Thread: Analysis: Voter Ire Evident in Mass. Senate Race

Jan 16, 1:44 PM EST

Analysis: Voter ire evident in Mass. Senate race

By LIZ SIDOTI
AP National Political Writer

AP Photo/Michael Dwyer
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says the White House does not agree that Obama's health care overhaul could be killed in the Massachusetts vote.

AP AUDIO

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says the president's message stumping in Massachusetts on Sunday will be, "Whose side are you on?"

AP AUDIO

With his health care plan suddenly in jeopardy, President Barack Obama is jumping into the race to succeed Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy. AP White House correspondent Mark Smith reports.


WASHINGTON (AP) -- The ill winds of an angry electorate are blowing against Democrats, the warning signs clear in a closer-than-expected Massachusetts Senate race that may doom President Barack Obama's health care agenda and foreshadow the party's election prospects this fall.

Anti-incumbent, anti-establishment sentiment is rampant. Independents are leaving Obama. Republicans are energized. Democrats are subdued. None of it bodes well for the party in power.

"It's going to be a hard November for Democrats," Howard Dean, the Democratic Party chairman in the 2006 and 2008 elections when the party took control of the White House and Congress, told The Associated Press in an interview. "Our base is demoralized."

While he praised Obama as a good president, Dean said the Democrat hasn't turned out to be the "change agent" the party thought it elected, and voters who supported Democrats in back-to-back elections now are turned off. Said Dean: "They really thought the revolution was at hand but it wasn't, and now they're getting the back of the hand."

Just how much voters have soured since Obama took over a country in chaos is reflected in the president's late-game decision to rush to Massachusetts on Sunday to try to stave off an extraordinary Republican upset in the race for a Senate seat held by Democrats for more than half a century.

Obama faced a no-win situation as he pondered whether to campaign with Democrat Martha Coakley. Had he decided against going, he would have enraged the base and been blamed if she lost. But a Coakley defeat following a presidential visit would be embarrassing, raising questions about Obama's popularity and political muscle.

Once heavily favored to cruise to victory, Coakley is in a tight fight with Republican Scott Brown, a little-known state senator, for the race to fill the seat left vacant when Sen. Edward M. Kennedy died.

Losing the race would cost the Democrats their 60-vote coalition in the Senate. The president has been relying on that big edge to stop Republican filibusters and pass not only his health care overhaul but also the rest of his legislative agenda heading into the first elections since he took office.

A Suffolk University poll released late Thursday showed Brown with 50 percent of the vote and Coakley with 46 percent. The survey indicated that Brown's supporters - a mix of disaffected Democrats, a large number of Republicans and a majority of independents - are far more enthusiastic than Coakley's backers.

Voters are down on Washington. They are deeply divided over the health care plan in Congress and a majority thinks the country is on the wrong track. Nearly all remain anxious about the prolonged recession even though there are signs of recovery. Only about half approve of Obama's job performance. Excessive spending and big government irk them. They've lost faith in institutions.

It was that same brew that helped Republican Chris Christie topple Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine in New Jersey, and Republican Bob McDonnell overtake Democrat Creigh Deeds in Virginia. Those victories coupled with Tuesday's vote in Massachusetts have Republicans and Democrats alike predicting a good GOP year in 2010 and a tough one for Democrats.

Democrats are likely to be punished more because they hold power. But the GOP also is feeling the effects, as seen in the "tea party" movement whose followers are challenging establishment candidates in primaries nationwide.

"Washington is just not in touch," Dean said. And now, he said, the tables have turned: "Republicans are unified against Democrats the way we were against them when Bush was president."

In the country at large, a new Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor survey found that the public's yearslong shift against institutions is in overdrive, fueling anti-establishment sentiment. It also showed that Obama has lost his luster - his job performance rating is at 47 percent - amid a belief that his administration's response to the recession has favored the wealthy and powerful over the middle class and average families.

The survey showed that people have little trust in any institution. They gave bottom-barrel ratings to government, major corporations, and financial entities. Many people say the country is heading the wrong way, levels similar to those during the George W. Bush years.

All that adds up to a warning for Democratic candidates - for politicians of any stripes, for that matter.

Passing Obama's legislative priorities would become much more difficult with fewer seats. If Coakley does poorly but ekes out a victory, moderate Democrats in Congress may think twice about falling in lockstep behind the White House.

The public's mood also could scare off establishment Democrats considering entering races, such as Beau Biden for Delaware's open Senate seat, or cause vulnerable Democratic incumbents, including Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, to retire.

Brown, a little-known Republican state senator with a limited record who had never before run statewide, shed his party markings and downplayed his conservative credentials throughout the monthlong campaign. He spent weeks campaigning not just against Coakley but against Capitol Hill.

He cast himself as a man of the people, fighting for them: "It's not the Kennedy seat. And it's not the Democrats' seat. It's the people's seat."

Coakley, the state's attorney general, comes right out of the establishment and has embraced her stature within the party. She has run a Rose Garden strategy, largely shunned retail politics, and dashed to Washington for an oh-so-insider fundraiser.

Now, with the race tight in its final days, Coakley's trying to appeal to an anti-Washington, pro-populism electorate by seizing the fight-for-the-little-guy mantle in hopes of thwarting a Republican victory. The White House and Coakley are hammering Brown for opposing Obama's just-announced plan to tax large Wall Street firms.

"I'm standing with Main Street on this one. Scott Brown stands with Wall Street," Coakley charged.

"There's only one candidate in this race who's a tax cutter - and it's not Martha Coakley," countered Brown, unwilling to cede his advantage among the angry electorate.

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EDITOR'S NOTE - Liz Sidoti has covered national politics for The Associated Press since 2003.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/ ... TE=DEFAULT

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says the president's message stumping in Massachusetts on Sunday will be, "Whose side are you on?"

Is he serious????

Had he decided against going, he would have enraged the base and been blamed if she lost.


Which is the ONLY reason he's going. The chances of Coakley winning this are all but zero and the dems know it. They're literally watching healthcare and the rest of the agenda slipping away, need someone to blame, and Coakley is their goat.

We already see the likes of Barney Frank and others blaming her for the probable loss and the last thing they're going to do is leave her any opportunity to be able to deflect the blame right back where it belongs with any defense that her loss is a signal from voters revolting against obama, et al and etc.

At this point, it's all about trying to protect obama, and the rest, from their collapsing agenda and whatever consequences they have to fear might be coming their way.