{"id":3240,"date":"2010-01-19T12:41:38","date_gmt":"2010-01-19T17:41:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=3240"},"modified":"2010-01-19T12:48:16","modified_gmt":"2010-01-19T17:48:16","slug":"democrats-see-writing-on-the-wall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/3240\/democrats-see-writing-on-the-wall\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats See Writing on the Wall?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The current political environment for Democrats appears gloomy.\u00a0   The President\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rasmussenreports.com\/public_content\/politics\/obama_administration\/daily_presidential_tracking_poll\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">approval rating<\/span><\/a> 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 <a href=\"http:\/\/bioguide.congress.gov\/scripts\/biodisplay.pl?index=B000871\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">since 1972<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>As voters head to the polls in the Bay State, recent predictions are confirming that Brown has a legitimate shot at the seat.\u00a0  Nate Silver at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fivethirtyeight.com\/2010\/01\/538-model-posits-brown-as-31-favorite.html\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">FiveThirtyEight<\/span><\/a> projects a Brown victory based on aggregate polling data since the first week in January.\u00a0  Silver writes, \u201cCoakley\u2019s 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.\u00a0  However, the ARG and Research 2000 polls both show clear and recent trends against her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Charles Franklin <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pollster.com\/blogs\/solid_brown_lead_in_final_mase.php\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">at Pollster<\/span><\/a> agrees with Silver.\u00a0  Franklin noted, \u201cAcross all models, Brown leads by between 1.0 and 8.9 points.\u00a0  Three quarters of the estimates have Brown ahead by 4 points or more.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And now, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/blogs\/glennthrush\/0110\/Dems_may_flee_scene_of_health_care_crime.html\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em>Politico<\/em> reports<\/span><\/a> that some Democrats are working up contingency plans if Scott Brown proves to be the 41st vote against a government takeover of health care.\u00a0  Their plan: Blame Republicans.\u00a0  One Democratic staffer noted, \u201cSure you could say it\u2019s worse because we didn\u2019t pass anything.\u00a0  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 \u2013 and then blame them for everything.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nice strategy.\u00a0  Voters will surely reward you for delivering on your message of transparency, lower taxes for the middle class and affordable health care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The current political environment for Democrats appears gloomy.\u00a0 The President\u2019s 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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[506,12,159,752,35,505,725],"class_list":["post-3240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-democrats","tag-health-care","tag-massachusetts","tag-massachusetts-senate-race","tag-obamacare","tag-republicans","tag-scott-brown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3240"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3242,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3240\/revisions\/3242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}