Mass. Election Strategy

Today is the day of the special election in Massachusetts, and I have been struck in recent days by the assumption of an apparent defeat of health care legislation if Scott Brown defeats Martha Coakley for the Senate seat vacated with the death of Ted Kennedy. It is not surprising that Republicans sense that this is their opportunity to break the filibuster-proof stranglehold that Democrats have on the Senate. Rather, it is shock that Democrats seem so willing to concede the death of legislation that the President and they have set so much stock in and worked so hard for. 


Somehow it simply seems incomprehensible that they should be so easily throwing in the towel on an issue that they have been trying to get passed for 20 years, and have never been closer to. Now it's apparent that Martha Coakley has run a feeble campaign at best since winning the Democratic primary. Perhaps she simply assumed, as did most of the rest of the nation, that Senator Kennedy's seat, held by him for some 47 years, was a title that should pass by divine right to the heir selected by his party. Perhaps Scott Brown simply ran a much better campaign than his rival, simultaneously distancing himself from the Washington DC crowd and the Republican party. 


But could this apparent surrender in fact be a savvy last minute strategy (or perhaps the only strategy left) for Coakley and the Democrats to win this election? I believe it is. Why else would such political luminaries of the Democratic party like former President Bill Clinton and current President Barack Obama tie their reputations to an effort considered already lost? 


This apparent concession however, does lend itself to two scenarios: 
1. The Coakley effort succeeds and the Democrats are able to claim that in spite of her poorly run campaign, this vote is a referendum on the President, the health care legislation, and the policies of Barack Obama and the Democratic-led Houses of Congress. The victory of Ms Coakley will be expected to shore up sagging support during final compromises in such health care legislation as many begin re-election campaigns, and empower Democrats to continue to move forward on the agenda outlined in the first year of the president.
 2. The Coakley effort fails and Democrats throw her under the bus, talking about just how poorly her campaign was handled and that perhaps she was not the best person to fill the shoes of a giant like Ted Kennedy. Likewise, they will say that this is a nothing more than a local election and that these are the yammerings of a few disgruntled Independent voters and "Teabaggers". As such, it has nothing to do with the President's agenda or Congress. 


In fact, Democrats must now unite behind the President and its leaders in Congress or face a return to the bad old days of Bush. Either way, rest assured (or as in my case, lay awake all night worrying) that there is in fact a Plan B, Plan C, and Plan Ad Infinitum still waiting in the wings out there for the current legislative agenda regardless of the results of this election. I simply find it more likely that Democrats have once again proved far more clever than Republicans give them credit for, and will use this apparent concession to energize their voters and get them out on voting day in the last days of this special election by threatening dire consequences to the "hope and change" only just begun in this country. 


It is likewise highly improbable that Democratic political operatives across the nation should be able to find nothing in their bag of tricks to turn this situation around and surrender, especially in a state that has traditionally voted Democratic politicians into office. 


As for the Republicans, they had best hope that in their exuberance over the turnaround in the polls in Mass. and the potential of winning of a long held Democrat Senate seat, that they have not once again blinded themselves to the political realities of the situation. They should hope that their but recently hoped for taste of joy be not turned to dust in their mouths by the cardinal sin of complacency by the time that this special election is over. 


(While I was at it, I couldn't help but throw in the "tin foil hat explanation": The Democratic Party, knowing that there was little or no chance to reach a compromise on health care legislation, asks Martha Coakley to take a dive for the team. She loses the election, health care legislation dies by filibuster after Brown takes his seat, and the Democrats get to blame the Republicans for being obstructionists and of abandoning the American people to evil insurance companies at the very beginning of the 2010 election cycle. I know, crazy ...)