Comments on: Massachusetts not about health care

By: uroskin

uroskin — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 01:49:25 +0000

So the lesson for Sarah Palin is to show off her cougar beaver in Playboy before she could ever be successful at running like Mr Brown did.

Captcha: thinking

By: Dave Ripley

Dave Ripley — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:25:21 +0000

I live in Massachusetts and can tell you two things for certain:

1) Almost every “Brown Brigade” person I talked to was extremely vocal about blocking Obamacare with their vote

2) Almost every such person was completely ignorant of the fact that Massachusetts already has universal healthcare — and that Brown voted for it in the state senate

Many were also shocked to find out that Scott Brown is pro-choice.

By: Pascal's bookie

Pascal's bookie — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 20:49:06 +0000

The proposed reforms were nothing like complete socialisation ben.

Obviously in any system there will be rationing, the US system rations on price, and they have the life expectancy stats to go with that. Funny how not even the GOP will touch medicare though. The only part of the US system that could remotely be described as socialised, and even the GOP likes to style itself as it’s defender.

By: ben

ben — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 20:31:06 +0000

The Democrat health care reform is dead.

The United States, at least, has just enough sense to avoid the complete socialisation and die-while-you-wait health care that is ubiquitously associated with zero price systems. Not that health care in the US doesn’t need fixing – but having an organisation as incompetent as the US government direct anything as complicated as health care is a recipe for disaster.

By: felix

felix — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 10:07:08 +0000

Aw come on, you know he’s really got no idea what he means.

By: BLiP

BLiP — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 08:56:24 +0000

Cuntry and western music, too.

By: DS

DS — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 08:44:57 +0000

>>>Perhaps the other real point is that Massachusetts is the most liberal State in the union, indeed it was the only state that did not go Nixon’s way in his 1972 landslide.<<<

Trivia fact: there are four US states that voted for the Democratic Presidential candidate in both 1980 and 1988. Massachusetts is not one of them (they are Minnesota, which also went for Mondale in 1984, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and West Virginia).

By: Draco T Bastard

Draco T Bastard — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 08:30:25 +0000

That’s pretty much what he means. The US is, after all, the home of the “free-market”.

By: Bill

Bill — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 07:58:25 +0000

“Research 2000 Poll Results, January 19, 2010
A poll was conducted immediately after the election last night of 1000 registered Massachusetts voters who voted for Obama in 2008. Half of the respondents voted in the MA special election for Republican candidate Scott Brown; half of the respondents did not vote at all. The poll definitively shows that voters who stayed home and voters who switched party allegiance share very common frustration and anger at an economy that continues to work better for Wall Street than Main Street.”

http://pol.moveon.org/brownpoll/

And an analysis of the above poll at http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010010320/poll-shouts-message-massachusetts-voters-were-sending concludes…

“The bottom line: It ain’t that complicated. A progressive populist message on kitchen-table domestic issues is a winning message, even in a time when voters are wary of government and concerned about deficits”

By: SHG

SHG — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 05:37:02 +0000

I’ve lived in Massachusetts. Let me tell you, come election time Ted Kennedy was out there shaking hands, knocking on doors, going to the PTA meetings, and basically busting his ass like he was fighting against a long-term incumbent. Every time. Even after he’d held the seat for forty years.

Kennedy kept getting elected because he fought for it, fought for the people in his state, and because the people voted for HIM – not for the party he represented.

By: Pascal's bookie

Pascal's bookie — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 05:06:36 +0000

Interesting.

The plans congress have come up with are not as liberal as the Mass one, so voters voting like your friend would have been happier with the opt out or opt in public option plans, which were abandoned in the congressional Dems stupid negotiations with themselves.

By: Andrei

Andrei — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 04:59:36 +0000

Have you ever lived in Massachusetts or even been there?

I doubt it – but pontificate away

The real point is that the Kennedys have had a mortgage on that particular Senate Seat since 1952 when JFK first won it. It should have been a gimme for the Democrats and it wasn’t.

Perhaps the other real point is that Massachusetts is the most liberal State in the union, indeed it was the only state that did not go Nixon’s way in his 1972 landslide.

Whatever the real reasons behind this upset are it is not looking good for the Liberals and their agendas

By: Lew

Lew — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 04:56:32 +0000

Nitpick: The Nazis didn’t sweep to power through the democratic process. They swept to government. The Weimar constitution was prescribed a perfectly robust system for constraining the Chancellor and his government. Power only came after the Reichstag fire when Hindenburg’s signing over the keys of the state to a man he knew he was a ruthless authoritarian demagogue.

But I agree; there’s genuine fire in them bellies. That has potential to be dangerous.

By: Brett Dale

Brett Dale — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 04:51:32 +0000

Why does it matter to people here, what domestic policies then usa has?
You dont pay tax, you dont live there?

I would take the word of americans who actually live in the usa, over extreme left wing bloggers from New Zealand,when it comes to their OWN domestic policies.

By: Deus ex Machina

Deus ex Machina — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 04:50:47 +0000

My own understanding from US news sites and bloggers is that the vote should be taken as an expression of US voters disappointment in Obama – in that despite his promises he has proven too conventional. He was elected on a wave of anger at the blatant profiteering of the right but has failed to capitalise on it by allowing Wall St. to pay itself $billions in bonuses from public money while the middle and working classes face unemployment, shrunken savings funds and mortgage foreclosures.

If he continues to fail to channel and satisfy that anger there must be a very real danger that at the next election that vote might decide it needs to support someone more extreme, which if it is coupled with the Christian Right might result in something horrendous – it was just such an anger and desperation that in Germany swept Hitler and the Nazis into power in a perfectly legitimate expression of the democratic process.