Freedom Line Blog

The current political environment for Democrats appears gloomy.  The President’s approval rating continues to hover around 50%, Democrats can claim few political victories and now there is a strong chance that a Republican will be the next Senator from Massachusetts. The GOP has not captured a Senate seat in the Commonwealth since 1972.

A victory for Republican Scott Brown would make the passage of ObamaCare exceedingly difficult and perhaps kill its legislative prospects altogether, though Democrats will not completely cede the issue to the GOP.

As voters head to the polls in the Bay State, recent predictions are confirming that Brown has a legitimate shot at the seat.  Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight projects a Brown victory based on aggregate polling data since the first week in January.  Silver writes, “Coakley’s odds are substantially worse than they appeared to be 24 hours ago, when there were fewer credible polls to evaluate and there appeared to be some chance that her numbers were bottoming out and perhaps reversing.  However, the ARG and Research 2000 polls both show clear and recent trends against her.”

Charles Franklin at Pollster agrees with Silver.  Franklin noted, “Across all models, Brown leads by between 1.0 and 8.9 points.  Three quarters of the estimates have Brown ahead by 4 points or more.”

And now, Politico reports that some Democrats are working up contingency plans if Scott Brown proves to be the 41st vote against a government takeover of health care.  Their plan: Blame Republicans.  One Democratic staffer noted, “Sure you could say it’s worse because we didn’t pass anything.  But it might be better to get past this as soon as possible, and bring it up for a vote in the Senate, let Republicans kill it – and then blame them for everything.”

Nice strategy.  Voters will surely reward you for delivering on your message of transparency, lower taxes for the middle class and affordable health care.

I try to resist the temptation to overstate my opposition to President Obama’s agenda. I don’t think the president’s a bad man, a crypto-communist, or a self-hating American. I think he’s an extraordinarily conventional (and mostly doctrinaire) liberal who got a lot further than most people who share his worldview could have because he has some rather pronounced political gifts. What he clearly lacks, however, is any real skill at governing in a sustainable way.

Thus, do we get the President, on the eve of what will either be a devastating defeat or a too-narrow win in the Massachusetts senate race waxing defiant. According to a story from tonight’s edition of Politico:

An upset by Republican Scott Brown would be covered in many quarters as a repudiation of Obama, especially after Obama’s last-ditch campaign appearance with Coakley 36 hours before the polls opened.

But the president’s advisers plan to spin it as a validation of the underdog arguments that fueled Obama’s insurgent candidacy.

“The painstaking campaign for change over two years in 2007 and 2008 has become a painstaking effort in the White House, too,” the official said. “The old habits of Washington aren’t going away easy.”

The White House rallying cry, according to one Obama confidant, will be, “Buckle up — let’s get some stuff done.”

There’s always been a hint of wishful thinking in the Obama as Jimmy Carter meme on the right … until now. If the White House’s response to the loss of what should be one of their safest seats in the entire nation is to go gung-ho, then Democrats will learn by November that the president’s forward march is a kamikaze mission. Read the whole piece on Politico for a disturbing look into how deeply the administration is embracing court sycophancy.