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cos[ Recap for people not in Massachusetts: Today is the general election to fill the US Senate seat vacated by Ted Kennedy last year. ]
Since I made it clear how much I don't like Martha Coakley, the Democratic nominee, I feel I need to say this: Please vote for her today.
Most of those things I don't like about her? Scott Brown's positions are as bad or worse. Whatever her tolerance for shoddy prosecutions and low regard for civil liberties protections... Brown thinks the president should just be able to declare someone guilty and avoid the whole "fair trial" process altogether, and as far as I can tell, torture is just fine with him.
Have you been frustrated at the way every decent piece of legislation Obama has asked for, has been hacked into bits in the Senate in strained efforts to get the support of Olympia Snowe or Joe Lieberman to get through the Republicans 39-member "filibuster every damn bill no matter what" block? If Brown gets elected, that block will grow to 40, and nothing will get past the Senate unless it can get both Snowe and Lieberman's support. Lieberman will become an even more unavoidable roadblock.
Health care: Here's what will happen if Scott Brown wins today's election: the US House will vote on the Senate's crappy bill as is, because it's better than passing nothing, and since the Senate has already passed it, that will be the only way to get health care reform through without going back to the Senate. The House's ability to demand improvements would likely collapse instantly as soon as a Brown election victory is announced.
Yeah, I still don't like Coakley, but all the good candidates in this election already lost last month. Sometimes you lose elections, it happens. Now, though, we determine just how much of a loss it will be.
Martha Coakley will champion equal rights for women and LGBT people, work for more health care improvements, support infrastructure investments for economic recovery, fight financial fraud and predatory banking practices, support Obama's policy of diplomacy and engagement while also supporting efforts to remove American troops from Afghanistan, and support clean energy legislation. Brown would be her opposite on all of those things.
Polls are open 7am - 8pm. Find your polling place at WhereDoIVoteMA.com.
Since I made it clear how much I don't like Martha Coakley, the Democratic nominee, I feel I need to say this: Please vote for her today.
Most of those things I don't like about her? Scott Brown's positions are as bad or worse. Whatever her tolerance for shoddy prosecutions and low regard for civil liberties protections... Brown thinks the president should just be able to declare someone guilty and avoid the whole "fair trial" process altogether, and as far as I can tell, torture is just fine with him.
Have you been frustrated at the way every decent piece of legislation Obama has asked for, has been hacked into bits in the Senate in strained efforts to get the support of Olympia Snowe or Joe Lieberman to get through the Republicans 39-member "filibuster every damn bill no matter what" block? If Brown gets elected, that block will grow to 40, and nothing will get past the Senate unless it can get both Snowe and Lieberman's support. Lieberman will become an even more unavoidable roadblock.
Health care: Here's what will happen if Scott Brown wins today's election: the US House will vote on the Senate's crappy bill as is, because it's better than passing nothing, and since the Senate has already passed it, that will be the only way to get health care reform through without going back to the Senate. The House's ability to demand improvements would likely collapse instantly as soon as a Brown election victory is announced.
Yeah, I still don't like Coakley, but all the good candidates in this election already lost last month. Sometimes you lose elections, it happens. Now, though, we determine just how much of a loss it will be.
Martha Coakley will champion equal rights for women and LGBT people, work for more health care improvements, support infrastructure investments for economic recovery, fight financial fraud and predatory banking practices, support Obama's policy of diplomacy and engagement while also supporting efforts to remove American troops from Afghanistan, and support clean energy legislation. Brown would be her opposite on all of those things.
Polls are open 7am - 8pm. Find your polling place at WhereDoIVoteMA.com.
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Ironically, it was Scot Brown's campaigners who convinced me to vote: I don't like the candidates, and had pretty much been ignoring things until late last week. In the last three days, I've had something like 30 robocalls from the Brown campaign. When I called to ask them to stop, they said that they hadn't called anyone, it was some rogue political activism group faking their phone number, and there was nothing they could do. That got me looking at his policies, and convinced me that I needed to go vote for Coakley. (I probably wouldn't have voted without that, and if I had, I probably would have voted for Kennedy -- he never would have won, but it's the next best thing to a "none of the above" option on the ballot.)
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Please tell me why this is wrong:
Scott Brown will go away in 3 years, and we can spend that time supporting the candidacy of someone good and honorable. Coakley will be a Democrat from Massachusetts, which means she will not go away until she commits a felony or dies. Having someone twice as bad for three years and then replacing him with someone decent is preferable to having her for life.
Please tell me why this is wrong:
The Democrats have a fillibuster-proof majority and the Presidency, but on the two issues that matter to me:
- ceasing to commit war crimes and civil rights violations and punishing those responsible
- creating a health care system that allows people to avoid being murdered by insurance companies
they have not made anything resembling a credible effort. If they do nothing when they hold all the cards, it isn't worth pulling for them; better to form another party, focus on means other than electoral politics, or focus on fixing things locally rather than nationwide.
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