Since 1916, Mass. has had 15 Republican Governors and 11 Democrat Governors. From 1991-2007, Massachusetts had a Republican Governor. These people may be left of center, but they have no problem electing Republicans. Stop over-analyzing. Coakley was a garbage candidate and she ran a shitty campaign.
Just a year ago, Obama won Mass. by 26 points Only 23% of Mass. people consider themselves Republican This was a HUGE upset. Plus it was Kennedy's seat for more than 3 decades
Put me in that category too. I don't know if Obama doesn't have the gnards to get anything done, I just don't think politicians do anything without an some kind of agenda . . . and that agenda does not consider what is in the best interest of the general American public. The whole thing sucks . . . and people taking pleasure in it blow me away.
Hmm...Since this election was all about the people being fed up with the Democrats and Obama, I guess if Ted Kennedy was still alive and went up for re-election, he would have lost, too. Yeah, right.
Not to the Senate. Massachusetts elects Republican Governors because they elect mostly Democrats to the State Legislature. Those Republicans act as a check on the crazy spending the Legislature wants to undertake. The US Senate is a different matter. They elect Senators like they elect their Legislators. There hadn't been a Republican elected to the Senate since 1972. And the seat Sen. Brown won hadn't been held by a Republican since 1946. In other words, it takes something extraordinary for a Republican to win a Senate election in the Commonwealth.
Yep, they have been voting for the same guy for most of that time, and if that guy was on the ballot, he would have won again,
Ted Kennedy is a special case and you should know that. It took a special set of circumstances for a Republican to win a Senate seat from the Commonwealth, one of which was that the Republican and Democrat started off on relatively equal footing. At that point, policy came to the forefront, rather than history.
I think policy was only a small part of it. As I pointed out already, when it was equal footing, and both candidates were mostly unknown, people supported the "D" blindly, some polls up to 30%. Once the campaign started rolling, people learned about the candidates, as individuals, and that is when things changed.
Wow, you're really grasping at straws on this, for no apparent reason. The Dems themselves are admitting it was a policy issue and are urging Obama and his cabinet to change their focus. I think I'll go with these quotes instead of what Thrilla44 pulls out of his ass.
I can understand why Obama and other would feel that way, but everything I have said is true. Coakley did have a blind lead, explain how she lost it in such a short period. Nothing changed in Washington in that time period.
Republicans got things passed with less than 60 republicans in the senate. Heck, they even got Ted to sponsor no child left behind. The republicans had obstructionist democrats and a gang of 14 moderates to deal with. Somehow they passed a massive medicare drug bill. The Dems simply misplayed their hand by trying to exclude republicans (except for Snowe). It's absurd to think the Dems couldn't do anything they wanted.
Again, out of my ignorance: How was this "horrible", "weak" candidate the best one the Democrats of Massachusetts could come up with? I mean, they had to be grooming someone for Teddy's spot, right? The man was in his late 70's...no one was thinking he'd be Jesse Helms. Even with the backlash of some of the party when Palin was announced as the VP candidate, she had a constituency of backers (whether or not you agree with them, you have to admit that she had the religious right and some war hawks). Who was backing this "horrible", "weak" candidate? What was her platform or constituency? The "I'll follow Reid's lead on things" line?
How did she lose her lead? Democrats passed different versions of the health care bill in each house and she tanked right after that.
haha, you lack of simple logic always entertains me. You are definitely an over-thinker. Look, I'm not trying to say everything is great in the Democratic party, but you have to acknowledge that individual candidates play a bigger role in elections than their party affiliations.
