Dems and Independents Poised to Help Brown Pull off Upset

FrumForum’s estimable John Vecchione has well articulated why he thinks Republican Scott Brown won’t win in deep blue Massachusetts. (In short, says Vecchione, the Massachusetts Democratic political machine is aware that Brown now threatens their political hegemony and thus will do anything and everything to destroy him and to pull their pet candidate, weak sister Martha Coakley, over the finish line.)

In truth, none of us are mind readers, and none of us can predict the future. But as a close observer of the American political scene for decades, and as a former reporter for Campaigns & Elections magazine (back in the 1990s), let me explain why Vecchione is wrong, and why Brown will defy the so-called experts and pull off, on Jan. 19, the greatest of Massachusetts miracles.

Brown will effect this upset, I believe, because Democrats and independents in Massachusetts will turn out specifically to vote for him — and they will do so precisely because they are loyal Democrats and committed Independents.

Reason #1: Coakley is a an ill-informed candidate who has demonstrated an astonishing lack of substantive knowledge about the great and pressing issues of our time. In her most recent debate with Brown, for instance, she blithely declared that there are no terrorists in Afghanistan, and that she doesn’t think American military success there is possible.

Tell that to the Marines in Helmand Province. Of course, Coakley and the far Left said the same thing about Iraq before U.S. Soldiers and Marines proved them wrong.

In any case, how could Coakley say there are no terrorists in Afghanistan when, on Dec. 30, a terrorist suicide bomber in Afghanistan, Jordanian doctor Humam Khalil Abu-Mual al-Balawi, launched a kamikaze attack on American CIA forces?

How could Coakley make such a remarkably ignorant assertion — and on national television! — after the Taliban had released a videotape in which al-Balawi posthumously declared that his was the first of a series of Jihadi attacks which would spread far beyond the Afghan-Pakistan borders?

Massachusetts voters are among the smartest and most educated in the country. They rightly expect their senators and congressmen to understand the complex issues that will come before them. They rightly expect their elected representatives in Washington to be knowledgeable about foreign and domestic policy.

Say what you will about Ted Kennedy, but he was a great legislator. Kennedy, in fact, was one of the best (meaning most effective) legislators in all of American history.  He knew public policy because he cared deeply and passionately about the issues that matter most to voters — war and peace, healthcare, jobs and wages, et al.

Coakley shows no passion for public policy and, worse yet, possesses little grasp or understanding of complex public-policy issues. Massachusetts’ highly educated voters shouldn’t allow an ignorant and ill-informed politician to represent them in Congress — not now and not a hundred years from now. They rightly should expect and demand better.

Massachusetts is the state, remember, that gave America three of its most cerebral and well educated presidents: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and John F. Kennedy. And Massachusetts, not coincidentally, also is home to some of America’s finest colleges and universities — including, of course, Harvard, but also Tufts, Worcester College, Holy Cross, Boston College, Boston University, and many esteemed institutions of higher learning.

Reason #2: Coakley is weak on national security.

One of the most urgent national security questions of our time involves how we treat America’s enemies in the War on Terror. Do we treat them as common criminals or as enemy combatants? Do we read them their Miranda rights, or do we interrogate them for actionable intelligence? Do we keep them under lock and key in Guantanamo, or do we send them to Yemen and Somalia where they can plot and plan for our destruction?

On all of these critical questions, Martha Coakley is on one side, and Scott Brown is on the other side. Most Massachusetts voters may be Democrats, but they’re not suicidal. They’re Truman-Kennedy Democrats, who refuse to jeopardize the safety and security of the American people out of deference to a far-left ideology which seeks to give foreign Jihadists the same rights as American citizens.

Reason #3: Coakley is a weak candidate; Brown a strong candidate. The “knowledge gap” between the two candidates helps to explain this discrepancy. If, after all, you don’t know or care much about public policy and are more concerned with political status and power, then your ignorance is bound to show up on the campaign trail, as it has with Coakley.

Consequently, she’s lackluster and uninspiring, whereas Scott tends to sizzle. She’s plodding and prosecutorial, whereas he’s sharp and disarming.

During their last and final debate, for instance, Coakley hectored Brown about an amendment he sponsored to protect religious healthcare providers — Orthodox Jews, Christians, Catholics, Muslims, et al. — from being forced to administer procedures (such as abortion and euthanasia) that violate their deeply held religious beliefs. But despite her badgering, Brown was unflappable and nonplussed.

“I’m not in your courtroom,” he replied with a wry smile. “I’m not a defendant. So let me answer the question.”

Which he did: calmly and persuasively. And, in so doing, Brown exhibited the type of steady and even-keeled leadership that Massachusetts voters have come to expect from their elected representatives.

Reason #4: At this juncture in American history, Massachusetts voters — and especially Massachusetts Democrats – know they’d do well to seek political balance in Washington. Sure, most Mass. voters are Democrats, but not all. There’s a growing body of independent voters who eschew affiliation with either major political party.

Most Democrats, moreover, are not hardcore left-wing ideologues. Most, in fact, are pragmatists who want to solve problems with practical ideas and innovative public-policy solutions.

These independents and independent-minded Democrats rightfully worry about Washington’s far-left lurch. They see a government whose animating passion is motivated by the far Left, and which, consequently, is functioning now like a left-wing runaway freight train.

Independents and independent-minded Dems rightfully worry about out-of-control government spending and skyrocketing financial commitments which promise to wreck havoc with the American economy for decades. They worry that extreme and wrongheaded policies in Washington are putting the American economy into a prolonged deep freeze, with little or no economic growth and chronic unemployment.

These independents and independent-minded Democrats never liked George W. Bush and don’t have much use for a brain-dead Republican Party; however, they certainly appreciate the wisdom of the Hippocratic Oath, which says: “First do no harm.”

The chief way to avert harm is to have political balance in Washington. Arithmetically, putting Scott Brown in the Senate won’t change the political balance of power in Washington — the Democrats would still dominate Congress, with strong majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

However, as a practical political and legislative matter, Brown’s election would dramatically signal to Washington that politics as usual is no longer acceptable — not even in the Democratic bastion of Massachusetts. Brown’s election would signal that the American people have had enough with extreme and bitter partisanship, and that they expect better of their elected representatives.

Brown’s election would show that the American people reject Washington’s reckless and radical spending schemes, which promise to mortgage their future and the future of their children and grandchildren. It would show that they reject the politics of division and exclusion practiced by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. It would show that they want what Barack Obama promised when, as a presidential candidate, he eloquently and inspiringly talked of hope and change.

Reason #5: Scott Brown’s election should help to effect true bipartisan healthcare reform. Brown’s would be a crucial 41st Republican vote, which means he would stop the Democrats from ramming through the Congress extreme and one-sided legislation.

Thus, with Brown in the Senate, the current version of healthcare reform would fail. However, left-wing pundits and left-wing spinmeisters to the contrary notwithstanding, this wouldn’t mean the end of healthcare reform. To the contrary: it likely would mean the beginning of true bipartisan reform which unites, rather than divides, the country.

Indeed, that’s what Massachusetts voters want; and that’s what they likely would get with Scott Brown in the Senate. His election would mean that Congress will have to go back to the drawing board and work in a more bipartisan fashion. Democrats then would have to get at least some moderate Republican votes – including Brown’s, Olympia Snowe’s and Susan Collins’s — to craft a compromise bill that eschews the political extremes of both the far Left and the far Right.

Reason #6: Scott Brown’s election should help the Democrats in the November 2010 elections by forcing them into the political center.

Scott Brown’s election would be a stinging rebuke to the Democratic Congressional leadership of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. It would signal deep-seated grassroots dissatisfaction with a national political party which too often shuns moderate and independent voices and policies.

The Democratic leadership in Washington — and, indeed, across the country — would accept Brown’s election for what it is: a wakeup call to move to the political center. This is important because Democrats in swing districts are now in danger of electoral extinction; and if they go, so too goes the Democrats’ congressional majority in the House — and, by 2012 perhaps, the Dems’ Senate majority also could go up in flames.

Political parties, of course, don’t like to lose elections; however, it is far better to lose one Senate race than to lose your majority status in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. Yet, unless the Democrats move to the political center, that is exactly the political prospect which awaits them.

Reason #7: Scott Brown’s election would likely be only a fleeting and temporary setback. Indeed, Democrats know they can and should win back this Senate seat in 2012.

Smart and savvy Massachusetts Democrats know that Brown’s victory would be quickly eclipsed in 2012, after their party has regained its senses and moved to the political center — and after it has nominated a more serious and credible candidate like, say, former Congressman Joseph Kennedy. Most Democrats are willing to suffer a temporary and short-term setback for more strategic, longer-term gains.

Reason #8: Massachusetts Democrats know that, in his heart of hearts, Ted Kennedy would have supported Scott Brown.

Teddy, remember, was the consummate legislator, a political and policy virtuoso who relished legislative deal-making. Thus he forged strong personal and professional friendships with his political opponents.

Kennedy’s friendship with Republican senators, in fact, was his basis for effecting strong liberal legislative victories. Conservative Republican Orrin Hatch, for instance, was a frequent cosponsor of Kennedy healthcare legislation.

Kennedy knew that true, sustainable, and long-lasting healthcare reform requires genuine bipartisanship. Thus, he surely, albeit secretly, would have welcomed Scott Brown’s election as the temporary and short-term impetus needed to achieve the type of historic landmark legislation that he craved.

Conclusion. The Massachusetts Senate race is closer than anyone ever expected, and for very good reasons. It’s not that the voters of Massachusetts have gotten any less Democratic or any less liberal; they haven’t. It’s just that they’re not now, nor have they ever been really, reflexive ideologues with a Pavlovian-like compulsion to vote Democratic.

No, the voters of Massachusetts are among the nation’s brightest and most well informed. They know that issues, candidates, and political context matter. And that is why, on Jan. 19, they likely will stun and disorient the political world, both Left and Right, by voting Scott Brown into the United States Senate.