What just happened in my home and native land, the Republic of Massachusetts? The Kennedy Throne handed over to a Republican! Travesty! Say it ain’t so, Joe. However, given that the Bay State is usually out of sync with the rest of the country—offering up candidates like Dukakis and Kerry, for example, when the country wanted to nurse on the breast of Republican rhetoric—maybe Massachusetts voting for a Republican is a sign the country is turning Democratic! Then again, maybe not.
So why’d it happen? Four possible reasons I like. Take your pick:
Take 1—Coronations Don’t Cut It
Coakley got dumped the same reason Hillary lost the primaries to Obama (and it’s not about gender). Hillary thought she was entitled; a Clinton, she expected to breeze into the nomination like fresh air through the window. Coakley suffered from the same assumption. Why campaign? This is Massachusetts, I’m a Democrat, this is Ted Kennedy’s seat; I await my coronation. Ah, Americans, we never have been one for coronations. We are distinctly anti-coronation. Act entitled, and you’ll be taken down. (Now Canadians aren’t like that, are we? Coronations are cool. Wasn’t the current leader of the Liberals, the Honourable Michael Ignatieff, crowned. Of course he was. Fine with us. All hail Michael.)
Take 2—Fast Fix our pain, says the Fast Food Nation
Geez, give the poor guy a break; he inherited the biggest mess of any President taking the oath of office. The mess had been years in the making, and it wasn’t even one mess. It was like trying to walk through the leash-free doggie park: multiple messes. Unfortunately, they aren’t the kind of messes that can be cleaned up with a pooper-scooper. Right? Right. We know that. But in Fast Food Nation, we want it fixed yesterday. The vote is a kind of national holler: hey, things still suck out here, you’re taking too goddamn long, I need a paycheck; if you can’t do it, let’s give somebody else a shot.
I pray this one isn’t it. And if it is, I pray Obama learns how to convince Americans to pin the tail on the donkey he inherited the mess(es) from.
Take 3—We’re scared and you’re not holding our hand
Being scared was a national theme in the States during the ‘00s. No reason for it not to continue. Though Obama may not seem to be moving fast enough or thoroughly enough for those on the left, to others he’s a damn tornado, stirring up winds of change faster than they can dodge the debris. Healthcare, healthcare, the economy, healthcare, Aghanistan, healthcare, the environment, the economy, healthcare, healthcare. Let’s see, thats 20% on the economy, 60% on healthcare, and 20% on other stuff. (God I love statistics!) The real fear is—I don’t know how else to put this—I’m out of work and terrorists are out to get me. Americans are at war and people are out of work. In the past, war was a full-employment strategy. Not anymore. Not this time. Something’s different.
Take 4—What goes around comes around
Well, the Massachusetts legislature has to eat a bit of crow on this one. They worked too hard to insure the positions of Democrats and it all backfired. As a perpetual democratic majority, the Massachusetts legislature changed the rules for succession when Kerry was running for Prez. At the time, the Governor was republican Mitt Romney who, by law, could appoint a Senator to fill an unexpected opening—like Kerry going to the White House. Not wanting Romney to appoint a Republican, they passed a law requiring an election in 60 days. Of course, Kerry lost; the bill was unnecessary. If they hadn’t made the change, Governor Deval Patrick would have appointed a Democrat.
Several years later, Ted Kennedy dies and suddenly the legislature doesn’t want that election because if a Republican wins, there’s goes Teddy’s dream of universal healthcare. They pass a law pushing out the election by six months to allow Obama's healthcare to pass, which gives enough time for Coakley to run an inept campaign and for the voters to get to know Brown. The rest is history. Mess with the system, the system messes back.
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