On the Upcoming Vote in Massachusetts

One storied state among fifty has a big choice to make Tuesday, and it goes beyond an appraisal of the two senatorial candidates' personalities and campaigning skills. From the way it sounds to me outside Massachusetts, the Coakley campaign has for too long taken for granted what should have been fought for as a matter of principle even if losing seemed impossible. After all, voters don't owe anyone their vote. Scott Brown has shown energy and enthusiasm, and he has therefore done a better job, at least, of asking for the votes that might sweep him into office. A successful politician needs to engage with people, not avoid them.

Still, as I see things, there's just too much riding on this vote for Massachusetts to choose Brown. Hasn't he already pledged to oppose the current health-care legislation? Maybe the Democrats will push the bill through with lightning speed if he wins. I don't know, but I'm not optimistic. And what is Brown's stance on how to deal with abuses on Wall Street and at the big banks? Voting Republican will reduce the Democratic Senate supermajority of 60 to 59, and if that happens, it's hard to see how there will be any further movement on the president's agenda throughout 2010. With the 2010 elections and the likely loss of at least a moderate number of Democratic seats in the House and Senate, there's no reason to think much will get done from 2010 through 2012, either. What I see is an opposition party determined to quash anything and everything this president does, no matter what.

Does anybody not already far to the right really believe that voting Republican will improve matters? I don't see the logic in it: "The Dems are having trouble getting things done with sixty votes, so let's take a vital one away from them and see if that helps." It won't help. Coakley will support the president, and if you're a Democrat or a pragmatic Independent, how can you conclude that a move towards re-empowering the false conservatism that has done real harm to America can improve the situation? It's possible to argue one way or the other about Obama's policies, but anyone who thinks he is responsible for our current economic predicament is mistaken. Marring his efforts so early in his term isn't sensible.

One half of one branch of our government – I mean the Senate as half of the legislative branch – has become all but a burial ground of the nation's hopes for a sustainable market economy and much else. They are only able to act for the present time because of that sixty-vote majority; take that away, and, I suspect, all we will have in the Senate is one hundred wealthy, well-dressed people doing nothing for the next several years—even if strong and immediate action is necessary. A once quaint-seeming rule (sixty votes for cloture to facilitate an up-down vote) has become an engine of destruction pointed straight at the republic's well-being and even its viability, whatever the intentions of those who wield that engine may be. What's the use of crippling an administration that is at least trying to make some rational changes? Things can get worse—they almost always can. This may be one of the most important votes the people of Massachusetts have cast in a long time. All politics may be local at base, but sometimes local and statewide politics have huge consequences for us all.