Is Obama the new Bush?
According to the latest polls, 54% of Americans feel that our country is going in the wrong direction. And now President Obama has been humiliated in Massachusetts, where his chosen candidate, Martha Coakley, got blown out today by a virtually unknown Republican State Senator, Scott Brown.
Is it Obama’s fault? Here is what one online op-ed writer had to say:
President Obama needs a rapid and major first-year course correction. He needs to learn from the Massachusetts senate race and two gubernatorial defeats in New Jersey and Virginia last year. The lessons: stop taking progressive voters for granted and make challenging corporate cronyism a top priority.
Obama campaigned in all three states; the results three Democratic defeats. The magic has worn off Obama’s elegant eloquence. People are seeing his policies are not “change” but a continuation of corporate domination. Rather than challenging the corporate cronies who pay off politicians with campaign donations, the Democrats are rewarding them. Corporate power dominates every issue whether it is war and militarism, Wall Street bailouts and health care, housing and jobs corporate power rules in Washington, DC.
I could not have said it better. Of course Coakley’s loss is a rebuke of Obama and his policies. Even worse for the Democrats, it is a slap to all of them, particularly Senator Harry Reid and House Leader Nancy Pelosi. Fittingly, Reid is headed for a loss in the mid-term elections. I have a feeling that quite a few of his lame blue colleagues will be joining him in defeat.
The key? Independent voters. They are fleeing the Democrats. The Republicans are not much better, but at least they aren’t the Democrats. In blue Massachusetts, that was enough to do Coakley, and Obama, in.
Yes the dems in congress failied to heed that the voters wnated real change, not more favors to big donors and corperate intrests.
Unfortunatelly it is likely that the republicans based on thier recent track record will be worse.
voting to give unions a break on their cadillac insurance while not giving the same break to others was the final straw after buying Nebraska and Louisiana. the dems still don’t get it. one even said the brown vote was to “get back” at repubs! they mainly said that obama wasn’t progressive enough and he needed to get on course and deliver real progressive policy. I hope they keep thinking that way until they are all booted out.
Quiz Question for the Day:
What do/will Obama and Jimmy Carter have in common?
post 2 . right on . this is what happens when you go to far to the left . also the same for the right . nobama promised change . but has been hijacked by reid and stretch face pelosi . STAY IN THE CENTER .
Love that picture. That’s kind of creepy actually.
Just a year ago hundreds of thousands of starry-eyed and naieve voters gathered in D.C. to celebrate Obama’s inauguration, truly believing they were going to see big changes and a new openness in the federal government. Those of us who have been around for a while know that such political promises are hot air – they are not going to be fulfilled, and tended to scoff at the idealism on display. Wonder what these idealists have to say now?
You can see it’s already starting with the Liberals as they’re running for cover. We’ve seen only one post on the OC Progressive since Christmas Eve. The boys needs to understand that blogging takes some work (and some thought), or maybe they’re just not back from vacation yet.
Looks like the white house may be going from black to Brown in 2012!
You and the writer are completely off base. “Taking the Progressive voters for granted?” The Progressive Voters are what got them into this mess! This Election had nothing to do with Corporate Bailouts or Progressives not voting. Obama tried to frame it that way by talking about Coakley being in favor of taxing banks that received bailout funds while Brown was against taxing banks. If this was about Banks, then that message would have caught some real traction.
If you continue to read the article it says that a “Single Payer Healthcare System” was the most popular reform and because it was taken off the table people are not voting for Obama’s policies. Ok that is completely false. True Progressives have a party, the Green Party. If they continue to push the Dems like this, they will continue to lose like this. The fact is, the US is a center right country and when anyone tries to go too far right or too far left, they lose…BIG.
I could say it a lot better. Here it is.
Coakley lost because the American people do not support Healthcare Reform in anyway that gives the Government more control. That was the biggest issue of this campaign. Brown said that he would be the 41st vote against Healthcare Reform and that was enough for the people of Massachusetts.
Senator Webb (D-VA) seeing the writing on wall immediately came out and said that all votes on Healthcare should be suspended until Senator Brown is seated. Webb didn’t single out any other type of vote. Coakley had a 30 plus point lead before Healthcare passed the Senate in December. This was about Healthcare Reform. The people do not want it. Plain and simple.
My party is such a bunch of scared rabbits. As if there weren’t already too many timid corporatist DINOs, some of them are starting to believe exactly the BS Mr. Point just wrote. We should have finished Healthcare Reform months ago, with either a public option or Medicare buy-in, and then done a lot of other good things since that. But nobody wants to back a party that can’t get jack shit done.
As always Yeats is sadly spot-on: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are filled with a passionate intensity.”
I am lost for words except:
BRILLIANT:)
Vern, by “your party” do mean the Greens or the Dems?
Actually I have a better question: Can you explain how Coakley’s loss was not a rejection of Healthcare Reform?
I’m honestly just curious if you have any basis or facts other than far left talking points? I saw Howard Dean and Arianna Huffington both saying basically the same thing on the Net today.
Brother Vern.
We need some fresh air in this country. Let’s begin with Term Limits in Congress just as we have in our state legislature.
Wait a minute Larry.
We do have term limits. Weren’t you watching the returns in MASS?
While it was raining yesterday the sun is shining in Mission Viejo today!
My party is obviously the Dems; why would I call the Greens “a bunch of scared rabbits?”
Brown beat Coakley by 5 points for a number of reasons – Coakley was a rotten lazy non-campaigner and Brown was a good hard-working campaigner. Americans are divided on healthcare, and the ones who support it are tired of all the talk and bullshit compromises. And the ones who oppose it are real motivated right now.
Add to that, Massachusetts already has pretty much the same kind of healthcare reform we’re trying to get in America – partly thanks to big Scott Brown booster Mitt Romney.
Lotsa factors that got Brown those extra 5 points; it’s convenient but simplistic to say it was a vote against healthcare.
But Vern, simplistic is all a lot of people understand, just ask Sarah and George.
I agree spinelessness on the part of some Democrats without a doubt contributed to this. Plus there is an old saying about the word assume, that is what Coakley did and it made a the old saying came true.
CHANGE IS COMING allright , n.h virginia , mass, yet vern does not see it , the people are fed up with dems . nobama , pelosi , reId , and their agenda now they are not in love with reps either . but the writting is on the wall and your party is in charge AND THEY WILL TAKE IT OUT ON YOU . the gov has gone to far left and the voters will swing it back to the other side .
From Glenn Greenwald;
“The Left wanted a single-payer system, then settled for a public option, then an opt-out public option, then Medicare expansion — only to get none of it, instead being handed a bill that forces every American to buy health insurance from the private insurance industry. Nor was it “the Left” — but rather corporatist Democrats like Evan Bayh and Lanny Davis — who cheered for the hated Wall Street bailout; blocked drug re-importation; are stopping genuine reform of the financial industry; prevented a larger stimulus package to lower unemployment; refuse to allow programs to help Americans with foreclosures; supported escalation in Afghanistan (twice); and favor the same Bush/Cheney terrorism policies of indefinite detention, military commissions, and state secrets.”
Explain to us, Not-So-Great-One, how that amounts to going “to (sic) far left”?
spoken like a true lib glenn . seems like your blaming the reps for everything . you have the white house . and both houses you can pass what ever you want . and the reps cant stop them BUT YOU keep blaming bush / chenney KEEP YOUR EYES CLOSED . keep going on trhe same path you are now and we will see where you are at IN NOV . AKA THE MINORITY PARTY AFTER NOV .