Was the Massachusetts Special Election as telling as everyone seems to think it is?

That's an interesting question, and may have a surprising answer.

Exhibit A: The Massachusetts Special Election was, not surprisingly very special, as I've already written about. This means it's not an indicator of what should normally happen in Massachusetts during a regular election.

Exhibit B: The win margin was not very high. Brown won by 5 points, which means he won 52% to 47%. I really think it's worth not overlooking this fact. If he had won by a significant margin, like, say the Virginia Gubernatorial (Governor) 2009 election where the same Republican resurgence caused Republican Bob McDonnell to trounce his opponent (Deeds) by 18 points, 59% to 41%, it would be a different story. But unlike all of the news media is reporting it, Brown barely eked out a win here. Compare a map of the Massachusetts results with a map of the Virginia results. Unlike Virginia which is a sheet of red, in Massachusetts Democratic strongholds still remain in Boston, in the west, and in various other sporadic locations. If Scott Brown had been able to tangibly convert these areas, particularly in Boston, this would be a much more significant victory. But lack of Republican penetration there is telling. In fact, the main reason that he won brings us to the next exhibit.

Exhibit C: Turnout. Turnout is absolutely the most important factor to consider in analyzing a special election, and in Massachusetts the turnout was surprisingly high, almost 55% of the registered electorate. This is not a high value for a regular election year, but closer to an "off" (non-presidential) regular election year. For comparison, the 2008 election had a turnout of 66%. In the above link it is also clear that turnout was the highest among Brown strongholds, and on the other end, fairly low in Coakley strongholds, particularly in Boston. What this means to me, is that there was less turnover than it looks. In other words, Brown generated enthusiasm and he got out the vote, but he did not win the kind of substantial conversion amongst independents that he needed to to make this election very significant. It is relatively safe to say that Brown's voters are the roughly 1 million that turned out to vote for McCain during the election in 2008 including a modest conversion of independents. But the 1 million or so who voted for Coakley don't seem to include the other million who voted for Obama last time (Obama had about 2 million votes; McCain acquired about 1 million). This factor coupled with the fact that it was Coakley strongholds which saw the least turnout points to the conclusion that Brown won more because Democrats and Democratic supporting independents didn't show up than because he had converted large swaths of the electorate. This conclusion would indicate that Brown really will have to fight for his seat when he's up for re-election, and that the Democrats should be more worried about re-energizing Democrats than fearing a Republican resurgence especially in traditionally blue states like Massachusetts.

Exhibit D: Coakley was not a good candidate, most pundits have over talked this issue, but it seems clear that if she had been more engaging and a little more anti-establishment she would have probably beat Brown at his own game.

Exhibit E: Brown, while being a Republican and while agreeing to block health care reform, is not that conservative. This is Massachusetts we're talking about. Socially, he's not so far behind the times, and his credentials suggest that he will be a different, more independent-minded kind of Republican. I really believe that Massachusetts was voting more for the person than the party in this case, which means this isn't as much a victory for Republicans as it is a defeat for Democrats. And a close defeat at that.


So maybe this election isn't as foreboding as it has appeared to be. Yes this temporarily puts a wrench in the works, but the Dems still have 59 seats, and are unlikely to lose 9 of them in the 2010 election, at least not at this point, and not with the economy on the rebound. They may be more hard pressed to successfully make progress, but at the very least this little election isn't going to propel us back to the Bush years, not even close.

Does this surprise you?

It shouldn't. But it should worry you. Yes Scott Brown has won the Senate Special election in Massachusetts. It is the end of the world. Many of the reasons why are discussed in the previous post.

Ok, so it's not the end of the world, and not even the end of health care reform. It's interesting to hear Chris Matthews (MSNBC commentator) already ask whether Scott Brown could be the fresh face Republicans need for 2012. He was immediately rebuked by his interviewee as getting a little ahead of himself. I agree.

I need to make two points that I didn't make earlier. First Coakley ran a pretty terrible campaign, with some serious gaffes which left her appearing quite out of touch, despite her profile as Attorney General. You'll see the Dems using that talking point tonight and tomorrow. Second, I should have been more clear, Massachusetts registered voters include a majority which are registered independent/unaffiliated. Scott Brown has largely run a race trying to portray himself as non-Washington-insider; maybe even non-partisan. He's an every-guy. And he appealed to the majority of independents who want to see change in Washington from health care and the partisanship and special interests. One quote mentioned on MSNBC tonight said that people are still voting for the change they voted for in 2008, because they haven't seen it yet. On one level I think I agree.

On another level, this was a special election, and quite frankly I believe Scott Brown does NOT represent the beliefs of most Massachusetts registered voters. What he and this election do represent, however, is stunning enthusiasm from Republicans that should give Dems a serious pause. Not the fact that he won. The fact that he mobilized, and generated excitement. The GOP brand is evolving. The GOP brand is resurrectable.



One option for Democrats is to urge the House to pass the Senate version of the health care bill. This would allow the bill not to go back to the Senate, would rob Brown of his vote, and Congress could revise the bill (which wouldn't go into effect for a few years anyway) as problems arose. House members are already frustrated that they would be asked to swallow the Senate bill, and it's unclear whether or not it would pass at all.


Another option would be to use the reconciliation process reserved for complex and contentious budget bills in the Senate to treat health care as a budget issue. It allows the senate to bypass any filibuster options by the Republicans, and would require only 51 votes to pass. Arguably this is how the Founders intended the Senate legislative process to work. I don't really know how they'd feel about the procedural filibuster which forces a 2/3rds vote on everything with virtually no political consequences for the blocking party.

Anyway, I don't really understand everything about reconciliation except that it may be difficult to apply to health care, and also that it might be spun as a dirty move by Republicans who would see it as a way to force a bill down the public's throat. Some progressives are still holding out hope that they can create a public option through reconciliation, since at least 51 Senators would be on board. I personally think this is highly unlikely.


The last option is to go back to the drawing board and try to bring Olympia Snowe (most moderate Republican from Maine) in on the negotiations for an even more moderate bill. Not many people will be happy with that on the left.

And possibly there's another plan that I don't yet foresee. Time will tell.



For now, toast to Brown. Like it or not, he's #41.

This isn't good

You probably already know what I'm talking about.

Martha Coakley is going to lose the Senate Special Election in Massachusetts, not just ending the Democratic Kennedy legacy(Ted Kennedy passed away, for those out of the loop), but allowing Scott Brown to become the first Republican in 30 years to occupy a Massachusetts Senate seat. Brown has promised to vote AGAINST the health care bill, completely undoing all the progress Democrats made in trying to put the votes together.

How could this happen!? Isn't Massachusetts one of if not the most liberal/Democratic state in the union? Well, the fact that Brown can win is what makes this election special.

Let's look at the last 2008 Presidential election to explain how this is possible. John Kerry, a popular incumbent, got 66% of the vote; his Republican opponent acquired 31%. This is a strong Senate victory, but not surprising for an incumbent in a state with Cook PVI of D+12. (The Cook Partisan Voting Index is a rating of how well Democrats and Republicans will do on a general congressional ballot--in other words non-incumbency, two unknown candidates, literally would you vote for the D or the R regardless of personality or credibility, in general).

Here's two realities that need to be figured. 1. Just because a state is blue, or even "the most" blue, it is not ALL blue. There are a lot of Republicans in Massachusetts; almost 1 million voted in the 2008 election, and the Republicans who did vote are the ones who care THE MOST. Keep that in mind. 2. The Cook PVI for Massachusetts is only D+12 in Massachusetts; put another way Democrat gets 56%, Republican gets 44%. This is not an insurmountable margin, especially because neither Coakley nor Brown is an incumbent, and neither has a significantly notable name recognition lead.

The final and most important reality is that this is a Special Election. That means it's an election which will temporarily fill a suddenly vacated seat until the next regular election. Turnout for special elections is very, very low and only the most enthusiastic voters will take the time to vote. No one else is on the ballot, so having a powerful Democratic establishment in Massachusetts does not help as much as it should. All of these factors have conspired to allow Brown to ease on up on Coakley in the polls, but still, why might he WIN?!

Pundits have allotted different levels of blame toward sagging Presidential approval, a poor, gaffe-ridden candidate choice by the Democrats, a personable semi-moderate Republican choice by the opposition... But the key, I think, is one thing: Scott Brown will vote against the increasingly unpopular Democratic health care bill. Or more importantly, he'll filibuster it to prevent it from coming to a vote-- the Dem caucus will only have 59 members instead of 60, which means they can't overcome a filibuster. And, and! Guess what! Republicans have noticed how much of a difference this one tiny election in Massachusetts can make so they've poured all their resources into creating an upset. And they very well might. Now it will be considered an upset if Coakley wins.

Conservatives are quite fired up about the idea of defeating the health care bill and liberals are not very excited about passing it. All of the enthusiasm and energy is coming from the Conservative resurgence and anti-big-government "Tea Party" movements which fueled Republican Governor wins in NJ and VA a few months ago. Many liberals, on the other hand, are ambivalent or even in opposition to the health care bill, and an inability to tap into that base is crippling Democrats in a Special Election where enthusiasm is almost everything.

Could the Democratic establishment still win out? Odds at Intrade and Fivethirtyeight are around 25%, but it's probably more than that. There's a lot to be said for establishment (Convicted of corruption charges -for hiding bribe? money in his freezer- Jefferson, the Democratic candidate in Louisiana's 2nd district still ALMOST WON the election there in 2008. The reason? Heavy Democratic establishment...) and Coakley, despite not generating much enthusiasm might win by default of having the D next to her name. Time will tell. After all, Obama and the Democratic party have pulled out all the stops to try to get her to win, even sending the President to Massachusetts to campaign for her, putting his personal credibility on the line.

Because of this, if Coakley does lose, Republicans will have an absolute field day with the results, claiming that it's a referendum on Obama (which is only a little bit true) and Democratic leadership (which is a little more true) and ignoring the fact that it was a Special Election and that the results were very, very close. It'll be hard for Democrats to spin this any other way than... we messed up, big time.

Despite my bold announcement at the beginning, I don't actually know who's going to win; it looks like Brown has the momentum and odds in recent polling (not to mention that enthusiasm, which again, is everything), but I think it's a lot closer than a 25% chance that she'll win, and that the margin will be + or - 5% one way or another. Still, she's looking at pulling an upset akin to Clinton's win in the NH primary back in 2008


After seeing the results of the election tonight, I'll have another post with analysis on what it will mean for health care (obviously if Coakley wins it'll be shorter), but Democrats have a few (kinda desperate and dirty) cards up their sleeves if Brown steals this seat.

And Republicans really shouldn't get too excited. If Brown wins it really will be a rare steal. I believe his seat will almost certainly go right back to the Dems next real election cycle.



On a side note, according to the Cook PVI, Hawaii and Vermont are the most Democratic states, but being a Democrat in one state might mean something different than in another, so this may have no bearing on how "liberal" a state may be. Vermont's my pick for most liberal state, if only for the presence of Bernie Sanders, Independent Senator, and almost- almost... socialist.