Opinion Forum

Brown Wins in Massachusetts

January 19th, 2010

About eight minutes ago (about 10:05 pm EST), CNN called the Massachusetts Senate race for Scott Brown, the Republican, with a margin of 52% to 47%. Martha Coakley, the Democratic candidate, has conceded.

All things considered, this is the equivalent of a political nuclear explosion. It’s going to be fun watching the scrambling in Washington as the fallout settles.

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Brown, Coakley, election, Massachusetts, Senate
Categories: News, Politics | Comments (2) | Home

2 Responses to “Brown Wins in Massachusetts”

Brianna | January 19th, 2010 at 11:29 pm

Indeed. I thought Brown had a good chance of winning, but even I didn’t expect him to win by this sort of margin. Really amazing.

A few cautions

1) Scott Brown is not really a conservative candidate. He’s more of a John McCain style Republican-lite candidate with the redeeming features of being a decent person, a patriot and an independent thinker. He was infinitely better than Coakley and worth supporting on health care alone, but just because we can expect him to refrain from marching in lockstep with the progressives doesn’t mean we can expect him to march in lockstep with either the Tea Partiers (assuming they even HAVE a lockstep) or the GOP.

2) Brown ran as a Republican, but that does not make this a vote for the GOP. People are rebelling against the Dems right now, and rallying around what are typically considered some or the Right’s core values. But that doesn’t mean they’re rallying for the GOP as a party, because the GOP has proven amply that they do not stand for those values any more than the Dems do. Bush’s compassionate conservatism is not in vogue and GOP party members who try to tap into the change in atmosphere without changing their policies accordingly… and then living UP to those policies… are going to be in for a nasty shock.

3) If you can manage to get Massachusetts to vote against health care, then it is past time to admit that health care “reform” is not just dead, but dead, rotting, and stinking up the halls of Congress. This is a warning to Congress: force this through at your peril.

Tom | January 20th, 2010 at 12:04 am

Your first point about Brown is exactly right. Frankly, that’s one of the reasons I think highly of him. We could use more politicians with those qualities.