said.


That means deals sought by senators from Montana and Connecticut would be fine — even though Gibbs last week singled them out as items Obama wanted removed. There was resistance, however, from two committee chairman, Democratic Sens. Max Baucus of Montana and Chris Dodd of Connecticut, and the White House has apparently backed down.


Axelrod said the principles the White House wants to apply include "Are these applicable to all states? Even if they do not qualify now, would they qualify under certain sets of circumstances?"

Somewhere, Jim Geraghty is updating his line that all of Barack Obama's promises have an expiration date. However, the real issue is why Gibbs and Axelrod would issue such blanket guarantees.  I think there's a combination of two things going on here.  First, they have some degree of confidence (hopeful confidence? desperate confidence?) that Nancy Pelosi will get the votes somehow, despite the loss of at least a few Stupak bloc voters.  The second issue is that they're trying to create a sense of inevitability and momentum for the bill -- it can't be stopped, so people (or at least, wavering House Democrats) should get on board.  I think it's a mix of both, really, but the question House Democrats have to be asking is whether they can really trust this Administration to get the pulse of America right.

Axelrod seems to saying that he wants the GOP to make the fall elections about the health care bill.  I think what House members realize is that the GOP does not have to do it -- the Tea Parties, the independants, and the core GOP base are already making it about the bill, without much in the way of urging from the GOP leadership.  The rebellion against the health care reform bills and process wasn't coordinated from above, much as the Obama Administration fervently wishes it were.  The fact that it comes from the grass roots means that the arguments Axelrod is making will be arguments that Democratic candidates will be having with constituents as much as with opponents.  And when you're arguing with people, it's tough to get their vote.

And this is before we get to the optics of the situation -- and here's new Senator Scott Brown,who is the walking, talking symbol of what this debate has cost Democrats, delivering Saturday's GOP response to the President's weekly radio address...

Maybe you remember what President Obama promised in his State of the Union address. He said he was going to finally focus on jobs and the economy for the remainder of this year. I applauded him for that. Well, here it is, it’s almost spring. And what is he out there talking about again? That same 2,700-page, multi-trillion dollar healthcare legislation.


So, an entire year has gone to waste. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, and many more jobs are in danger. Even now, the president still hasn’t gotten the message.


Somehow, the greater the public opposition to the healthcare bill, the more determined they seem to force it on us anyway. Their attitude shows Washington at its very worst – the presumption that they know best, and they’re going to get their way whether the American people like it or not.


And, when politicians start thinking like that, they don’t let anything get in their way – not public opinion, not the rules of fair play, not even their own promises.


They pledged transparency. Instead, we have a healthcare bill tainted by secrecy, concealed cost, and full of backroom deals – and that’s just not right. They should do better. The American people expect more.

Let the vote-counting continue. Firedoglake's estimate is here. Jay Cost is here. The Hill is here. I have no count, but a prediction that the bill with either pass by a small majority, or go down in flames as moderate Dems bail and are followed by liberals seeking to make a statement on the bill not going far enough.

At the end of the day, I doubt the bill dies, even if it doesn't pass this week. The Obama Administration needs a win, no matter how many votes this costs them in the fall. I think the longer this carries on, the worse things get for them, and I don't just mean this fall. The chicanery being used to push this bill through... well, let's just say a declaration of Shenanigans is coming.



Get your brooms.

The Health Care Follies Continue

As Peter Suderman notes, Democrats are currently going through the five stages of grief regarding the reported death of the health care reform package. It would be funny, except for the fact that several liberals in the blogosphere refuse to get past denial.

The left wing really wants the Democrats to commit electoral suicide and pass the health care bill. Nate Silver tries really hard to make the case for the bill, after an earlier emotional appeal was effectively debunked by Megan McArdle. As usual, Silver is an interesting read...

What we see is that most individual components of the bill are popular -- in some cases, quite popular. But awareness lags behind. Only 61 percent are aware that the bill bans denials of coverage for pre-existing conditions. Only 42 percent know that it bans lifetime coverage limits. Only 58 percent are aware that it set up insurance exchanges. Just 44 percent know that it closes the Medicare donut hole -- and so on and so forth.

"Awareness", by the way, might be a forgiving term in this context. For the most part in Kaiser's survey, when the respondent doesn't affirm that the bill contains a particular provision, he actually believes that the bills don't include that provision. 29 percent, for instance, say the bill does not contain a provision requiring insurers to cover those with pre-existing conditions; 20 percent think it does not expand subsidies.

How would public opinion change if people were fully informed about the content of the bills? It's hard to say for sure, but on average, the individual components of the bill are favored by a net of +22 points. An NBC poll in August also found that support went from a -6 net to a +10 when people were actually provided with a description of the bill.

Obviously, it's not as though this is going to do much to help the bill's popularity in the immediate term. But in the long term, once people actually see the go bill into effect, their perceptions are liable to improve, in ways that might help the Democratic party. Although there are a few things like the individual mandate which the public obviously does not like, most of the other components of the bill are things they are liable to be quite pleased with and to find quite reasonable.

Lastly, it's much harder to read the opinion polls as a "mandate" against the health care bill when much of that opinion is based on demonstrably false beliefs, some of which have been perpetuated deliberately by opponents. And it's much harder to know how the Democrats ever expect to pass a health care bill or similarly complicated policies like cap-and-trade if they wither in the face of polls that reflect less a disparity of opinion and more a poverty of accurate information.

Silver is trying to be very analytical, but at its most basic, the case for the bill seems to be that Democrats should pass the thing, then explain to the public why they're wrong about it; effectively, we're smarter than you and know what's good for you. This is a strategy that parents have to resort to with children. Unfortunately for Democrats, the citizenry isn't a big fan of being treated like children. More to the point, it ignores the fact that the Democrats have been trying to sell some version of this piece of legislation to a skeptical public for the better part of six months (and in truth longer than that), and have failed to do so. Perhaps at some point, one should consider that it's not the other side's misinformation or inadequate communication on your part -- maybe the public really doesn't want to buy it.

Steve Benen tries a similar tack, drafting a memo outlining the reasons for passing the health care bill. His ten point memo is set up as political advice to be be strong and fight back hard, but I'm not sure that any of the points are ones that the Democrats haven't already heard. Put simply, Benen seems to believe a skeptical public can be won over after the bill has passed, and that the Democrats political future is more tenuous if they fail to pass the bill. These were the same points used to support the passage of the bill prior to the Massachusetts special election, and the fact that the Democrats had moved the ball down to the one-yard line and passed a bill in each House didn't improve the public's views on the bill -- they actually got more skeptical, and Scott Brown's promise to be the 41st vote against the Senate bill played no small part in his victory. Jon Cohn tries a similar tack, trying to spotlight the allegedly good things the bill will provide; again, he seems to think that this time, the public will listen to the sales pitch, when it hasn't done so for the past several months.

So will Democrats make the last-ditch attempt? David Plouffe, one of Obama's key campaign lieutenants, is back in the White House now, and argued on Sunday in a Washington Post op-ed for passing the bill. His argument on this point was similar to the one outlined above...

Americans' health and our nation's long-term fiscal health depend on it. I know that the short-term politics are bad. It's a good plan that's become a demonized caricature. But politically speaking, if we do not pass it, the GOP will continue attacking the plan as if we did anyway, and voters will have no ability to measure its upside. If we do pass it, dozens of protections and benefits take effect this year. Parents won't have to worry their children will be denied coverage just because they have a preexisting condition. Workers won't have to worry that their coverage will be dropped because they get sick. Seniors will feel relief from prescription costs. Only if the plan becomes law will the American people see that all the scary things Sarah Palin and others have predicted -- such as the so-called death panels -- were baseless. We own the bill and the health-care votes. We need to get some of the upside. (P.S.: Health care is a jobs creator.)

I don't know where the data is to back up the idea that health care will create jobs (perhaps in the public sector, but on balance, I'm not seeing how it will create private sector jobs), but the rest of it is a rehash of the same ideas that the other writers outlined and that the public hasn't bought. The President and Congress have tried to make this case for months, and failed to do so. Some of that failure can be attributed to effective counter-argument (which Dems would probably claim was false demagoguery, but it's still effective and needs a decent response), some of it can be attributed to bad messaging by the supporters of the bill, and some of it can be attributed the public's disgust with the Congressional process -- but some of it can also be attributed to portions of the public that don't want the bill. Heck, I'm not the only one saying it -- look at these statement from House Rep. Bill Pascrell...

“The people in Massachusetts sent a clear message,” he said. “If we didn’t get it in New Jersey or Virginia, we should’ve gotten it, certainly, Tuesday.”

The white-haired New Jersey Democrat isn’t known for taking on his own leaders. His past high-profile causes have focused on entertainment. He blasted the HBO hit show “The Sopranos” for degrading Italians. He took on Ticketmaster for allegedly withholding tickets and redirecting buyers to a pricier subsidiary during Bruce Springsteen’s 2009 tour.

But now he’s turning his fire on his own party.

...Pascrell can get away with being the tough guy. Since 1998, he hasn’t won an election with less than 62 percent of the vote. He is a relatively safe Democrat who is trying to grab hold of a process that he sees as having gone awry.

“It’s so complex; we made it complex,” Pascrell said of the health care debate. “And we knew this from the very beginning.”

Pascrell is not a disloyal Democrat — he voted for the House health care bill, public option and all. After the bill passed in November, he was seen on the floor hugging House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and exchanging pleasantries with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).

But now he’s proclaimed that both the House and the Senate bills are dead. And from someone of Pascrell’s ilk, that cannot be good for Pelosi and Hoyer.

...“We are arrogant when we say, ‘Well, as soon as the public understands what we’re doing, they’ll like it,’” he told a clutch of reporters. “That is not only arrogant, it’s BS.”

The article reveals that Pascrell is trying to get a more moderate bill, or series of smaller bills, on track, but the left still yearns for the Senate bill. Can the President make the case in the SOTU? Perhaps, but this assumes people will be listening and that their opinions haven't hardened. Remember, Obama tried to take back the initiative in September with a prime-time speech, and he failed. He tried to direct the process with a prime-time news conference in July, and he failed. Why should he get bogged down on this same idea again? David Frum notes that it's possible to rally the public to fight on behalf of the President against Congress, but with one very big caveat...

There’s always one reliable way to over-ride a filibuster: mobilize public opinion. In February 1917, when isolationist senators filibustered legislation to arm merchant ships, President Wilson crushed them by direct appeal to the public: “A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great government of the United States helpless and contemptible,” he said in a March 4 address. A month later, the U.S. had gone beyond arming merchant ships – it was at war. But you can only appeal to the public if the public supports the underlying cause. Obamacare’s problem is ultimately not the Senate, but the country.

And there's the rub. The country hasn't bought the product, and indeed, a majority is now repulsed by it. Megan McArdle makes a related point while responding to Nate Silver's analysis...

Health care's popularity drops any time Congress discusses it. With respect to Nate Silver, who argues that the bill would be popular if they ever passed it and could discuss what's in it, you cannot "prove" that voters like a bill because various bits of it poll well on their own. Do I want a sous vide machine? Certainly! I could take a poll that would show nine or ten wonderful things I would love about owning a sous vide machine. Am I going to buy one? No I am not, because it costs hundreds of dollars I need for other things.

Almost everything polls well on its own, except tax increases. But as in my example, deciding whether you want something is not a matter of simple addition of positives and negatives. Some negatives, like price tag, can outweigh even a stunning array of positives. The things that poll badly: price tag, excise tax, individual mandate. These are crucial components that can't be gotten rid of.

Moreover, many of the pieces that poll well, like deficit reduction, are things that voters like, but don't believe this bill will achieve. They're not going to believe it any more after you pass the bill through a process that involves buying off every special interest group in sight.

Megan links to Matt Yglesias' lament about the process, where he wonders whether moderate Democrats really wanted health care reform. I think there's something to this -- change is really hard and risky, and the American people began signalling that they didn't want the change that the President and Congress were (incompetently and incoherently) advocating. Rather than polishing their advocacy or strategizing for smaller reforms, the President and Congressional leaders gambled on the politics of raw power to try and pass a major reform. When that political power was exposed as ineffectual at the ballot box (in Massachusetts!), Democrats began heading for the hills.

Bottom line? When the left is busy writing the equivalent of letters to their Congressman to try to convince them that the public can be convinced that health care reform is a good idea, if only they'd pass the bill... well, in D.C., nothing is really dead and buried. But health care reform may need its last rites. As to the Democrats who are frustrated... there's a great episode of the Simpsons from 1995 that might well cover the issue beautifully.

Early in the episode, a couple of fighter jets are fired upon by Groundskeeper Willy with a shotgun (don't ask). When they launch missiles to try to kill him, the missiles instead hit the planes themselves. As the pilots parachute to the ground, the following conversation is heard...

Pilot 1: [parachuting] This is what happens when you cut money out of the military and put it into health care!

Pilot 2: [parachuting] It's a good program! Just give it a chance, that's all I ask. [their parachutes fail; they crash to the ground]

However, the episode is better known for this later quote -- as a comet discovered by Bart bears down on Springfield and will likely destroy the town, newscaster Kent Brockman cuts in with news that the federal government may try to save the town...

Kent: With our utter annihilation imminent, our federal government has snapped into action. We go live now via satellite to the floor of the United States congress.

Speaker: Then it is unanimous, we are going to approve the bill to evacuate the town of Springfield in the great state of --

Congressman: Wait a minute, I want to tack on a rider to that bill: $30 million of taxpayer money to support the perverted arts.

Speaker: All in favor of the amended Springfield-slash-pervert bill? [everyone boos]

Speaker: Bill defeated. [bangs gavel]

Kent: I've said it before and I'll say it again: democracy simply doesn't work.

That last line probably summarizes how the left feels right about now.

Massachusetts Goes From Blue to Brown

Jim Geraghty's article on how Scott Brown's victory is really a political perfect storm is a must-read. Just a snippet...

Martha Coakley might be a nice woman, but she’s doing an exceptional job of hiding it during this campaign. She scoffed when her opponent’s hands shook at Fenway Park in cold weather. She seemed genuinely to think that Catholics with strong religious beliefs ought not to work in emergency rooms. She sent a mailing claiming that Brown wants rape victims turned away from hospitals, an egregious misreading of a conscience clause Brown supports, and ignored the similar language supported by the man who held the seat she aims to win. There’s some evidence, including the ARG poll, that the flyer controversy actually hurt her among women.

Every candidate makes gaffes, usually simple flubs like mixing up budget numbers or saying “income taxes” instead of “payroll taxes.” But Coakley’s mistakes in recent days have been perfect for repeating at the bar or office water cooler. One of her message guys “sent a message” to The Weekly Standard’s John McCormack by shoving him to the ground. She later lamented that she was being “stalked.” One of her anti–Wall Street attack ads used an image of the World Trade Center. She called Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling a Yankee fan when he came out against her. She campaigned, in a rather heavy-handed manner, at a Martin Luther King Day breakfast.

Races turn on more than personal charisma, but it helps. In this race, one candidate is a smiling guy who’s always walking around neighborhoods shaking hands, driving an old truck, and talking proudly about his daughters; the other is a cold fish who keeps approving attack ads.

In the end, David Gergen might have a huge impact on this race. The veteran of many administrations and omnipresent television news commentator — who can always be counted on for the most refreshing and groundbreaking assessment of current events — asked Brown a question that you would never see come from a Jim Lehrer: “Are you willing, under those circumstances, to say, ‘I’m going to sit in Ted Kennedy’s seat, and I’m going to be the person who is going to block [health reform] for another 15 years’?” Brown corrected him: “With all due respect, it’s not the Kennedy seat, it’s not the Democrats’ seat, it’s the people’s seat, and they have a chance to send somebody down who is going to be an independent voter and an independent thinker.”

Calling a Red Sox hero a Yankee fan is, to quote Jon Stewart, like saying John Lennon's favorite Beatle was Mickey Dolenz. Between that type of stupidity, Brown's performance on the trail, and the healthcare mess Congress and Obama have created, we have a whole new ballgame in D.C. Let's see how it plays out.

The Health Care Follies Continue

Evan Bayh says the far left has taken over the Democrats...

If staunch lifelong Democrat and son of a staunch lifelong Democrat Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana is doing it, then it must be OK.

He's not yet joined the no-you-didn't-yes-we-did-why-didn't-you-call-for-help-sooner-well-hello-we-did-but-you-weren't-listening-because-of-that-inside-DC-healthcare-dance-Obama-wants-so-badly.

But he is warning that, assuming Coakley the Democrat is electoral toast come balloon-dropping time tonight, Democrats need to learn an important lesson -- and learn it quite quickly. Bayh, who is one of those gutless moderates who just keeps on winning because he listens and stays connected back home, says his party and president have simply abandoned moderation to push a far-left agenda that alienates moderates and, hello, independents, who happen to make up about half of the Massachusetts electorate.

Says Bayh to ABC News: "It’s why moderates and independents even in a state as Democratic as Massachusetts just aren’t buying our message. They just don’t believe the answers we are currently proposing are solving their problems. That’s something that has to be corrected."

Bayh, once discussed as a VP for the next-door smooth-talking guy from Illinois, predicts fellow Democrats will go into denial tomorrow if state Sen. Brown becomes U.S. Sen. Brown.

"The only we are able to govern successfully in this country," Bayh warns, "is by liberals and progressives making common cause with independents and moderates. Whenever you have just the furthest left elements of the Dem party attempting to impose their will on the rest of the country -- that’s not going to work too well.”

Barney Frank says healthcare reform needs to go back to the drawing board...

“I have two reactions to the election in Massachusetts. One, I am disappointed. Two, I feel strongly that the Democratic majority in Congress must respect the process and make no effort to bypass the electoral results. If Martha Coakley had won, I believe we could have worked out a reasonable compromise between the House and Senate health care bills. But since Scott Brown has won and the Republicans now have 41 votes in the Senate, that approach is no longer appropriate. I am hopeful that some Republican Senators will be willing to discuss a revised version of health care reform because I do not think that the country would be well-served by the health care status quo. But our respect for democratic procedures must rule out any effort to pass a health care bill as if the Massachusetts election had not happened. Going forward, I hope there will be a serious effort to change the Senate rule which means that 59 votes are not enough to pass major legislation, but those are the rules by which the health care bill was considered, and it would be wrong to change them in the middle of the process.”

Jim Webb pooped in the Democrats' refrigerator with this announcement...

"In many ways the campaign in Massachusetts became a referendum not only on health care reform but also on the openness and integrity of our government process. It is vital that we restore the respect of the American people in our system of government and in our leaders. To that end, I believe it would only be fair and prudent that we suspend further votes on health care legislation until Senator-elect Brown is seated."

And so, the White House solution on health care is... vote the plan through and get more combative. Man, get me whatever it is they're drinking...

The health care backdrop has given the White House a strong incentive to strike a defiant posture, at least rhetorically, in response to what would be an undeniable embarrassment for the president and his party.

There won’t be any grand proclamation that “the era of Big Government is over” — the words President Bill Clinton uttered after Republicans won the Congress in the 1990s and he was forced to trim a once-ambitious agenda.

“The response will not be to do incremental things and try to salvage a few seats in the fall,” a presidential adviser said. “The best political route also happens to be the boldest rhetorical route, which is to go out and fight and let the chips fall where they may. We can say, ‘At least we fought for these things, and the Republicans said no.’”

To be fair, that was written before Brown won, but still in anticipation of his win. However, maybe things are clearer following the victory. Unfortunately, that's not entirely clear upon reading lefty blogs. Josh Marshall is one example...

I cannot say this enough. The policy front speaks for itself. But the meta-politics is real. It's a big. But it's something Democrats have great difficulty with. For a whole variety of reasons voters clearly have a lot of hesitation about this reform. I think the polls make clear that the public is not against it. But the reticence is real. If Dems decide to run from the whole project in the face of a single reverse, what are voters supposed to draw from that? What conclusion would you draw about an individual in an analogous situation in your own life? Think about it.

"... the polls make clear the public is not against it." I realize that we have polls that say just about everything on this topic, but considering the Democrats just lost a Massachusetts Senate seat, at least in part due to health care reform, you'd think that poll result might matter.

Maybe Marshall is just trying to push what is the likely White House spin on this; Nate Silver did a well-written piece outlining this position earlier this week. I'll note the first couple arguments...

The pitch that the White House and Nancy Pelosi will make to the Democratic members of the House is a difficult one and will need to be extremely well executed, but is likely to consist of one or more of the following arguments:

(1) President Obama can deliver a home-run speech when he needs to and will deliver a home-run speech on January 27th that features a sharp pivot toward more populist economic policies, such as a bank tax, financial regulation, and a jobs bill.

(2) The White House already got the 60th vote that was going to be the most difficult to get: Ben Nelson's to push them past the finish line on health care. On most other issues, they may not have had 59 votes anyway. In other cases still, the White House will be more amenable to using reconciliation, which was designed for precisely the sort of fiscal measures they will be considering in the spring and summer. Scott Brown's vote may not be in play in the immediate term, but could be in the medium term, essentially leaving the Democrats in the same position they were before Arlen Specter defected. And the Democrats' shaky 60-seat supermajority was not doing them much good as far as optics and public perception went.

I'm not sure any of the arguments will work, but Obama's ability to deliver a home run speech seems to be in doubt. He may do it next Wednesday, but I would note that he hasn't done a really good one on domestic policy since... well, beats me. Obama's better tack might be to pivot to dealing with the economy, and hope it recovers over the spring and summer.

If the GOP is smart, they'll have Scott Brown handle the response. The guy looked the part of a superstar last night. Meanwhile, the left may want to read this apt summary from the right by Matt Continetti...

Nationalizing the election helped Brown. It led the Democrats to wage a ridiculously negative campaign that may have hurt Martha Coakley among independents. It turned the race into a referendum on the Obama Democratic agenda in general and health care reform in particular.

After the off-year elections, Democrats could cling to Bill Owens's victory in NY-23 as a shred of evidence that the Tea Party message could hurt Republicans. Scott Brown's victory exposes NY-23 as a fluke. The trend is clear. Independents have moved sharply right over the course of President Obama's first year in office, even in Massachusetts. Attention Democrats: Obama's version of change is not what most of the country believes in.

Evan Bayh, Barney Frank, and Jim Webb appear to be listening. But is President Obama?

"All The Newly Elected Blue Dogs, Leave The Room Now"

Note to frustrated liberals who might think otherwise: just because I post this, it does not mean I'm comparing anyone to Hitler.

But damn, this clip is funnier today than usual (hat tip: Instapundit, as well as New Jersey's own Lord of Truth). "Why does he need every word fed to him through a teleprompter?"

What Annoying Song Is Stuck In My Head Today?

If I need to suffer with a song stuck in my head, why shouldn't you have to do the same? Sometimes they're good, most times they're bad... but no matter what, they make you suffer. So I like to share the suffering whenever it happens.

Normally, I hate this song with a passion. Not only is it annoying, but at least half of what Alanis Morrisette says is ironic probably doesn't qualify.

But on a morning where the people of Massachusetts voted a Republican into the seat once held by Teddy Kennedy, and in so doing perhaps struck a fatal blow to Kennedy's lifelong dream of national health insurance... well, that qualifies as fodder for a new song. Note to President Obama: There a line in here about "the good advice that you just didn't take..." I'm just saying, it might be relevant.



You're welcome.

What Can Brown Do For Massachusetts?

Four days before the special election, Martha Coakley's getting insulted by her fellow Democrats in every way possible...

Here in Massachusetts, as well as in Washington, a growing sense of gloom is setting in among Democrats about the fortunes of Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley. "I have heard that in the last two days the bottom has fallen out of her poll numbers," says one well-connected Democratic strategist. In her own polling, Coakley is said to be around five points behind Republican Scott Brown. "If she's not six or eight ahead going into the election, all the intensity is on the other side in terms of turnout," the Democrat says. "So right now, she is destined to lose."

Intensifying the gloom, the Democrat says, is the fact that the same polls showing Coakley falling behind also show President Obama with a healthy approval rating in the state. "With Obama at 60 percent in Massachusetts, this shouldn't be happening, but it is," the Democrat says.

Given those numbers, some Democrats, eager to distance Obama from any electoral failure, are beginning to compare Coakley to Creigh Deeds, the losing Democratic candidate in the Virginia governor's race last year. Deeds ran such a lackluster campaign, Democrats say, that his defeat could be solely attributed to his own shortcomings, and should not be seen as a referendum on President Obama's policies or those of the national Democratic party.

The same sort of thinking is emerging in Massachusetts. "This is a Creigh Deeds situation," the Democrat says. "I don't think it says that the Obama agenda is a problem. I think it says, 1) that she's a terrible candidate, 2) that she ran a terrible campaign, 3) that the climate is difficult but she should have been able to overcome it, and 4) that Democrats beware -- you better run good campaigns, or you're going to lose."

A few thoughts are in order. First, I live in Virginia, and I can confirm that Creigh Deeds ran a terrible campaign. But Coakley as a candidate makes Deeds look like Barack Obama, circa 2008. Last night, she managed to take a rather risky stand that may alienate Catholic voters, in a state with just a few Catholic voters. She also insulted shaking hands outside Fenway Park, which people in Boston probably find even more offensive. She also took a six day vacation during the holidays, which is fine as a choice, but may be a strategic misstep when the general election campaign is shorter than 60 days. Maybe I'm too far removed from Massachusetts to appreciate her better qualities as a campaigner, but I tend to doubt it.

Second, this is horribly unfair to Creigh Deeds for another reason. Virginia is, at best, a newly minted purple state state. I know we have two Democratic Senators, but both ran as moderates and won election during good years for Democrats. Deeds was running in a bad year for Dems in a state that's not pre-disposed to backing Dems reflexively. Yes, Deeds lost by 20 points, but losing itself wasn't the surprise, just the margin.

By contrast, Martha Coakley was running as a Democrat in a state that's a darker shade of blue than the Blue Man Group. She should win going away, even in a year that's bad for Democrats. The better campaign comparison to last fall might be Jon Corzine in New Jersey, except that the voters also disliked Corzine because he was the incumbent Governor. I guess they might be coming to the belated recognition that Coakley's a bad Attorney General (Dorothy Rabinowitz's piece in the Wall Street Journal is a must-read), but I doubt that's driving away Massachusetts voters like Corzine's performance as Governor did in New Jersey. And keep in mind, Coakley's managed to blow a 30 point lead. I'm not sure if Deeds ever had the lead in his race, but he certainly didn't pull a Houston Oiler gag job.

Third, that piece above is a front for the theory that it's not Obama's fault. If Coakley wins, I guarantee that the Obama White House will try to paint this as a referendum on health care and Obama's policies, and try to take credit for it. But they're now on record as assigning the blame for the loss to her and her alone. Jennifer Rubin has the counterpoint to that here...

Since September, the country has witnessed the visible battle over ObamaCare — late-night votes, Cash for Cloture deals, and a bill that offends a wide array of groups. Democrats have never looked up or paused to consider the public’s views on the matter. They tell us they will “sell it” to us later. That arrogant defiance of public opinion and the unseemly legislative process that produced a grossly unpopular bill have fueled a resurgence of anger and determination among conservatives and even usually apathetic independents. They now are anxious to send a message to Washington: stop ignoring the voters. We saw it in New Jersey and Virginia. Now we learn that even Massachusetts may not be immune.

The Democrats’ agenda, specifically a hugely unpopular health-care bill, has unified and energized not the proponents of big government but the opposition, which now is itching for the chance to exact revenge. We’ll see on Tuesday if that wave of resentment is so powerful as to extend even to a state so Blue that a little over a year ago, Obama carried it by more than 25 points.

Yes, Coakley's run a crappy campaign, but it's Massachusetts. This is a state that voted for George McGovern. You need more than just a crappy campaign as a Democrat to lose a statewide race in Massachusetts -- and one of those things you probably need is a Democratic President and Democratic Congress angering and galvanizing the opposition. And yet, she's now behind by 4 points in the most recent poll. As Ace of Spades noted, it's almost like Coakley is trying to lose, so Senate Dems can blame the loss of the 41st seat as the reason they couldn't pass Obamacare.

Which brings me to the final point here. I'm a believer in momentum in political campaigns, or the "Big Mo" as Bush 41 used to say. Forget the Big Mo -- at this point, all the momentum is on Scott Brown's side. Yes, I'm still worried about a Saturday Surprise or a Sunday Slime, but I'm guessing that if Coakley had a silver bullet, she would have used it already. She's running a crazy number of negative ads, but I've always believed those tend to depress turnout from the other side, and Brown's supporters still look like they plan to show up (while Democrats continue to appear unenthused).

I've been skeptical of Brown's chances for a long time. Perhaps I still should be. But that Suffolk poll showing him up four points, along with the signs of panic on the Democratic side, have changed the relevant question here in this race. Before, people asked, "Can he win? Can he make it close?" Now, the question is, "Will he win?" Subtle change, but now people believe he can win -- it's no longer a Hail Mary possibility. That's big -- people like supporting a winner, and I firmly believe late-deciders tend to break toward a candidate who looks like he or she will win. Brown's now in that zone. To paraphrase Jim Croce singing about another Mr. Brown, he's the baddest man in the whole damn state. Here's hoping he closes the deal.

Remain Calm -- All Is Well

The Democrats are now seriously worried about losing Ted Kennedy's Senate seat... um, make that the people's Senate seat...

A major national union supporting Democrat Martha Coakley is taking out a massive TV ad buy that slams her Republican rival, Scott Brown, for his positions on abortion and climate change.

The ad taken out by the Service Employees International Union, will begin airing statewide tomorrow. The buy size is $685,000, one of the largest of the election.

“Before you vote for Senate, here’s a few things you should know about Scott Brown,” says a narrator in the 30-second spot. The narrator then says he “has repeatedly opposed a woman’s right to choose” and he “expresses skepticism that climate change is being caused by humans.”

“No wonder Brown’s campaign is being supported by the same extremist group that backs Sarah Palin,” the narrator says. “Martha Coakley for Senate. Massachusetts values.”

Jim Geraghty points out that in addition to the SEIU, the national Democrats have dropped over a million bucks into the race. We know the Dems are worried when their internal polls match up with what Scott Rasmussen says: that the race is within the margin of error and effectively a toss-up. I'm starting to wonder whether Chip Diller from Animal House will show up as Coakley's campaign spokesman" "Remain calm. All is well."

Of course, it doesn't help when your candidate's most memorable moment of the week is misspelling "Massachusetts" in a campaign ad as "Massachusettes". Martha Coakley's best attribute is that she's making the current crop of Congressional Democrats look competent. While Coakley's raising money from big-time lobbyists, Brown's moneybomb Monday night got $1.3 million with an average donation under $80 (by way of disclosure, I threw some cash in the pot myself).

Can Brown win? I'd quote a certain three word campaign slogan from the 2008 Presidential election campaign, but that would seem trite.

Moneybombing Massachusetts

You gotta love a candidate who says that "It's not the Kennedy's seat... it's the people's seat." Of course, since it's Massachusetts, they'll probably take offense.



(hat tip: Instapundit) Brown is supposed to lose, because he's running in Masschusetts. But the fact that he's making the Dems play defense, has the momentum, and the fact that his one-day "Moneybomb" fundraiser topped $1.1 million (more than double the goal of $500,000) says he's got people truly excited for him. The national GOP isn't responsible for this -- it's Brown and the people who want to send a message to the establishment in D.C., which includes the GOP. I don't know if they will succeed, but it is fun to watch them try.

If Brown wins, D.C. will be turned upside down. And that's just one more reason to root for him.

For Once, I Wish I Was Still A Massachusetts Resident

During my three years in law school in land of the Red Sox, I opted not to regoister there. It seemed somewhat useless -- as the Lord of Truth once told me, it was never fun going to the polls to vote for people guaranteed to lose.

Which makes this news amazing. Public Policy Polling now has the Massachusetts special election for U.S. Senate a toss-up. This will probably just wake up the sleeping corrupt gints of the Democratic Party, but they may be getting to the scene late -- there's only ten days left for Martha Coakley to turn the tide (if she loses, I feel obligated to quote Homer Simpson to sitting Senator Paul Kirk: "Go back to Massachusetts, pinko!").

For everyone who wants to scotch health care reform, this is a chance to kick the Senate Dems collectively in the nuts. Keep in mind, they want to pass this bill as some sort of tribute to the legacy of Ted Kennedy (it's a drunken mess of big spending and big government... I guess it qualifies). But if Kennedy's seat somehow flips to the GOP... well, you'll probably hear teeth knashing everywhere. If you'd like to prevent this bill from becoming law, you could do worse than send a few bucks to Scott Brown. Hell, just for the sheer chaos this would create, we should all hope for it. I only hope Bill Jacobson's report is right, and the energy is still high for Brown. And it's nice of the Dems to make themselves look even more corrupt, by essentially saying they'll hold up getting him seated to pass healthcare.

I don't know if Brown will win -- but I'm starting to believe it. A week ago, I would have been happy if finished within 15 points. Now? I'm thinking he might be a household name ten days from now.

Looking for Just One More

The power of 41. Byron York has a good point. Maybe that's why the GOP should make a push in Massachusetts to steal Ted Kennedy's Senate seat, because having the filibuster in operation through next January might prevent any more debacles. Besides, we're big fans of the idea of Democrats being infuriated when Massachusetts rises up to prevent the passage of Obamacare, if the conference bill doesn't emerge before a new Senator is elected and seated.