U.S. President Barack Obama made a last minute campaign stop Sunday in Massachusetts, where a crucial election Tuesday will fill the Senate seat held by the late Edward "Ted" Kennedy. The race is extremely tight, and the president's legislative agenda is at stake.
When Democrats in Massachusetts went to the polls last month to choose their nominee for this special election, there was little cause for concern.
Democrats outnumber Republicans in the state by a 3-to-1 margin. And party leaders felt they could coast to victory.
They were wrong.
A little known Republican state senator named Scott Brown has turned this into an extremely tight race, and Democratic candidate Martha Coakely is fighting for her political life.
With time running out, President Obama traveled to Boston to energize the party faithful. "Understand what is at stake here, Massachusetts, is whether we are going forward or going backwards," he said.
Also at stake: the president's health care reform plan.
If Martha Coakley loses, Democrats will no longer have enough votes to keep Republicans from blocking action on the president's top legislative priority.
Concerns about health care and the rising federal deficit are seen as helping Scott Brown and the Republicans in Massachusetts. President Obama reminded a campaign rally at a Boston-area university that voters should think twice before trusting Republicans to cure the nation's ills. "We sure aren't going to get there if we look backwards and try to re-institute the same failed policies that we have had over the past decade. That is not going to work. We've been there. We've done that," he said.
But Republicans counter the president's policies are a blueprint for fiscal disaster. During an appearance on the Fox News Sunday television program, the top Republican in the Senate, Kentucky's Mitch McConnell, described the Massachusetts election as a referendum on health care. "If it is unpopular in Massachusetts, it's unpopular everywhere. The American people don't want us to pass this bill," he said.
The irony, perhaps, is that health care reform was one of Ted Kennedy's signature issues. Kennedy, who served for almost 47 years in the Senate, died in August after battling brain cancer.
1 comment:
I would like to personally thank the President for his wonderfull forsight and for sharing with us his great wisdom. Never in our history has there been a man of such honesty and transparency in the White House. A man who has brought the world together in such short time - bringing the poor misunderstood North Koreans in fom the cold, and through diplomacy alone persuaded the Iranians of the error of their ways, and through the strength of his character and charisma brought true democracy to the Iranian People. And through his strength of character has managed to singlehandedly errdicated Islamic terrorism (it really never existed - all that terrorism stuff was just a bunch of isolated, individual criminal acts) to the point that Martha Croakly can sooth us with the Knowledge that they have all just disappeared, back to their Al Gore run Global Warming Catastrophy and non violence studies. I want to thank him for ridding the congress of its horific pork barrelling and ear mark history. And for stimulating our economy and getting unemployment under control, by keeping the unemployment rate down to under 8% and improving daily. For reducing the deficit in such and dynamic fashion, and for introducing transparency into the health care debate by broadcasying everything on c span as promised.....
Wait, I will have to finish this latter. A few of my flying pigs just arrived and have to be fed.
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