Blame Game in Massachusetts

The blame game has already started over who is to blame for the Democrats losing Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat in liberal Massachusetts. The finger pointing and whose fault is started as soon as the polls closed at 7p.m. on Tuesday in Massachusetts. Days before Republican state Sen. Scott Brown officially captured the seat over Democrat Martha Coakley; Washington to Boston began dodging blame and pointing fingers at each other. Cool-headed analysis of what was driving independents from Coakley to Brown? No. The issue was who botched Democrat Martha Coakley's Senate campaign more: her state people or national Democrats.

Most spoke the classic Washington way, under the cloak of anonymity. But President Barack Obama's senior adviser took precise, public aim at Coakley's camp as Brown closed in on the late Sen. Edward Kennedy's seat. "I think the White House did everything we were asked to do," David Axelrod told reporters. "Had we been asked earlier, we would have responded earlier." But the signs had been there. In the bluest of blue states, the election was seen, at least in part, as a referendum on Obama, on health care reform, on the Democratic majority that had controlled two of three branches of government for a year.

And the Republican candidate was surging. What of Obama himself? "Surprised and frustrated," reported White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, promising more presidential reaction Wednesday. "Not pleased." Democrats could agree on the obvious: Somebody had taken the seat for granted, had underestimated the public's anger over the economy, over the Democrats' health care overhaul, over plain old arrogance in Washington. Coakley pollster Celinda Lake acknowledged some missteps on the part of the campaign, such as failing to have enough money to go on the air early on to more sharply define Brown. But she said the problem was Washington and the Democratic Party. And she said the president's effort to overhaul health care was not defined enough to earn the support of some voters.

Disgust with Democrats runs so deep, Lake said, that the Coakley campaign was unable to persuade voters that the candidate had spent her career as a prosecutor going after Wall Street. "People didn't believe it, and they didn't vote for her because they think the Democrats in Washington are not putting up economic policies that serve Main Street and working families," she said. Retorted a White House ally: "If they thought there was a problem with health care or the nationalization of the race, why did they ask the president to come campaign for her?" asked the operative, who demanded anonymity to speak about internal party sniping.

For a week, high-level Democratic operatives panned Coakley's performance as so weak that even a personal appearance by Obama couldn't save her. The White House joined in Tuesday while people were still voting in Massachusetts, blaming Coakley and dismissing the notion that the toxic political environment had been a factor. Coakley's campaign fired back in a point-by-point memo that blamed that very environment. And, her aides added, if Coakley took the seat for granted, so did the high priests of the national party — the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic National Committee. Her lead, Coakley's supporters argued, dropped significantly after the Senate passed health care reform shortly before Christmas, and even more after the Christmas Day attempted bombing in Detroit that Obama himself said was a failure of his administration.

"DNC and other Dem organizations did not engage until the week before the election, much too late to aid Coakley campaign," read one bullet point by a campaign operative brought in to work on the campaign. Please don't pass this on, the adviser wrote. "I'm not looking to get in a (fight) with the White House, but neither do I want to get steamrolled," this adviser wrote. Too late. "A pack full of lies and fantasies," shot back a senior national party official quoted by The Huffington Post. "The candidate in this race and the campaign have been involved in the worst case of political malpractice in memory and they aren't going to be able to spin themselves out of this with a memo full of lies."

Brown, a state senator, waged a door-to-door campaign that capitalized on voter dissatisfaction. He turned his pickup truck with 200,000 miles on it into a symbol of his workmanlike effort. He launched the campaign's ad war on Dec. 30 with a spot that commandeered the political potency of the Kennedy name. It opened with black-and-white footage of Kennedy's brother, President John F. Kennedy, arguing for an across-the-board tax cut. Then it cut to Brown finishing the speech. All this as Coakley, the state attorney general, paused.

After winning a four-way primary with 47 percent of the vote, Coakley cut back on her appearances and disappeared entirely Christmas week, confident she needed only community and political activists and their networks in what was projected to be a low-turnout special election. When she re-emerged, it wasn't to shake hands or rally supporters, but to sit on the stage at inaugurations for newly elected Democratic mayors. There was no stump speech, only press releases. And she balked at debates.

In a span of weeks, Brown had erased Coakley's double-digit lead. The Democratic establishment in Washington snapped to attention, airlifting so many aides from Washington to help Coakley that after a while, her own campaign officials hardly recognized anyone walking around headquarters. In the end, the verdict may not entirely be about any one party member or candidate. "The Democrats have the White House. The Democrats have the Senate, as well," said Griffin Smith, 24, a teacher, who voted for Obama last year. "I would like to have more of a checks-and-balance system."

Still, the stunning Republican victory in Tuesday's Massachusetts Senate race will force Democrats to fundamentally rethink the meaning of Barack Obama's election to the presidency, especially the notion that Americans want more government help in matters such as obtaining health insurance. Scott Brown's win in a liberal state will do more than vastly complicate Obama's bid to overhaul the U.S. health care system and pass climate-change legislation. It will prompt politicians of every stripe to redouble their efforts to understand voters' anger and desires ahead of the November elections for Congress, governorships and state legislatures.

Many Americans saw the 2008 election as a repudiation of George W. Bush's presidency, with Obama as the fresh new leader promising to harness the government to expand health coverage, discipline banks and stimulate the moribund economy. But Brown's victory over Democrat Martha Coakley suggests that many voters still harbor suspicions or outright resentment of the federal government, no matter who's in charge. Conservatives, perhaps sensing the mood better than liberals, have accused Obama of big-brotherism and even socialism as he pushes his health plan and pours billions of dollars into economic stimulus programs.

The president rightly notes that he campaigned precisely on those issues. But that's small comfort to nervous and perplexed Democratic lawmakers who now expect stiff anti-incumbent winds in November and heightened GOP attacks against "big government." Even the smartest political consultants may need time to sort out Tuesday's lessons. American voters rejected Republican control in the 2006 congressional elections and the 2008 presidential election. Democrats widely assumed that a top priority, and a winning political issue, was to make health insurance more accessible and competitive.

But now, just 14 months later, voters are snarling at the Democrats they put in charge, leaving them to wonder how to expand services without invoking public wrath. John Triolo, a Massachusetts independent who voted for Obama in 2008 and for Brown on Tuesday, exemplified the confusing message. "I voted for Obama because I wanted change," said Triolo, 38, a sales manager from Fitchburg, Mass. "I wanted change, I thought he'd bring it to us, but I just don't like the direction that he's heading." Everyone should have health coverage, Triolo said, "but I think we should take the time to look at it, but not ram it down our throat."

Karla Bunch, a 49-year-old teacher who also voted for Brown in Fitchburg, said, "It's time for the country, for the taxpayers, to take back their money. It's not a vote against the president." Obama may be as puzzled as anyone by his party's inability to keep the Senate seat long held by liberal icon Edward M. Kennedy. The president "was both surprised and frustrated" by developments in the Coakley-Brown contest, spokesman Robert Gibbs said while voting continued Tuesday. Democrats were dismayed last November to see the GOP take over the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia, states that Obama had carried the year before. But Tuesday's results are more painful and troubling.

Massachusetts is among the nation's most liberal states, and the candidates made it clear that a Brown victory likely would kill the Democrats' health care push in the Senate. Democrats now must ask: Did Massachusetts voters register their discontent based on a decent understanding of the complex health care legislation? Or did conservatives do a better job of framing and spinning the debate, starting with raucous public meetings in August that caught Democrats flat-footed with bogus claims of "death panels"?

The latest AP-GfK poll showed an even split between Americans who support the health care package and those who oppose it. But Republican lawmakers say Brown's victory proves that public intensity and momentum are on their side, and they plan to build on it throughout the year. Jon Cowan, president of the Democratic-leaning group Third Way, said centrist and independent voters in 2006 and 2008 were lending their support to Democrats, not granting it permanently. Their message on Tuesday, he said, is "you must hear our concerns and address them seriously if you want our long-term support." So far, Cowan said, they "still need significant convincing."

Obama's campaign clout also will be questioned, although he has ample time to regroup before his 2012 re-election bid. Surveys show that many Americans hold a dimmer view of government as an institution than they do of the president as an individual. The AP-GfK poll found Obama's approval rating at 56 percent, about the same as in October. But approval of his handling of specific issues, including health care, is considerably lower. Underscoring the deep and persistent doubts that Americans seem to have about their government, a slight majority still thinks the nation is on the wrong track. The number ran as high as 78 percent just before Obama defeated John McCain in 2008.

But Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress have been unable to keep the wrong-track number below 50 percent, according to polls that ask the question every month or so. That's about the average finding from 2003 through 2005, and better than the results from 2006 to 2008. If Democrats can find the tiniest of silver linings in Tuesday's results, it's this: Massachusetts pollsters detected a strong anti-incumbent mood among voters, which could hurt Republicans as well as Democrats. On Tuesday, it mainly hurt Coakley, because her party dominates state politics. In November, hundreds of Republican senators, House members, governors and other state officials will seek re-election nationwide, and a big anti-incumbent wave might sweep them out with their Democratic brethren.

So while the blame game in Massachusetts continues, it is clear that Brown’s victory is something for Republicans to celebrate for the moment and Coakley’s lost is a signal for Democrats to rethink some of their policies in Washington. However if both Democrats and Republicans look at the 2006 midterm elections until now and see how independent voters are voting they will realize that these voters are growing and more of them are tired of the status quo and are voting for non-incumbent candidates or candidates of the opposite party in control of state governments. Also since the 2006 midterm elections, American voters are leaning more toward candidates who campaign on their own message and not the talking points of a political party or a political ideology.

Thus 2010 might not be the year of the Republicans or the year of Democrats losing their huge majority but it might be the year of the Independent/Moderate movement who want politicians who are willing to campaign and work from the center instead of from the far right or far left because that just hasn’t worked to solve our nation’s issues.