Decision Day Nears In Massachusetts

Two recent polls indicate that Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey holds a solid two-digit lead over his Rethuglican opponent, Gabriel "Just Go" Gomez to fill the Senate seat vacated by John Kerry.   A UMass-Lowell / Boston Herald poll showed Markey with a 20 point lead, 56 - 36, and an Emerson College poll showed Markey with a 10 point advantage, 51 - 41.  The special election will be held this coming Tuesday, June 25.

Of course, Dems are notorious for sitting out off-year and special elections.  We dearly hope this isn't one of those years, because the only poll that counts is the one that voters go to on election day.

"Run For Your Lives"

Only in Washington, and only in the Village in Washington, would 59 votes be less than 41. Eugene Robinson, whose shorts rarely get twisted up his butt, has a more sane view:

"You'd think from the overheated commentary that this was the end of the world (as we know it). Instead of having 20 more votes in the Senate than the Republicans, the Democrats now have only 18 more votes. Run for your lives."

Allow us to further comment along the lines of the post below: Someone needs to clue in the spineless, gutless Dems ("Call for Sen. Evan Bayh") who want to scurry into their holes and await the Apocalypse. Get on the offensive. Get control of your message. Have some discipline. And for God's sake don't look for ways to undercut yourselves. Whether you believe it or not, history is on your side, just as it has been for most of the past 80 years. Act like it.

Meanwhile, here's someone else's take:

Mass. Casualties

You have to hand it to the Rethugs and their recruited army of teabaggers: they aren't afraid of sticking it to the big, bad Dems. Just one year after Obama's inauguration, they've convinced a sizeable number of 'Murcans that returning to the policies that got us into the protracted mess we're in is the right thing to do. And you have to wonder when the Dems will get that spine implant they've so desperately needed for so many years. Trying to be all things to all people makes you weak; if you stand for everything, you stand for nothing. Where the Dems are being described today as "running scared" the Rethugs are defiant and pushing back.

Massachusetts is being touted by the cable gasbags as the end of Obama's agenda. Not once have we heard any discussion of the monolithic obstructionism and falsehoods employed by Rethug politicians that's stalled most of Obama's initiatives. According to the Villagers, it's the Dems and Obama who need to be more "bipartisan," given the vote in Massachusetts. Of course, we know in advance that the Rethug agenda is not to cooperate, but to bring Obama down -- to make health insurance reform his "Waterloo" in the memorable phrase of SC Rethug Jim "Demented" DeMint. Guaranteed the Rethugs will be even less likely to work with the Dems; they've been emboldened by the recent elections in VA, NJ and now MA.

Stay tuned and see if the Dems get the message, and get a spine.

What's Going On In Massachusetts?

Andrew Sullivan provides an on-the-ground observer's take on the Coakley/Brown race for Senate. For me, from afar, the top 3 reasons its a race at all are:

1) Coakley ran a lazy, smug, over-confident campaign until it became clear voters weren't going to coronate her just for showing up;

2) Throw the bums out anger: Massachusetts has a Democrat-dominated government, and they can't get it done even when they control things (shades of Washington);

3) Short memories: voters don't know/ care/ remember which party got us into the economic and financial mess we're in, plus see #2 above.

(Image: bostonheraldinteractive.com; Stuart Cahill/Faith Ninivaggi)