Brown-out for the Dems

The equation in the special Senate election in Massachusetts was simple: Bad Democratic candidate + angry electorate = embarrassing loss. Massachusetts might be the last state where a Republican would be expected to topple a Democrat in a major race, but it happened Tuesday, when the GOP's Scott Brown whacked Democrat Martha Coakley to claim the Senate seat that had been held for decades by Ted Kennedy. Several questions came to mind after the election was over. My first thought was, how bad were the other candidates in the Democratic primary if Coakley was the winner? The second question, and much more important, is what this means for health-care reform. It would be an easy out for the Democrats to lay blame for Tuesday's loss on Coakley's failings as a candidate, but they really should recognize that anger over government spending and pending health-care legislation was the real reason for the Republican victory. What should the Democrats do now about health-care reform? With Brown taking office, they no longer have the votes to block a Senate filibuster, unless they can attract a moderate Republican - and there ain't many of them - to their side. But that would take some major concessions, weakening an already watered-down bill. They also could try to find enough House members to approve the Senate bill, as is. That's a tough sell. I wouldn't be the least bit unhappy if the legislation died a quick death. They lost me when they eliminated any mechanism to provide real competition for the health-insurance companies. Without a single-payer system or a true public option, the chance for the measure to have a significant impact on health-care costs is minimal. Those who still support the pending legislation say it's a good first step and can be improved later. Really? Who, exactly, is going to "improve" the legislation down the road? The next Congress? You mean the one with a lot more Republicans in it? Good luck with that. Some Republicans are positively giddy about Tuesday's outcome. Some are touting the benefits of a divided government, now that Democrats have lost their 60-40 advantage in the Senate. Funny, but I don't remember them crowing about those positives when the Republicans lost the House and Senate in 2006. One person I saw on Facebook last night even called it the beginning of the second American Revolution. Easy there. Don't go digging up Paul Revere's corpse and strapping him to a horse just yet. The midterm congressional elections aren't until November, and a lot can happen in nine months. As you might recall, nine months before the 2008 Democratic primaries began, Hillary Clinton was being fitted for a crown for her coronation tour. How did that work out? For the Democrats' sake, I hope they're not going to follow the advice of Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the chief of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, who told the Associated Press that the plan is for his colleagues to continue to lay the blame on the Bush administration for steering the economy "into a ditch" and then running away. Enough of that. Certainly, Obama was left with a mess by Bush, who, in my opinion, was a really rotten president. But Obama has been in office for a year now, and the Democrats have controlled Congress longer than that. By the time the November elections roll around, Obama's tenure will be close to two years. At that point, whatever state the country is in, he and the Democratic Congress own it, not George W. Bush. One problem with the Democrats is that they want to be the party of lofty ideals, but they're not willing to get down in the mud and wrestle for what they believe in. The GOP might be morally bankrupt, depending on your way of thinking, but they've rarely gone broke by pandering to and rallying the birther/town hall shrieker/take-back-the-country-for-Jesus-and-the-rich crowd. They secure their base much better than the Democrats do, and if they can attract independents angry about the course of the country, they're winners. That's exactly how that Obama fellow ended up in the White House. He rallied the Democratic core and added support from independents, some of them disgusted by the eight years of Bush-Cheney rule and others, no doubt, legitimately fearful about having the Wasilla Wingnut a heartbeat away from the presidency. At this point, the best the Democrats can really hope for is moderate losses of seats in the next Congress. The worst is a wipeout that would leave them and the president largely impotent. To minimize the damage, they need to go on the offensive, stake out their positions clearly, point out the failings of the Republican Party and truly stand up for what they believe in. They've got a big selling job ahead, but knowing the history of the Democrats, they'll probably just sell out.