POLITICO

President Obama makes risky bet on Massachusetts Senate race

By BEN SMITH & JOSH KRAUSHAAR | 1/16/10 9:23 AM EST
POLITICO 44

President Barack Obama will travel to Massachusetts on Sunday afternoon to campaign for Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley — a risky bet that puts Obama’s own credibility on the line on behalf of a weak candidate in hopes of averting a loss that would shatter the party’s 60-seat Senate supermajority.

Obama’s trip represents a stark, late recognition not just that Coakley may lose, but also that her defeat can’t be spun away. The defection of independent voters and some Democrats in one of the nation’s most liberal states would deal a stunning, and possibly fatal, blow to the centerpiece of Obama’s first-year agenda, health care reform, which congressional leaders would be left trying to jam through using procedural loopholes.

“It’s all about 60,â€