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Sunday, January 31, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Lessons from the Coakley Loss
Is the Dem's loss of 60 seats in the house today in the Massachusetts special election really a "wake up call" that the Obama agenda is really too far left, as even moderate Dems like Evan Bayh are suggesting?
Or is it, as I might suggest, more a sign that our country has - like California - become completely ungovernable?
The healthcare legislation - massive and weighted with legislative favors as it is - is already a massive compromise that attempts to steer through a forest of self-interested lobbyists and contingencies to make some progress addressing just one issue that threatens to collapse our continued existence as a country. Clearly no one is happy with the result - and from what I'm reading on comment boards, the discontent with it is as much from the left not getting a public plan as it is from the right having anything happen at all. But how could anyone in their right mind possibly think we could get anything better? Or that the current situation is sustainable?
I should add, the Democrats are clearly deluded if they try to rationalize this vote than anything other than a backlash. Unlike Virginia or New Jersey - two races where there were other circumstances where Democrats might rationalize the loss - this vote is a clear signal that Dems have lost the public on the issues. Unfortunately, it seems to me that the two parties are so far apart now that there's not even consensus on what our basic reality is. Independents, meanwhile, don't really want to try new ideas - they just want to punish whoever is in power.
Attempting change means pissing some people off. And voters are clearly pissed off. The message that Massachusetts voters have sent, it seems to me, is f* you, America. I'm sure it feels good to say. Too bad it just leads us all to the brink of the abyss even faster.
Or is it, as I might suggest, more a sign that our country has - like California - become completely ungovernable?
The healthcare legislation - massive and weighted with legislative favors as it is - is already a massive compromise that attempts to steer through a forest of self-interested lobbyists and contingencies to make some progress addressing just one issue that threatens to collapse our continued existence as a country. Clearly no one is happy with the result - and from what I'm reading on comment boards, the discontent with it is as much from the left not getting a public plan as it is from the right having anything happen at all. But how could anyone in their right mind possibly think we could get anything better? Or that the current situation is sustainable?
I should add, the Democrats are clearly deluded if they try to rationalize this vote than anything other than a backlash. Unlike Virginia or New Jersey - two races where there were other circumstances where Democrats might rationalize the loss - this vote is a clear signal that Dems have lost the public on the issues. Unfortunately, it seems to me that the two parties are so far apart now that there's not even consensus on what our basic reality is. Independents, meanwhile, don't really want to try new ideas - they just want to punish whoever is in power.
Attempting change means pissing some people off. And voters are clearly pissed off. The message that Massachusetts voters have sent, it seems to me, is f* you, America. I'm sure it feels good to say. Too bad it just leads us all to the brink of the abyss even faster.
Labels:
Democrats,
Healthcare,
Obama,
Republicans
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