Ted Kennedy's Massachusetts Senate seat lost: The politics of anti-politics
January 20th, 2010 by Mark Bahnisch | Published in Culture, Foreign Elections, Politics, USA | 88 Comments
News is just coming in that Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat in Massachusetts has been lost by the Democrat, Martha Coakley, to the Republicans’ Scott Brown. FiveThirtyEight.Com has the margin at 52-47 and that blog will be well worth watching for analysis and breakdown of the result.
Writing for Crikey today, David Hirst observes:
Luckily for the Republicans, who doubted they had a chance at taking a seat Ted Kennedy had held for 47 years, they nominated a nobody called Scott Brown who drove a truck — a fact the Democrats somehow allowed to become an issue. Naturally Brown, equipped with political advisers as the Republicans smelled not blood but a bloodbath, drove at their behest to Wall Street, where he somehow managed to park.
It wasn’t a huge issue but it played well — the message presumably was that sophisticated people from places such as Boston were not represented by folks who drove trucks. Kennedy sure didn’t drive a truck.
The shell-shocked mainstream media better get used to it, for there are many shocks to come. That the Republicans had the sense to see “truck” and “Wall Street” and bring the two to one was clever indeed.
His analysis suggests that the result is born of the sentiment of a plague on the US political classes, bailing out banks with abandon, but doing nothing perceptible for ‘Main Street’, and the straightened economic circumstances many Americans face after the GFC. He also suggests the Republicans will be emboldened to escalate their anti-Obama rhetoric, but that they themselves have nothing effective to offer; short of pandering to anti-government sentiments deeply embedded in American political culture.
In truth, the US party system is incapable of doing anything other than slightly tacking in the direction of popular sentiment; something confounded by the hyperbolic checks and balances, whose frustration of a majority in the Senate is precisely what made this special election so important.
Previous discussion on LP: Here.
Update: Nate Silver on the swing.
The key to understanding US politics is their voting system, which is radically different from ours.
The three-way combination of voluntary voting, plurality winners and non-independent electoral administration accounts for pretty much everything stupid and confusing about their outcomes.
Voluntary voting means that voiciferous minorities – on both sides – are far more influential than the median bulk of voters. Plurality counting means that third parties have no way to express their wishes and must therefore enter the major parties. The non-independence of their electoral machinery means that they fiddle seats to lock in majorities for one party or another and that there are occasional outbursts of voter fraud.
We know now that it’s a toxic combination, but that wasn’t clear at the time they set it up.
What happened here is that Teddy’s regular voters stayed home, other Democrats disillusioned with Obama stayed home, and teabaggers turned out in droves. The median voters presumably got on with their usual lives.
The sad fact is that the American Health system will not be reformed and big Pharma and managed care will continue their assault on Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits System in Australia.
You should have watched the Mike Moore film “Sicko” that was on SBS last night. That’s what Australia will be like in 20 years time.
It will be interesting to see whether Brown’s voting record will distinguish him in any significant way from the Republican Right who are the running dogs of Wall Street.
I predict that Brown’s voting record will reveal him a very much a non-truck-driving populist. He will make many chauffeured limousine trips to Wall Street during his abbreviated political career.
If the voters of Massachusetts thought they were sending a stern message to Wall Street, then they are idiots.
But hats off to the Republicans who proved once again that it is difficult to underestimate the intelligence of the US electorate.
The Republicans tapped into a swelling vein of paranoia, skillfully nurtured by themselves and their ginger groups.
Hirst quotes Ron Paul. Enough said.
Who are all you self-righteous people talking down to voters in Mass? You are a sad bunch. Glad I’m not you and that YOU are the MINORITY in this country.
Which country?
I’m glad you’re not me as well, joel, assuming I was talking down to voters in Mass, which I wasn’t.
The reference is probably to Katz@3: “then they are idiots.”
I think it’s wrong and futile to dismiss US voters as unintelligent. For a start, it’s hardly seemly given the number of times Australians elected John Howard, how many people voted for Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce, etc. The dysfunctions of the US political system – which I mentioned in the post – make populism often the only route for expressing any anger or dissent, and then there are the huge numbers of non-voters, many of whom probably feel that their vote makes little difference to how they are governed. Americans aren’t any more stupid than anyone else; they’re just very poorly served by a corporate-dominated party system embedded in an 18th century liberal constitution – both of which are self-reinforcing and pretty much impervious to any meaningful change.
Time to see some of that change Obi Wan has always talked about – change in his and the defeatocrats legislative direction. Otherwise they are going to be toast, too.
If you haven’t seen Jon Stewart on this, I urge you all to watch.
An idiot isn’t unintelligent, simply unschooled in public affairs.
Idiot = “private person”.
If I had meant “half-wits” I would have said “half-wits”.
Which way do you suggest a rational person schooled in public affairs in Massachussetts should have voted, Katz?
Let’s have a look at Obama’s record. He runs a kindler, gentler Imperial foreign policy (with more troops in Afghanistan, continued vitiation of civil liberties, etc) and picks up the Nobel Peace Prize and makes a speech about war; he presides over the emasculation of health care reform, he presides over dishing out untold billions to Wall Street while unemployment persists and the real living standards of many Americans fall in the wake of the GFC.
For whom would you vote?
What’s the interest about? As far as I can recall, this has happened every mid-term election in the US, regular as clockwork. The other side gets mobilised after losing the presidency.
And Im pretty sure the health care bills (such as they are) have passed both houses – they’;re just reconciling the two version now. I dont know if that means another vote – I wouldnt have thought so.
But hey, US politics: who knew. Anyone up to speed there?
All I can do is repeat what I wrote on the other thread @ 15 and 16:
[The] Democrats are not facing a replay of 1994; their congressional majorities will be reduced but not eradicated; they will get the current very moderate healthcare bill passed; they will still have the same success with guest worker visas and cap`n’trade legislation that that they always were going to have (or not have) after 2008; Obama will eventually be reelected in 2012 because by then the US economy will show definite signs of improvement (I have no idea why conservatives—some even in this country—are jonesing for three years of US economic stagnation. There is no great payday for their favoured American party if the US business cycle is still stuffed in 2012. All they’d get is their own one-term president who would be out on his arse in 2016.)
{snip}I stand by my idea that the White House and Speaker Pelosi will use every carrot and stick they have to get the House to pass the existing bill with no amendments.
The amendments—which are all tax related—can then be passed separately in the [reconciled] budget supply bills. Those bills can’t be held up by the senate filibuster group.
If Brown is elected and the Dems try to reintroduce the amended non-supply health bill to the senate then I have no idea what they are smoking…
Er, this David Hirst sounds a bit too much of a bogus ‘thinking outside the box’ pratt to be quoted for original observations about this election result, no? Seriously, we’re expected to believe the establishment media in the US are nothing but a bunch of limpwristed progressives who are shocked, shocked that people dare vote for Republicans at all? It’s no mystery that there is a kind of incoherent, immature rage in the American electorate which can be manipulated by the anti-Obama forces whether said forces be the professional hacks of the Right or the amateur would-be saviours of the Left.
Mark, couldn’t you just forego the ‘Crikey’ boosterism and link directly to Tim Blair or Ralph Nader for all our incisive American commentary needs?
No, nickws.
Is it your opinion that the American political system delivers socially just outcomes for its citizens? Obama is a left of centre neo-liberal with a tinge of social liberalism. With his politics, he’d probably be a Tory or a Lib Dem if he was a UK citizen. And not even he can achieve any substantive change – cf. health care.
Remember that Obama ran against ‘politics as usual’ and Washington gridlock. The default position of the majority of commenters and analysts of American politics appears to be that the self same is all part of some best of all possible worlds in the great US liberal democracy to end all liberal democracies. Obama, to his credit, understood that isn’t what many Americans feel, and that’s a major reason why he was elected.
Mark, would you be asking these loaded questions if a Russ Feingold or a Sherrod Brown was the Obamamesiah’s candidate in the bye election?
Ok… so someone help me out here: couldnt the more “moderate” Senate version now be passed by the House, and thats game over? Why would healthcare reform be any more crapped up by this by-election than it already was by its recent passage through the US senate?
I’m not a resident of Massachusetts. But I’m willing to give it a try, for the sake of academic interest.
One can be rational and well-schooled and vote either way.
However, Brown’s headline political stunts were so inconsistent with Republican philosophy, I’d be inclined to ask, “Does he really mean it?”
As a recipient of what used to be called “unearned income”, I might say, “Who cares about Brown’s campaign stunts?” In reality, he will support policies that allow me to hang on to more rather than less of my “unearned income” and perhaps even enable the perpetuation and extension of the system of finance capitalism that has made my life as materially abundant as it is.”
On the other hand, I might say, “This guy (Brown) is playing with fire. The possessing classes ought to concede that they should pay a ransom to the poor in order to buy social peace in the long term. I think I’ll vote Democrat this time.”
God no.
In my mind I just can’t blame the systemic failures of the US government on Obama. I think his concept of American politics is constructive, much different than the ‘majority of commenters and analysts’ you mention (presumably you’re referring to the kind of people influenced by the Economist’s vision of dumbed-down de Tocqueville).
If Obi Wan really believed in getting things done he would have worked within the constraints of the system to come up with health care legislation that was acceptable to more republicans. Politics is after all all about the possible – the art of compromise. It seems to me he is more interested in being President than being a politician (I look back to his ineffective voting record in the Illinois Legislature – but he did write two books about himself!). He also might have spent more time considering what was actually happening in America and takien more effective action to try and pump prime the economy. Instead he is off supporting failed Olympics bids, accepting peace Prizes awarded after 9 days in office while fighting two wars, and so far being 0-3 in any democrat candidate he has stumped for.
As my Sisters deputy head Mistress used to say to the girls at her school – Hope is not a method.
One thing I will credit him for is 0 US deaths in Iraq in December ’09 and upping the ante in Afghanistan – at least he is letting the Generals fight the wars and giving them the shit they need (unlike Brown in the UK).
@17 – Nickws, there are also huge problems with the health care plan as passed by the Senate – it’s a compulsion to be insured, rather than the provision of health care. Young people with money might still pay a fine to opt out, leaving costs higher, and it will entrench highly differential levels of care and treatment. Again, it’s a matter of what’s on offer, and the power of vested interests, and the fact that the American political system presents few real alternatives. Yes, there is an element in American political culture of individualism and liberalism which mitigates against socialising care, but I think it’s important not to ascribe that sort of thing to Americans as a whole – it’s a very variegated and in many ways disunited United States.
I still think Obama’s hands off attitude was a negative; it easily allows a very inferior proposal to become a symbolic victory for him politically, rather than something that actually does real good. Nor am I convinced by arguments it could later be changed. The evidence is otherwise; for instance, the diminution of many aspects of the residual welfare system under Clinton at the height of neo-liberal reaction.
My point is that Obama’s bill is probably the limit of what’s achievable in the US political system. If you were a rational social democrat in the US, I think you’d find it hard to vote for many Democrats, and I’d suggest, should find it understandable that the infelicities of the system often can only manifest themselves as votes for populist Republicans, or abstention from voting.
The Republicans’ newfound reliance on the senate filibuster makes a mockery of the idea that the traditional US bipartisanship has been possible under Obama.
FDR and LBJ got Republican votes for their major social programmes, Reagan and Bush got Democratic votes for their taxcuts.
Yet today the senate Republican caucus is 100% behind the filibuster as a means of obstructing legislation—it’s the first thing they bring to the table (and the only thing, as it totally precludes cooperation). You know how unprecedented that is, Razor?
You know those racist Southern Democrats who used to wield the filibuster as a way to keep the blacks down? They were never able to get 100% of their much smaller party wing to support that obstructionist tactic. Al Gore’s old man, Claude Pepper of Florida, Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, LBJ—they wouldn’t filibuster with their fellow Southerners.
Compare that to your ‘constructive’, ‘moderate’, ‘flexible’ GOP.
The only bill Obama could proposed that would be acceptable to Republicans at the moment would be one where he introduces prohibition of the Democratic Party.
To talk Joel down is unfair. The people voted and it really was an early test for the Obama government.
Essentially the Democrats were not just beaten. They were trounced. This will makke those of us on the left who mocked the right as being obsolete pause for thought.
“Ok… so someone help me out here: couldnt the more “moderate” Senate version now be passed by the House, and thats game over? Why would healthcare reform be any more crapped up by this by-election than it already was by its recent passage through the US senate?”
The only way forward for Health Care Reform now, it appears, is for the House to vote to accept the Senate Bill without amendment. At least one Dem senator has said there should be no further votes on HCR until the new guy is seated. Unfortunately, a number of House Dems say they won’t vote for the Senate bill as it stands and if I recall correctly, the House version only passed by 2 votes originally.
d
Let me guess. Would that be Lieberman calling for the vote to be stalled untill the new Republican is in?
LeftyE you are right the House could pass the Senate bill, but it would have to do so unmodified. Some democrats don’t think that is a goer.
There are other options to pass it but they all have to deal with the problem that blue dog democrats are likely to not want to go against the popular will. See here http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/01/19/mass-senate-shift-shakes-up-moderate-democrats-on-obamacare/
Ah, mmmmk. Thanks Darryl – reverse problems in the House for the senate version.
But I wonder if those waverers in the House will reconsider the Senate version now, given these developments? I assume these are left democrats, opposing the lack of a govt provider.
So, I assume then that the reconciliation process is not an executive one – any such “hypbrid” needs to pass both houses again?
Mark, the mandated aspect of the healthcare bill is not an evil policy. As someone somewhere put it very succinctly, would it be a bad thing to mandate for compulsory private sector unemployment or old age insurance? That person was no doubt thinking of Europe, but they may have been inspired by a little something we call superannuation…
Incrementalism can be very useful.
If I were a rational social democrat in the state under discussion I would have backed someone like Barney Frank (though not the actual Barney Frank—he is conected to the bailouts) for the Democratic nomination.
Now that the local party establishment has run and lost with someone who brings up all these painful, if useful, critiques of process and ideology, I am confident that the voters of MA will get a candidate like that in 2012, when this seat’s term expires.
Let’s do something about it. Help me generate the Brown List: A list of businesses that support Scott Brown. If you know who supported him, you know where to boycott.
thebrownlist.blogspot.com
How much should get read into this though? From what Ive read the Dem candidate more or less stopped pressing flesh and politicking the moment she got the nomination.
Theres a quote around here.
“…Coakley bristles at the suggestion that, with so little time left, in an election with such high stakes, she is being too passive.
“As opposed to standing outside Fenway Park? In the cold? Shaking hands?’’ she fires back, in an apparent reference to a Brown online video of him doing just that.
…”
Thats dumb politics to think that, its asking for a hiding to say it out alloud on TV.
That probably cost her the vital 3% she needed.
The way Im reading it all incumbent politicians in the US are on the nose, if both parties were to run credible candidates in the oppositions “safe” seats there could be a major shake up in US politics.
Antibrown that is appalling. What you are suggesting is not only anti democratic but it could be argued it is a form of political terrorism.
Heh heh. If I didn’t have work to do I’d be tempted to sit down and watch “Slap Shot” again — not that it’s metaphorically precise, it’s just a boatload of fun.
Many of the thoughts on offer here strike me as characteristically Australian in nature; NTTAWWT, but they function more as a reflection (or projection?) of your own national desires and vocabularies, and shed a less helpful light on the American landscape. It can’t be avoided, of course, and it’s omnidirectional: I’m not about to start lecturing you guys about Rudd and Abbott and the Nats and Greens, either.
Also, I really don’t know yet whether Brown’s margin is lawsuit-proof and/or recount-proof; but assuming it is, and that he really did win, here’s a few thoughts.
1. Coakley was a terrible candidate, and she ran a stupefyingly poor campaign. Brown on the other hand was a naturally appealing candidate, and his campaign was at the very least competent. Whether it was also brilliant or just lucky, I leave to students of that sort of thing.
but here’s the corollary…
1a. Coakley’s manifest weaknesses, personally and tactically and strategically, accurately reflect the genuine weaknesses of her party as it sees itself, and as it has chosen to speak and to govern. It’s unclear whether Brown’s manifest strengths reflect anything substantial about whether the GOP has learned anything realistic, or anything at all, really, after the monstrous Bush years. One is inclined to doubt it, but hope springs eternal.
2. Virginia, New Jersey, and now… Massa-bloody-chussetts? Is that a pattern? Of course it is. What’s it a pattern of? Well that’s a poser. In the broadest terms (and therefore the least relevant terms to the specific present moment), I think it’s yet another sign that both the major parties and their vocabularies are exhausted, and the country needs new parties and new vocabularies. But in the short term anyway, it at least means Obama and the Dems have totally misread their mandate. Their mandate was to not be George Bush, John McCain, or Sarah Palin. Aside from doing that, they’re on a pretty damn short leash, and they’re too arrogant and/or blind to acknowledge it. They don’t have a mandate to remake the country from the ground up in the image of some bizarre ahistorical blueprint they found in a crazy self-published manifesto from the 1960s.
3. Insofar as the election, and the trend, is a referendum on Obama’s utter travesty of a health care proposal, the results strike me as just and compelling: stop the damn clock and begin all over again, with a more honest and dare I say it patriotic tenor to the proceedings. They won’t do that, of course. The Dems will disgrace themselves in the eyes of the nation if they move forward with this abomination of a bill. (Good chance it’ll die in the courts anyway even if it does pass.) Realistic health care reform has some genuine areas of immense potential if only it could be done properly, and it’s worth remembering that Obama’s got three more full years to mull it over in plain sight and get something done that’s broadly acceptable. For heaven’s sake, even *I* know how to pass a single-payer regimen if need be, but these ideologues-with-a-guilty-conscience only care about their own crazy letters to Santa Claus that they wrote 20 or 30 or 50 years ago. Obama needs to stop being a partisan, and start being a patriot.
4. If the Dems can manage to wipe the substantial amounts of mud out of their eyes (a difficult but not impossible task), they’d realize that a guy like Brown is just what the doctor ordered: he needn’t be just an extra knifeblade in a filibuster brawl, if the Dems would just stop provoking brawls; his presence could be a call to a more cooperative and reasoned discourse for the general public’s good. Sort of like the stuff that Obama promised on the trail, then bailed on as soon as he got the keys to the office and the combination to the safe. Same way that Bush did, and look what happened then. This is as good a moment as any to hit the pause button, have a general sit-down with everyone, and puzzle out what’s in the country’s, not the party’s, best interests.
Interesting Japerz. Would you mind expatiating on this:
1. What is the “ground”
2. “manifesto from the 1960s”: how might such a thing differ from one penned in the 1950s or the 1970s?
@27 – Nickws, I didn’t say it was an evil policy.
However, the removal of the public option removes also the downward pressure on costs through competition. It will most likely result in the entrenchment of a two tiered system. As Obama himself recognised, a single public payer is the *only* way you can assure equity of coverage. That’s also why there is good reason for social democrats to oppose any manner of insurance scheme as opposed to universal public provision. In Australia, we still have access to health care differentiated by income, class, race, etc, through government and taxpayer subsidisation of private medicine and health insurance.
Jim Webb (D-VA).
@31 –
Don’t hold back, japerz, it might be fun!
Relatively speaking, also, what happens in US politics is much more important to Australians than the significance of what happens in Australian politics to USAians.
If I may answer the questions posed by Katz-
“the ground” Well that would be be both Wall St and Main Street .
“how is the manifesto different ?”There are more pretty flowers around the margins and less focus on productivity gains and quality circles silly!
Update: Nate Silver on the swing.
Lefty,
there seems to be two ‘anti-senate bill’ factions in the House dems. The left is one, but also (and possibly more intransigent) are the anti-abortion democrats who don;t think the Senate’s language on preventing government money being used for abortions is strong enough.
What you’re calling ‘reconciliation’ is actually called ‘conference’. This is an ad-hoc committee of senior members from each house who hammer our a compromise, which then has to go back to each house for a vote, where’s it’s neither debatable nor amendable (but it is still filibusterable in the Senate).
‘Reconciliation’ is a process for money bills, that limits senate debate to 10 hours and eliminates the threat of a filibuster. That was mooted as a way to do HCR, and is what the progressive dems in the house seems to be hoping is a way to introduce a new bill to amend the current Senate bill.
d
Darryl, I recall reading that Pelosi ‘held back’ Democratic votes in the House. This frequently happens where they know they will achieve victory, but allow a number of party members to ‘vote their district’. In other words, the margin in the final House vote is not an accurate reflection of how many votes the Leadership have up their sleeves if it comes to a crunch. That, of course, doesn’t ensure that everyone who voted for it the first time would the second time, but in general, the Democrats have been fairly successful in ensuring passage of bills in the House (as they would be in the Senate, if it were not for the ridiculous and anti-democratic cloture rule).
The option of actually forcing the Republicans to mount a filibuster has been mooted. Senators reading from the Bible, ranting and raving, reciting recipes for Southern cuisine, etc, may not play all that well in the modern media era.
I would be very surprised indeed if the supermajority stuff in the Senate itself doesn’t increasingly become raised as problematic, and challengeable. As I observed on the other thread, this provision has a complex history, and there’s always been a reputable view that it is contrary to the constitution (you can cite precedents from Vice-President Richard M. Nixon, for instance, that the Senate has the ability to alter its rules by simple majority vote).
Mark, I’m not saying you’re wrong about some of the economic criticisms of the mandate (though health economists have stressed that the mandate is also a necessary trade-off to insurers when forcing them to cover people with pre-existing health conditions, by expanding the pool—and those related regulations prohibiting denial of coverage are now one of the most important features of the bill, even without a public option) but think of the basic incremental nature of all health reform, even here.
You start with a PBS, & then create a Medibank sytem, & then move to a Medicare one (Whitlam’s vision was for an eventual Australian NHS!) If there is no starting point in America, one that isn’t even quite as interventionist as Medibank was here, then there is nowhere to go. There will be no future PO or eventual single payer system. What there is is this very debate being put off until sometime in the future, with the rampant inflation of health insurance costs growing, ever growing.
The current angry Left-populist position in America is to not only deny the efficacy of incrementalism, but to cast aspersions about it (the HCR legislation) somehow being a kind of corporate reactionary plot.
Thanks Darryl, thats the detail I was after.
So, in sum, and on the new numbers:
- the Senate version just needs house approval (but there are some issues there), or
- the “conferenced” bill could pass the House and Senate on simple majority (if Dems are tight with their majorities – big if), but the significance of today’s by-election is that the Dems have lost the ability to prevent a filibuster in the Senate with a disciplined vote?
@40 – Nickws, a lot of the commentary I’ve seen is that the ability to expand the pool is much diminished by the final version.
I’m also not sure about the analogy to incremental reform here in Australia – aside from the fact that the two countries have very different political cultures and systems, it was a different climate back in the day; when there was much broader and genuinely bipartisan support for expanding public provision of public goods.
In the US, I’d think it would be more likely that future Congresses might take away what’s already there, particularly if it can be portrayed as a confusing stuff up.
I’d be interested, though, in any info as to how the bill intersects with provisions in those States which have already made coverage compulsory.
j_p_z, it is just way too telling of you to start driving home the P word in your little screed, especially after calling the POTUS a meretricious shit-hell in the big office.
You’ve shown us everything that is wrong with the jingoistic rhetoric used against your current president.
He is the Other, and I can well believe you will never ever consider him to be a real fellow countryman.
And lest we Australians think it couldn’t happen here, remember the outrage that Leftwingers (yes, even Leftwingers) felt at the accusations made about Rudd being a Manchurian Candidate after Joel Fitzgibbon’s indiscretions with a Chinese Australian business woman.
That was an unseemly episode, I’d agree, Nickws. But, I’m not sure how many lefties joined in the pile on Fitzgibbon.
Mark @ 39
“Senators reading from the Bible, ranting and raving, reciting recipes for Southern cuisine”
Reading the actual Bill out would probably be a good place to start seeing as the vast majority haven’t actually done that and probably never will.
It covers something like 30 million out of a group of 40 million currently uninsured Americans.
This is the reason why the Democrats can’t possibly leave the new system unamended and in place forever—every one of them admits the job is only just begun. (I can’t see them doing a Clinton/Gingrish welfare reform process, and gutting the new laws after they’ve been passed. At least not until America forgets about the fact that they once spent almost 20% of their GDP on health expenses.)
The Left-populists are nowhere near as realistic in their assessment of any alternate plan, in my opinion.
This is not good news for the planet, I dare say!
“the ridiculous and anti-democratic cloture rule.”
The Senate isn’t just another version of the House, only meeting in a smaller room. Just sayin’.
As to being “anti-democratic,” it ain’t supposed to be strictly democratic, it has a different idea of its utility. Presumably you’ve read The Federalist, but maybe you thought Little Jemmy was kidding around?
Mark, no, thank god, nobody on the Left here would dream of getting into bed with Manchurian Candidate BS directed at Rudd (or any other politician).
I don’t know if the same can be said of the Naderites in America. I can believe that some of them are willing to ignore the birther madness of some Rightwingers just because ‘they’re right about Wall Street’. Ron Paul is probably in bed with birthers, and there are US progressives who adore him.
Au contraire, KeITHy, it is very good news for the planet.
Nickws — My egg timer just went off. Which means it’s now time for you to stick your thumb in your other eye.
FORTUNE: Oh, don’t be silly, I don’t do ‘Fortune’ jokes for cave men!
@49 – yes, Nickws, I agree that some of the Naderites are really out there on the fringes. At one level, it’s a reflection of the lack of a real centre-left party or indeed a selection of viable parties that you get in different electoral systems. But that’s no excuse for some of the nuttiness – there’s also some very bad examples of phenomena like Milosevic cheerleading and genocide denialism in some quarters, as Michael Berube documents at length in his recent book.
@48 – For my sins, j_p_z, I once made an extensive study of the history of the US Senate and its rules. The malapportionment from equal representation for all states is a separable issue from the internal organisation of the Senate. You will no doubt be aware that a range of things occurred over the years from the 50s and 60s onwards – softening of the seniority system, the ability to discharge legislation from committee by floor vote, etc. These changes were largely actuated by the desire to enable the Senate to pass progressive legislation desired by majorities – and they included cloture on filibusters (the rule which now, contrary to its intent, enforces a supermajority for almost everything).
If you’d like to take a look at a textbook example of governance frozen by supermajorities, I’d suggest a study of the Californian legislature.
Obama’s tactics have been in great contrast to those of Kennedy and Johnson – who over a period of years, took on entrenched power bases in the Senate so things could actually get done.
Ps – yes, I’ve read the Federalist. See my previous remark about an 18th century liberal (*not democratic*) constitution…
Mark, the big unknown is are 38 members of Pelosi’s caucus going to get spooked by the result and run screaming from Health Care reform?
As for the filibuster, the rules are not like Mr Smith goes to Washington, at least not any more. No Senator *has* to debate, but the majority *has* to get 60 votes to formally end debate. If the Dems wanted to force the issue, old school, by trying to vote on the bill without ending debate, one opposition Senator can just keep calling for a quorum check, over and over again.
Thurmond talked for a day and a bit in 1957 because he wanted to grandstand and it was just delaying the inevitable. The votes to pass the bill were there.
Getting rid of the filibuster seems to be the only option the dems have, which simply means Joe Biden issuing a ruling from the chair that that the Senate’s supermajority rules are unconstitutional. Here’s a recent NY Time Op ed on the topic http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/opinion/11geoghegan.html?pagewanted=all
Razor@50 said:
The planet doesn’t care either way. The humans on the other hand, ought to care a lot …
And if the humans yet to be born were in a position to express a view, they ought to care even more.
Oh, sorry, j_p_z, you’re quite right to be upset at my butchering of your original
unhinged quote about Obama being a meretricious shitheel. I’m sure you wouldn’t consider him a `shit-hell’. I see no reason to believe you’re a religious man.
Oh, and could you enlighten us as to how you would institute a single payer system for all Americans, as you boast at 31? It’s as simple as having a good patriot like Mr Bush in the big office, I suppose.
Good grief, “I know how to pass a single-payer regimen if need be.” I think someone is suffering from delusions of grandeur.
I think the message to take out of this by-election is that Americans are not convinced on the new health proposal. And the scepticism is not just from Republican strongholds.
@55, Darryl, I think Pelosi’s trump card is that it’s unlikely to be in the electoral interest of any Democrat in an election year to have Obama perceived to fall into a screaming heap, and to reveal themselves as members of a party completely incapable of legislating anything (except for tons of money for banks). Unless they want to run against Obama and the Dems, in which case it might be a better tactic to just do a straight out party switch – like one Representative in Arkansas recently did.
Mark #54 — of course, but my point is, in the context of the Senate, “anti-democratic” is neither necessarily a useful reproach nor a serious criticism. It’s a bit like calling a railway brake a nefarious obstacle to the highest possible speed.
As to the Cali legislature that’s an interesting and complex point, but I think you need to recall that houses reflect (or sorta reflect) constituencies, and in CA’s case this complicates the thing in fascinating ways. Well, they would be “fascinating” in theory if in reality they weren’t so destructive…
Indeed, j_p_z, unfortunately it’s not just a neat polsci experiment for residents of California.
I do want to insist, though, that liberalism and democracy are *not* the same thing, as was well understood in the 18th century when the US constitution was written.
That’s liberalism in the political theory sense, not in the US sense of “less conservative” or “leftishish”.
JPZ,
“my point is, in the context of the Senate, “anti-democratic” is neither necessarily a useful reproach nor a serious criticism.”
Let’s go with ‘unconstitutional’ then. :^)
d
Why are some people’s posts grey and the rest not? Are they the elite?
Those with body bgcolor=”grey” are site admin users.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/12/why-progressives-are-batshit-crazy-to.html
Mark, while you are in the business of quoting Nate Silver on the Brown victory, here is on of his many posts outlining why, given the political constraints, the Senate bill represents a meaningful and welfare enhancing improvement over existing arrangements.
Few people argue that if you were to design a health care system from scratch you would model it on the current system. But for a variety of reasons it is difficult to build a political coalition around a radical shift in a country’s policy institutions. Atul Gawande has written a series of insightful articles in the New Yorker on the path dependence of health institutions in both the US and Europe and how attempts at radically changing systems rarely work because they fail to internalise why existing institutions developed as they did.
It is fine to bang on about the social injustice of the US electoral system, but “more” democratic institutions don’t always lead to better policy outcomes. Much of contintental Europe is currently trying to deal with a combination of a rapidly aging population and health and pension systems that were simply not designed to cope with such demographic change. Many countries have future fiscal gaps in the order of 10% of GDP to close. Existing political institutions and the emphasis on social consensus make it very difficult to build political coalitions around reforming even obviously flawed institutions. The flaws may be different than in the US, but don’t fool yourself into thinking that the US system is any more sclerotic than the average European system.
Finally, this post actually offers some insights into the debates we had about the CPRS in Australia. There is a tendency amongst some posters to always compare policy to some ideal that represents the perfect combination of equity and efficiency (in that posters’ eyes). Policies that fall short are lambasted. This is fine if it makes you feel better, but in practice policy is formed under a variety of constraints that make those ideals very hard to achieve. Often, piecemeal reform over long periods is a more effective way to get to a desired end point than attempts at radical change that either never get up or are overturned because the polity and important stakeholders aren’t carried along.
Bugger.
Does anyone else on the Left want to huddle together for warmth? Mark, you’d be in an internet group hug, wouldn’t you? It feels dark and lonely.
Paul Krugman was right when he warned that “moderate” Democrats were dragging the party to ruin when they scaled back Obama’s stimulus plan.
I guess Obama’s best strategy now is to pull a Harry Truman and rail against the “do-nothing” and obstructionist Republicans in Congress.
Thank God we have a parliamentary system and simple majority votes for legislation (and a Labor Party willing to push through things like Medicare).
Times like these make you love Australia even more. Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi…..I’ll stop now.
I’d just like to say what a good job Kevin and Julia are doing. Just sayin…
FB – ta. Thought so but wasn’t 100% sure. No question is too dumb.
like Katz recommended way upthread, it really is very much worth your while to stop by The Daily Show, and check out poor Jon Stewart’s reaction to the possibility of the Democrats losing the seat.
That’s just the possibility, god knows if he’s still around to comment on the actual loss!
that should be The Daily Show for maximum wisdom and enjoyment.
I agree with this, but with one horrified caveat: the impact of ‘the perfect is the enemy of the good’ type thinking here over the CPRS was largely negated by our flexible system (Rudd being given the ability to pull the DD trigger) and the fact that there was originally, and may still be, a major party consensus over the need for an ETS (Howard campaigned on it).
The American example horrifies me because there is no genuine cross party thinking on this legislation, there is indeed no place within the GOP for people with a basic utilitarian attitude to this entire set of policies, not like there is a space within the Coalition here for Greg Hunt and Ian Macfarlane (even if the current leaderhip muzzles those two utilitarians). This should be very troubling for Americans who understand, as the business section of the NYT does, “[That the] bills are more conservative than Bill Clinton’s 1993 proposal. For that matter, they’re more conservative than Richard Nixon’s 1971 plan, which would have had the federal government provide insurance to people who didn’t get it through their job.”
Basically the US Left-populists are making an argument that is pure fantasy when they talk about Obama being no different than the conservatives like Brown. The party of Brown is in favour of perpetual government inaction on the health care needs of the American people, they have a platform of never, ever doing anything in this area for the country. They’re not even functioning at a Nixon or Howard level of co-opting the ideas of their opponents in order to win votes.
I’ve always ignored talk about the American overclass wanting to turn their nation into some kind of third world kleptocracy, with the haves living in gated communities and the have-nots kept in benign neglect down in the barrio, used as a source of cheap labour. But now I just don’t know.
Can I point you guys to some alternative veiws on the win?
Over at Tim Blair’s site. Coakley smoked or Brown Down
I want you to read each comment carefully. Take it to heart. Think about the things you support.
Because they represent the silent majority who will decide Rudd’s fate.
The left’s ascendency is over guys.
‘Because they represent the silent majority who will decide Rudd’s fate.’
Rubbish! If that were true Rudd would never have been elected in the first place.
Thank you tssk, whenever I am looking for some wisdom to consult, Tim Blair is always the first place I look.
All his readers ‘represent’ is a bunch of ratbag crybabbies full of piss, wind, fear, paranoia, parochialism, me-first and I’m alright Jack.
But thanks for the tip!
So how are we to interpret the results.
Is it the US public saying a resounding no to the health insurance changes?
Or is it Democrats voting against or abstaining because the changes don’t go far enough?
http://www.slowpokecomics.com/2010/01/vicious-circle-of-stupidity.html Jen Sorenson’s for humour.
That’s so good it deserves to be reproduced!
“It does not take a majority to prevail… but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.” – Samuel Adams (1722-1803)
Isn’t it funny that Americans want to appoint representatives into government who’s ideology is fundamentally opposed to government?
Of course this isn’t totally true, because the neo-conservative movement does in fact agree that we need a government. And the general conservative populace is totally willing to trust the government when it comes to PROTECTING it’s to PROTECT us but NOT to SERVE us.
“The left’s ascendency is over guys.”
The left is in the ascendency, where? AFAIK moderate centerists of both left and right have been in the ascendency since, oh at least WW2. I do think that the current hijacking of the GOP by Fox News and the shockjocks is going to be their undoing. If they follow this strategy the I predict that Joe the Plumber will be the GOP nominee in 2012 with Glen Beck or possibly Roger Ailes as VP and puppetmaster. It’s a winner!
The election in Mass probably reflects the general pessimism in the US brought on by the GFC downturn (aprt of the Bush legacy). Also the seat has been with the Democrats for a long time and as we all know a change is as good as a holiday. The health care bill is probably about as important as AGW for most people.
Anyway don’t sweat it. Obama is only a quarter of the way through his term and the GOP are still fractured and leaderless and likely to remain that way (see above). If the US economy improves the GOP will be so tightly behind the eight ball you won’t get a fag paper in there.
Adrian @ 79, I think it’s more like
1) Republicans destroyed the country
2) Everyone wants change
3) Dems offer change candidate
4) Dems Take Power
5) Nothing changes
6) Everyone hates the Dems, and the party that destroyed the country gets elected again. Whee!
I think they call it democracy.
It’s Massachusetts, not the whole country, and a seat even Teddy struggled to keep towards the end. Get a grip. Of course, the gleeful posturing I see here and there suggests that the haters aren’t going to wise up to themselves anytime soon, so teabagger Repugnants are likely to continue to dominate the debates.
I’m reminded here a little of that celebrated monologue from White Men Can’t Jump
This applies generally in politics and it may well prove very applicable here. If interpretation of the Massachusetts result hardens the division between more traditional Republicans of the William F Buckley type and the hardcore conspiracy-mongering tea-bagger birther crowd it may well be that this will make coherent and plausible policy much harder to develop and implement. The Republicans will wind up with a solid 25% floor and a 35% ceiling which they simply can’t break out of.
Fran, the point is not that the Republicans have too lift their vote percentages…they can also convince Democrat supporters to become so disillusioned that they simply don’t go to vote next election.
Yes that’s quite so TSSK … They can block the program of a presidency aiming for post-partisanship and then hold it responsible for getting nothing done.
The filibuster is an example of when having a tie is as good as winning. It is kind of crazy when you think about it, and even more so when one considers the very large number of small states in the US with relatively high representation and when one considers that they don’t have PR and preferential to prevent plurality candidates getting it all their own way.
At the very least, there ought to be joint-sitting mechanisms to resolve filibusters maintained for longer than 30 days.
That’s not really true (the bit about EMK not having a safe seat at the end.)
I’ll make same base political observations about MA political history that will help explain why a simple election that threatens to bring Obama and his allies to a grinding halt happened in the first place.
Kennedy faced a serious challenge in ’94 from a young Republican businessman named Mitt Romney—an attractive political moderate who declared in one of their debates together that he didn’t want to take America back to the “extreme policies of Reagan and Bush”, and therefore the people of Massachussetts should elect him as he was a good old fashioned New England Republican, not some ideologue.
Unfortunately for Mitt EMK had spent the last few years turning his life around, remarrying and getting off the grog. Even though Teddy had never taken the voters for granted, he was now more ready than ever to see off a strong challenge, and eventually won with more than 55% of the vote. The junior senator for the state, John Kerry, faced an even more intimidating foe in his reelection bid two years later, when the popular and effective Republican governor William Weld looked certain to beat him. Kerry worked his arse off in the electoral ground game, and tirelessly debated Weld in a surprisingly large number of televised debates, reestablishing himself with the voters. The result on election night was even closer than it had been for Kennedy.
Flash forward to 2008. EMK is diagnosed with incurable brain cancer. He could have stood down, allowing a special election to be fought alongside the presidential campaign of Barack Obama and the reelection of Senator John Kerry. In that scenario the seat would have been easily retained by the party, thanks to the massive general election turnout of liberal voters. Even as poor a candidate as Martha Coakley, a woman who would boast of having no intention of standing in the cold outside Fenway baseball park to shake the hands of anonymous voters, even as poor and anti-political a politician as she wins.
But EMK never considered that almost every party establishment figure around him in his homestate was prone to complacency, indolence. “A one party state is a no party state,” wrote an Arkansas politician who had served as Bill Clinton’s defence counsel, fighting charges of high crimes and misdemeanors on the US senate
floor.
Maybe EMK thought his hard work in the congress and on the election trail every cycle was a penance, to be endured alone because of that sin. Who knows. Whatever the reason, I think he never got it just how those around him could let their incompetence hurt the greater good. Thus he serves the electorate until he dies.
I like the above micro-narrative a lot more than I like the meta-narrative about the US government being a tool that just won’t work in the hands of reform, or, indeed, the only slightly smaller narrative about how the American party of reform is made up entirely of cowards and potential sellouts. The narrative I like the least is that about the vast majority of the American public being well informed enough to make a rational choice against wanting government to improve their lives.
A lifelong Democratic voter, a seventy three year old woman, tells a newspaper reporter she is voting for Brown to send “a message of ‘that’s enough.’ Let’s stop the giveaways and let’s get jobs going.” What possible giveaways could she be upset by? TARP? The automakers bailout? It couldn’t be in regards to a medical public sevice for all, as Massachussetts is unique in being the one state in the union with publicly mandated private health insurance laws, prohibiting the breaking of contracts by the insurers, keeping the cost of premiums far below the national average. Senator Brown explicitly says this system is so good he is dedicated to stopping his fellow Massholes from having to subsidise a similar policy for the undeserving rest of the country.
If that is the best material the anti-Obama narrative has to work with, then you’ll excuse me for having nothing but contempt for the `silent majority’ goons pushing it.
I just hope I won’t have to feel contempt for the POTUS himself for caving in the very face of this bullshit.
I gather the word Brown never uttered once in the whole campaign, and even in his acceptance speech was “Republican”.
It would seem to be the flailing tail of anti-politics.