primitives discuss what's really going on in Massachusetts

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7487148

Oh my.

Now we know.

RBInMaine  (1000+ posts)        Sun Jan-17-10 08:21 AM
Original message

What is really going on in Massachusetts:

The dynamics in Mass. are all about three main things: a) a rather bland Dem candidate who took the race or granted for too long while the opponent got out there and pressed the flesh; b) a very deep recession, NOT caused by Obama/Dems, that simply has a lot of people angry and frustrated and in a general kind of anti-incumbent/anti-incumbent party mood regardless of the incumbent party; c) an off-cycle election where an insurgent candidacy can gain traction in a reduced electorate; and electorates are almost ALWAYS reduced in off-cycle/special election environments, especially among Dems/Progressives who are almost ALWAYS less reliable than R's/Conservatives/Conservative-leaning.

THIS is what is going on in Mass.: LOCAL dynamics during a deep economic recession. It is not a function of huge Dem party/liberal contempt of national level Dem/Obama policies. OVERALL, the nation is indeed MODERATE, and Prez elections and MANY other elections are decided by these swing voters, as happened in '06 and '08 out of anger with Bush/Cheney/R's. And GOVERNING with an opposition party and a diverse Dem caucus requires the kind of compromise that the very nation was founded upon.

*** All said, the Dems are working the ground HARD right now in Mass., and I think they'll win it by a few points.

Further, people should consider:

1) SCHIP, all kinds of green initiatives, Lilly Ledbetter law, working to close GITMO, new financial regs., a stimulus to save or create well over a million jobs, more stem cells, fewer choice restrictions, ... can you find ANYTHING there "progressive" enough?

2) Health reform is very, very difficult. It is very complex, and requires huge compromise in a big, ideologically diverse nation. Sorry, but that is the way it is. It is the idea to excise tax "Cadillac Plans" that has people up in arms. They are working to tweak that. The current pipe dream of single payer is nice and one I'd love to see, but even Kucinich says there is not enough of a national movement to accomplish that now. The health bill does many good things too, and it is just a START. We can't only see the negative, much like Eeyore as some say these days.

3) There are HUGE differences between D's/Obama and the likes of McConnell, Boehner, DeMint, Inhofe, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck..... So please be more fair.

I dunno what Arby's in Maine is worried about.

The machine's going to pull it out for Coakley anyway.

Buzz Clik  (1000+ posts)      Sun Jan-17-10 08:27 AM
THE BUZZY ONE
Response to Original message

1. Your logical development will give some a headache. Let's keep it simple:

It's Obama's fault.

Is not that far easier?

RBInMaine  (1000+ posts)        Sun Jan-17-10 08:29 AM
Response to Reply #1
 
2. How could you sound anymore like a fool?

Buzz Clik  (1000+ posts)      Sun Jan-17-10 08:35 AM
THE BUZZY ONE
Response to Reply #2

4. In other words, I do a perfect imitation of a growing mass of DUers. Why, thank you!

Little Star (1000+ posts)      Sun Jan-17-10 09:21 AM
Response to Reply #15
 
27. Obama may poll well in MA but, here on the ground the reality is the people hate this HCR bill. I know, I know, nobody wants to come out of their denial to hear that but it is the simple truth. All that other stuff you mention in your OP plays a much smaller role here in MA. On the street here in MA, people are saying no to Martha because of her flip to support HCR.

Are you from MA?

Tesha  (1000+ posts)      Sun Jan-17-10 09:02 AM
Response to Reply #4
 
17. No one on DU sounds like that, although you wish we did.

What we tell you. over and over again, is that:

1. We knew Obama wasn't on the side of the progressives, but we at least expected that he would honor his minimalist campaign promises.

2. Aided and abetted by his DLC and corporate friends, he hasn't done so. He has caved-in on a variety of important promises.

3. We're tired of working hard to elect people (whom we already realize are compromises/compromisers) who then turn out to give away the store to the other guys.

4. Eventually, the moral hazard of continuing to be willing to work for "the lesser of two evils" is going to wear people down and they're going to stop doing that.

5. 2010 may finally be the year where that happens, galvanized by Obama's *STUNNING* betrayal of so many of his campaign promises.

But I realize stating all that isn't nearly as much fun as mocking a rather large set of DUers and activists who are generally supportive of democratic values and also Democratic candidates when they happen to hold to democratic values.

RBInMaine  (1000+ posts)        Sun Jan-17-10 09:11 AM
Response to Reply #17
 
20. LOTS of hyperbole here. Not happy? Go form a nice, PURE 3rd party and see how far you get.

leveymg (1000+ posts)        Sun Jan-17-10 08:33 AM
Response to Original message
 
3. I am not reassured by your rationalization of the mess we're in. I'm in VA and saw what happened in the Governor's race earlier this year. It's much simpler than you might think - 23 percent of so of the electorate that turned out to vote for Obama and the rest of the ticket simply didn't show up. The Republicans all did, and picked up the State House by a 60/40 margin. They did it without even picking up many previous centrist/independents. They turned out, we didn't.

That's a fact that the Democratic Party leadership is going to have to understand. It's the party activists who turn out the vote. If we don't ring doorbells, and make phone calls, it's not going to happen. In '08 we talked many people -- discouraged voters -- into voting who hadn't been to the polls in a long time. If the Party Leadership continues to turn its back in the base and the people, then they're going to lose a lot more elections. Maybe, that's what the Blue Dogs want - to be the head of the minority party again. They're doing a great job of making that happen.

Buzz Clik  (1000+ posts)      Sun Jan-17-10 08:36 AM
THE BUZZY ONE
Response to Reply #3

5. In other words, a reduced electorate. The OP mentioned that.

leveymg (1000+ posts)        Sun Jan-17-10 08:40 AM
Response to Reply #5
 
6. A discouraged electorate. Not like a plague "reduced" 20 percent of the Democratic vote in VA.

People stayed home because they don't like what they're getting from the leadership. Soem of the other points made by the OP may be also be contributory. But, the basic fact is that the Democratic Party has been demobilized by the actions of its elected officials in Washington.

vi5 (1000+ posts)     Sun Jan-17-10 08:44 AM
Response to Reply #6
 
7. Shut up and clap louder!!!

You're supposed to just vote because they have D's after their name and because the R's are so much worse. Just don't expect the D's to actually do anything other than a list of a lot of things that people list with "plan to....." or "promise to...." or "started to....." or "committed to........".

And I mean really, isn't that enough?

The sad thing is, for a lot of us including myself it probably will have to be.

RBInMaine  (1000+ posts)        Sun Jan-17-10 08:51 AM
Response to Reply #6
 
12. VA was a STATE election. I guess they did not like what they were getting from STATE Dems then.

leveymg (1000+ posts)        Sun Jan-17-10 09:20 AM
Response to Reply #12
 
26. Not all politics are strictly local. We're seeing VA again in MA. We'll see it again all over the place if the national Party leadership isn't replaced or, miraculously, changes course.

Atman  (1000+ posts)        Sun Jan-17-10 08:45 AM
#11 TOP PRIMITIVE OF 2009; PEDRO PICASSO
Response to Reply #3

8. You are right about one thing...

You are not in Massachusetts. The GOTV effort going on now is almost unprecedented. The activists and campaign workers are out in force in a huge way. No one is sitting on their hands. All the whining and hand-wringing is coming from people far away (like Virginia) who think they have some sort of inside track. The people on the ground in MA are working hard, despite your concern to the contrary, and Coakley will ultimately prevail. Remember, MSNBC, NBC and the other mega-corporate media outlets have a stake in making this a referendum on Obama, which it is not. Don't let their self-serving bullshit fool you.

janet118  (704 posts)        Sun Jan-17-10 09:20 AM
Response to Reply #10
 
25. I'm on the ground in Mass. . . 

It's not going to be easy. Coakley doesn't seem to know who her base is. No one is fired up. The unions are behind her publicly, but have a history of saying one thing and not being able to get their members to follow through. The frantic phone banking is irritating people because the preliminary weeding out process was not done.

Coakley has never won any election except the easy Attorney General one. Mass. has a long history of crushing female candidates for high office. Coakley should have realized this wasn't going to be a cakewalk.

And the liberal base is disheartened because they feel sold out by Congress and Obama. They will probably drag themselves to the polls, but most are not going to work their butts off for elected officials who repeatedly forget about them the day after they win the election. They want to believe but the evidence keeps getting in the way.

Meanwhile, the Brown crowd owns talk radio and newspaper letters to the editor sections. And they have bags of money pouring in from everywhere. This will be a real feather in the right wing cap if they can pull it off.

If Martha loses, it will be portrayed as a victory for the teabaggers across the country and the celebration in the media will be unwatchable. The media gasbags will advise everyone running for office to move to the right. If they listen, they are doomed.

The lesson is not move to your right, it's play to your activist base. But you won't hear that on tv.

[USA4ME]

What's really going on is that the MA Senate election is a referendum on Dear Leader.  They can tie themselves into pretzels and deny it and try to spin it all they want, but that won't change the facts that one of the most liberal States in the nation isn't voting 80%+ for the Dem.

.

[formerlurker]

janet118  - I am on the ground in MA also.  Coakley is crashing because Independents don't want Obamacare.   Period.  End of Story.   

Watch and see what happens tomorrow.   

[miskie]

Thank you primitives - for making hay from an issue that will ultimately do Coakley more harm than good - Super geniuses all.

[zeitgeist]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7487148

Oh my.

Now we know.

I dunno what Arby's in Maine is worried about.

The machine's going to pull it out for Coakley anyway.

Just in from battling the morning helping of slush ( which we often get here in P-town North due to our proximity to the ocean breezes or perhaps proximity to all the hot air which blows up from Massachusetts)  But ... Arby's of Maine is certainly a contentious primitive.  Hard to imagine this failed enterprise has escaped more notice here.  What Arby doesn't realize is that there are many expatriates Mass-ing on the southern border looking to retake the former Northern Massachusetts ( sad but true, Maine was once a part of Mass).  As for me, I am waiting for the State of Maine bankruptcy sale.  It is coming, they don't have near as many clever pols as do their shirt tale cousins to the south to keep the scams running.  Heck they were even scalped by the Native Americans in the counties years ago  .

[The Village Idiot]

Coakley phone banks were empty this morning.

lol.

[jukin]

It is going to be entertaining to see how American Pravda tries to make the loss have nothing, nothing to do with Obama and the donk congress.

[Carl]

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latestpolls/latest_election_polls.html

[ColonialMarine0431]

b) a very deep recession, NOT caused by Obama/Dems,

 

Like when a group of Republicans wanted to audit Fannie Mac and Fannie Mae in 2001 but were shot down by Chris Dodd, who was taking massive contributions from them?

This jagoff is clueless.