To Anyone in MassachusettsFollow

Joph,

You really think a republican has a chance at winning kennedys seat?

*Shrug*

Sure, maybe. I'd rather it were otherwise but that's all neither here nor there towards commenting on the certification process and how long it takes.

Has gbaji ever even been to Massachusetts and can get that inside voters' heads?

Yes you do. You know nothing about Massachusetts or even what kind of Independents they have. You accuse Smash of living in a liberal bubble? Guess what that "bubble" is? It's ******* Massachusetts, which he is in more of a position to comment about, being a (lifelong?) resident. Jesus, even the way Smash posts, he acts like a Masshole. You aren't on the pulse of jack **** in New England.

Mass.'s independents are all Republicans who are too embarrassed to register as such.

In all honesty, if I had a choice to bang Coakley or Brown, I'd go with Brown. Even as a heterosexual, Coakley turns me off that much. She's still getting my vote though, simply because she will vote to pass health care reform.

Brown's not a bad guy, but his platform is basically to troll the healthcare reform bill.

Yeah, they're already calling it ~50% turnout so far which, for a special election, is pretty huge.

I guess someone's GOTV machine is up and running. I won't make guesses as to whose.

Edited, Jan 19th 2010 12:42pm by Jophiel

Brown needs to be up by 155% to defeat the Mass. Reverse-Bradley Effect!!!!!

Poll results are currently favoring Brown, 53% to 46%, with 70% of precincts reporting.

Obama's already moved up the date of the State of the Union to the 27th. This would strongly hint that the Democrats in Congress plan to pass the reform bll before then since it's the centerpoint of what they've done so far. This could be accomplished by either having the House pass the Senate bill untouched, by having a compromise bill both chambers can agree on pass swiftly or by having a Senate-centric bill pass with a promise to the House that sections of it will be revised down the line through reconciliation.

Assuming that the health care bill passes, it probably doesn't mean a ton for everything else. Don't get me wrong, I'd much rather that Coakley had won but a 59/41 split won't be significantly different than a 60/40 most of the time. Sticky legislation such as climate change bills weren't ever going to get the same wrangling that health care got or be lined up the same way. I suppose I won't have to listen to jamokes say "You have sixty votes! Why can't you grab the sun and the moon!" as though the spectrum from Boxer to Bayh to Liebermann to Durbin was some simple voting bloc. So that'll be nice.

If health care legislation fails to pass, it'll be a real pity in my opinion. We probably won't see another legitimate attempt to reform it for years if not decades. If it does pass, the 59/41 split will be a lot less important to me. One thing I hope does come out of it, and I've argued this for years, is reform of the procedural filibuster in the Senate. Probably a pipe dream but I get to have my fantasies same as everyone else.

Unless he flips back to Dem.

Either way, that's a pretty thin silver lining.

Eh, it'll do. I don't think anyone expected Coakley to swoop down and become the bastion of the Democratic party or anything. I'm not sure her win would have done much for the state short of keep the tradition going.