Massachusetts Senate: Scott Brown

Warren is the worst possible political class candidate of the entire cycle. She doesn't deserve to win anything.

Super Tuesday Winners Ahead of Time

Not exciting.

I'm not all that excited about Super Tuesday because it could turn out to be the Romney show and guarantee his nomination.  I still believe he is the antithetical candidate for a Republican win against Obama in November.  Rich, out of touch and stiff, he'll be easy fodder for the Democrats to portray as a cardboard candidate without real values and without empathy.  He'll be demonized in the ceter, the same place Obama is trying to shore up his own credibility.  He's very, very vulnerable in November, and a Super Tuesday win for Romney is more likely than Santorum or Gingrich to seal the fate of the GOP chances of losing the presidency in 2012.

That is not an exciting prospect.  Super Tuesday has me as uninspired as a David Hasselhoff made for TV movie. It's not something I want to see, but because of all the hype, it's going to be on a bunch of channels.  Who knows, maybe the Germans will be excited about it.

All that said, here's how I see tomorrow playing out.

Scott Brown is our man!

Brown

Warren

If you are a die hard conservative like myself, Scott Brown was a heartache.  I even volunteered to make calls on his behalf during his race to become the Senator from Massachusetts to take "Ted Kennedy's seat".  He promised to be the vote for the filibuster of Obamacare.  Of course once he pulled off that remarkable upset victory, the Democrats ran an end-around and his win did nothing to prevent Hillarycare Pelosicare Obamacare  from becoming law.

And since then, Scott Brown has taken a number of decidedly unconservative positions that have disappointed conservatives across the nation who had previously cheered him on.  The seat was going to be up for re-election in 2012 and Scott Brown has got to run again after only a couple of years in the seat.  He's up against a long time supposedly neutral but very liberal Democrat next year.  It's probably an uphill battle for him and one many conservatives don't mind if he loses.

New Category of Republicans

What can Brown do for you? Not much. He's no UPS.

Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown has decided to not endorse Paul Ryan's budget plan.  Understandably, in the liberal state of Massachusetts it's hard to be a Republican and do anything.  Especially in the seat formerly known as "Ted Kennedy's seat" and find things to actually be Republican about.  Something.  Anything?

Temperature Check: Massachusetts, Still Crazy Liberal

Deval Patrick - crazy bad idea.

Scott Brown, semi-Republican Senator from Massachusetts created a glimmer of hope for conservatives that even in a very liberal state, common fiscal sense might be starting to take hold.  But after a recent temperature check, Massachusetts is still crazy liberal, or at least Governor Patrick is. You may have already suspected that but as confirmation, there's a news story about a new Massachusetts mileage tax.

Helping Out Charlie Baker

In Massachusetts, Charlie Baker is running for governor.  It's a close race, and he's within striking distance of Democrat Deval Patrick.  That leads me to the following question. Okay Massachusetts, do you really want Deval Patrick as your governor? This guy?

Seriously, this guy??



How about a real change? How about helping out Charlie Baker so he can work for Massachusetts?

Brown wins Blue State. How?

Republican Scott Brown woke up this morning as the yet-to-be-certified, Senator-elect for the very liberal state of Massachusetts (or MassachusettEs if you are in the Coakley campaign). How did this happen?

It's not really rocket science trying to figure this one out. There were a number of important factors:

• Likability
• A stale fish opponent
• A gaffe-prone opponent
• An opponent with an air of entitlement
• Anti-Obama sentiment
• Anti-Washington sentiment 
• Anti-one-party-rule sentiment 
• Unrelenting hard work by Brown
• High unemployment
• High government debt
• Brown's promise to be the 41st vote against yet more government spending and intrusion

The list could go on.  But even all that combined did not represent a perfect storm.  It was not enough to accomplish a Republican victory in very liberal Massachusetts. This is a Madonna state - True Blue. (Sorry). There had to be something else.  What were the other factors that drove this?  It's actually not rocket science either.  There are two factors that always, ALWAYS play an important part in politics - money and enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm can be attributed to the factors above.  It's pretty easy to see why the Republican base, a paltry 13% of the electorate in the state, were fired up.  But given the 3 to 1 margin of Democrat registered voters over Republicans, that's not enough.  Independents voted for Brown by a 3 to 1 margin.  They were clearly fired up too.  Even 20% of Democrats broke for Brown.  That's astonishing.  I haven't yet seen the final turnout numbers but for a special election I'm sure the turnout percentage is going to be quite high.  The enthusiasm clearly grew as Brown's late surge kicked in.  Momentum clearly played a key role in the current political and economic environment.

Enthusiam also existed outside of the state.  Conservatives across the nation and even outside of the country volunteered to help.  I personally made GOTV (get out the vote) calls for Scott Brown.  And that enthusiasm helped in the microcosm of Massachusetts.  It doesn't take just money or just hard work it takes both.  This campaign proved that a concentrated effort by grassroots volunteers can perform miracles.  It's something the left has always known and conservatives are just beginning to learn.

The other factor tied into enthusiasm is money.  The moneybomb for Scott Brown leading up to the election raised over one million dollars in one day. That doesn't come without enthusiasm.  But more importantly, when Coakley started going negative, Brown didn't panic, he didn't go negative back.  he stuck to his game plan and he had funds to do things like continue with GOTV and I'm sure other phone bank messages.  not only that, having a financial stockpile helped his advertising and his ground game in the final days fend off the negative push by Coakley.  You can't win without money.

The money came from everywhere across the nation.  I personally couldn't contribute as I'm Canadian - I could only volunteer my time. (Any liberals reading that, I assume you also want the U.S. relief effort in Haiti to stop, on principle).  There's two important lessons to be taken from that that hopefully Republicans notice and Democrats miss (which I suspect they will).

(1)  Republicans have taken their value of rugged individualism communal.  That may sound like a contradiction in terms, but it really isn't.  It simply means that they now better understand that to protect individual liberty, the fight has to be fought as a group.  co-ordination is not the enemy of conservatism.  Political activism is not the enemy of conservatism.  Both are tools - both a means to an end.  The good news is that Republicans seem to get that.

(2)  Whether it's money or effort, it's clear that Republicans are not in the midst of a purge of moderates as the mainstream media would have you believe.  I'm sure if Brown were running in Texas, he could very well be on the Democratic side of the aisle.  Conservatives of all stripes have understood the common conservative good and reacted accordingly.  Conservatives do exist across a spectrum just like liberal Democrats and conservative Democrats exist across a spectrum.  To think otherwise, liberals are deluding themselves.  Yet while conservatives can be flexible as needed, they are not so flexible as to be forgiving of the likes of an Olympia Snowe who cannot bring themselves to a position of party solidarity because of their own electorate.  Conservatives needn't fall on their swords for a greater party good, but that communal effort is not a one way street.  Liberal Republicans need to toe the party line at certain times just as often as conservative Republicans have bent in the past.  It's especially true now, given Brown's win in a blue state.

Repblicans appear to have learned at least one lesson (if they even ever didn't understand it in the first place).  Democrats on the other hand may be deluding themselves into a rose-colored glasses view of 2010.  That suits conservatives just fine.  The interesting thing will be how the Democrats are going to react to this turn of events.  I'll save that for a subsequent post.

PARTING SHOT: I didn't see much of Mitt Romney during the campaign - I assumed it was to take the focus off of Romneycare and Brown's support of it, given his distinct position of opposing Obamacare.  I found it surprising that Romney was prominent on the eve of Brown's victory, and specifically thanked in Brown's gracious acceptance speech.  Is it possible that Romney was deeply involved in Brown's campaign in an advisory role?  That would prove to be a big positive for him in a 2012 Presidential run - the ability to help design a win against seemingly impossible odds.  Regardless of the economic and political climate in 2012, a miracle win season under his belt in 2010 is a card in Romney's hand during the GOP primaries.  If on the other hand it turns out that Romney was doing a bit of bandwagon jumping, it could easily be turned against him.  That part of the Brown victory, like the future Obamacare, has yet to play out.

Mass. secretary of state dismissed vote problems

Vote panic may be a bit premature, according to KansasCity.com

Mass. secretary of state dismissed vote problems - KansasCity.com

One more reason to vote for Brown in MA

If you're struggling to decide between voting for Brown or Coakley in the Massachusetts special election for Senate tomorrow, let me boil it down to something really, really simple for you.

Do you want to vote for someone who can't get things done, or someone who is doing more with less?

Here's the phone banks for Coakley from Watchdog.org



Meanwhile Scott Brown's effort is managed by a voluntary, call from home effort. Snow is not an impediment. I know it works, I've called a few people for him myself, having volunteered. I'd encourage any conservative to pitch in as well.

Beyond that, the campaign has co-opted the moneybomb idea, which raised for Brown over $1 million in one day a week ago, to encourage a voter bomb.

Martha Come Lately

Democrat Martha Coakley's latest attempt to win back voters in her faltering race against Scott Brown, and perhaps destiny - claiming she's for the little guy.

"I'm standing with Main Street on this one. Scott Brown stands with Wall Street," Coakley charged.

The laughability of that statement is undeniable, but you can't win an election on comedy (Al Franken arguably didn't win in Minnesota and unarguably, is not funny).  In the same Breitbart article, via the AP (emphasis added):

Brown, a little-known Republican state senator with a limited record who had never before run statewide, shed his party markings and downplayed his conservative credentials throughout the monthlong campaign. He spent weeks campaigning not just against Coakley but against Capitol Hill.


"If you want someone who's going to lower your taxes and bring common sense back to Washington, then join with me," he says.Coakley, the state's popular Democratic attorney general, comes right out of the establishment and has embraced her stature within the party. She has run a Rose Garden inevitability strategy, largely shunned retail politics, and dashed to Washington for an oh-so-insider fundraiser.

Now, with the race tight in its final days, Coakley's trying to appeal to an anti-Washington, pro-populism electorate by seizing the fight-for-the-little-guy mantle in hopes of thwarting a Republican victory. The White House and Coakley are hammering Brown for opposing Obama's just-announced plan to tax large Wall Street firms.

Should Brown maintain momentum and pull off the upset, wait for the spin. It's already started. Obama isn't going to Massachusetts, where the prospects are lose-lose for him personsonally. And Democrats want to portray an increasingly feasible loss as being about Coakleyand not Obama. The decidedly pro-liberal AP would not be party to portraying Coakley as an elitist in that same article were it not trying to place blame squarely on her.

The iront of that is also quite rich - an elitist, smarter-than-thou party throwing one of their own under the bus for displaying the same attitude herself is obviously hypocritical. But there's subtle hypocrisy in it as well - should she win, they would expect, or rather demand, that she march lockstep with them in voting for health care, cap and trade and huge spending bills. She shouldn't given the anathematic way she'll be treated over the next few days, but in yet another twist, she surely would. She's a die hard liberal and believes the same things as the 'progressive' elite. Even her own career is secondary to the radical agenda.

And that same die hard progressive attitude is what makes the election in Massachusetts so critical. Coakley's Martha come lately ploy is the same playbook as Obama's "we're here for the little guy" deceit. They are elitists there for two things - themselves and their radical agenda. Falling for it means Democrats can go full speed ahead on that agenda with no brakes. The country knows that. Democrats, Republicans, Coakley and Brown know that. The anything-to-win approach is reaching a breaking point, and that's the real reason to smile.

GOP GOTV MA

I was looking at the weather forecast for Boston for January 19th.  Not because the Patriots will be playing, they won't.  But there's an even more important 'game' happening that day.  The people's seat (formerly known as Ted Kennedy's seat), is up for grabs between Democrat Martha Coakley and possible Republican usurper Scott Brown.

 

The polls have gotten a lot tighter and the Democrats have sent in the big guns, with less than a week to go. The Republican, Brown, has a chance to actually win this.  It has national implications.  And because it's looking really tight, every vote counts.  Conventional wisdom (with a big '"for what it's worth") says that a low turnout helps the fired up GOP, and that bad weather means a low turnout.  Hence, a visit to the Weather Channel and the Boston forecast. I know, Boston's not all of the state, but that's where low turnout likely helps out the GOP the most.

 

There's bad news if you believe the conventional wisdom, and I personally think there's some validity to it.  The weather on election day and the days leading up to it, seem to be relatively precipitation free, and more mild than it has been in the North East.  So Democrat voter turn out will be helped, or at least not hindered.

 

Which brings me back to the title of the post GOP (Republican) GOTV (get out the vote) for MA (Massachusetts) needs to be cranked up to 11 (a la Spinal Tap) leading up to the 19th.  This all-important seat is winnable for the Republicans and for conservatives across the country, this is THE BATTLEFRONT right now.  A near miss may be a moral victory for conservatives, but it also portends swift passage of the health care bill.  In fact a distant loss might be better than a near miss.  It would allow the Democrats time to continue fighting amongst themselves in the mistaken belief that time is still not their enemy.  A near miss ratchets up the pass it now or it'll never pass line of thinking.

 

This is where you come in.  As a conservative inside of MA, please do everything in your power to drag like-minded voters to the polls.  Beg, plead, convince, drive, carry them.  Do whatever it takes.  If you aren't from Massachusetts, and you have friends or relatives inside the state who are conservatives do the same.  If you have Democrat friends there, let them know about the great TV line up on Tuesday night.

 

Really.

 

Big ripples from Massachusetts

The special election next week for the Senate seat left empty by the death of Ted Kennedy has more, far-reaching, implication than just a single Senate seat. It has national implications that will ripple throughout the nation, and ripple throughout 2010, and beyond. The Democrats, realizing this, have sent in some of their top guns to pull this race out of the fire for their party. So why aren't the Republicans all over this too?

Firstly, consider the impacts of another Republican Senator. With the current tally of Republicans at 40, and 60 votes required to stop a filibuster, the GOP needs one more Republican to be able to thwart a Democrat supermajority. The election of Scott Brown over Martha Coakley would provide that inertia dampening one extra vote that the Democrats swindled by sneaking in Al Frankenberry. It means poorly designed health care reform can be slowed if not stopped. It means cap and trade can be slowed so that real debate can take place. It's not a panacea but it might slow the bleeding on the national debt - or at least stop it from quickening even more.

But that's not the only consideration. With the GOP sweep in Virginia last November, along with the win for Governor in New Jersey, and the near upset of the Conservative Party candidate in NY23, conservatism, and to a slightly lesser extent the GOP has been on a roll. Combine that with a victory in Massachusetts of all places next week, and you have the making of true, surprising momentum. It sets the tone for the 2010 elections. For example, it gives the Republican National Committee a good position to work from for 2010 if there are any recruiting needs still outstanding.

And the momentum has a spinoff effect as well that serves to compound the prospects for the GOP in 2010 - Democrat retirements. If some House or Senate Democrats were on the fence about retirement, imagine how news of Republican Senator from Massachusetts might impact their decisions. It helps ease the incumbency advantage the Democrats possess (in theory), and it might cause the DNC to have to scramble for replacements, thereby taking them out of their 2010 game plan.

So yeah, this special election is a big deal. Special indeed. And the outcome is not a guaranteed Democratic win.



So where the heck is the RNC? After all, just as Sarah Palin pitched in for Hoffman in the NY23 Congressional race, Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney have both pitched for Brown in Massachusetts. Steele? Well, he's on a book tour. Even if he has a team working around the clock behind the scenes to help out Brown, the optics are terrible.

"It's the people's seat."

This is a terrific quote from the Brown/Coakley debate.

"It's the people's seat."

All the more reason to help Brown from the outside if you can. There's a week to go - help a Republican out.

Senate Seat Armageddon

The Republican candidate has an outside chance at winning the Senate seat in Massachusetts. That's not a misprint, it's real. It's an Armagedon level showdown among politicos. Scott Brown could break the liberal stranglehold on the state by being ironically, more JFK than Ted Kennedy. Why should you care? The filibuster. Why do senior Democrats care? The filibuster.

It's being reported a 'moneybomb' event yesterday raised an astonishing $1 million in one day for Scott Brown. Meanwhile the polls have him anywhere from 15 points back to being in a dead heat with Democrat Martha Coakley.

The chances of him winning are slim, but momentum is on his side. He fares well in many polls and Coakley can't seem to push through the 50% ceiling. Conservatives are more energized everywhere, including Massachusetts and even the bad polling numbers could keep Democrat turnout low, with Democrat voters figuring it's in the bag. It's a special election, in winter with the possibility of inclement weather leading up to, and during election day. Who is going to make it out to vote on a cold January day- those who are fired up, or those who are complacent Democrat in Massachusetts where surely the Democrat will win?

Still not convinced? Why are Democrats sending high level spin-meisters to the state to pull the race out of the fire?

regardless of the outcome, it's wonderful to imagine apopleptic Democrats defending a loss in such a liberal state. If you know anyone in Massachusetts who might vote for Brown, get them to promise to vote.