What Now on ObamaCare?
Brian Darling /
The White House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) have been in secret negotiations on ObamaCare for a few weeks now, yet the election yesterday in Massachusetts of Senator-elect Scott Brown has sent a thunderbolt from Boston to Washington that may push ObamaCare into the critical list.
Senator Obama carried Massachusetts with 62% to 36% on his march to 365 electoral votes and an electoral mandate in 2008. Yesterday, that same state broke 52% to 47% for Republican State Senator Brown over Democrat Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley. This election was, in part, a referendum on the President’s health care reform proposal, and it did not win that referendum.
The fact that this state has not had a Republican elected to the Senate since Senator Ed Brooke in 1972 and that seat has not been held by a Republican since Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. in 1952 is evidence that, even in a left leaning state like Massachusetts, the American people are angry and dissatisfied with Washington’s direction on health care reform. An NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll released has only 33% agreeing with the statement that “Obama’s health care plan” is a good idea and 46% opposed. Rasmussen conducted polls in Massachusetts that indicated that a key to the Brown victory is that 41% strongly oppose ObamaCare and a mere 25% strongly favor it. Even the people in left leaning Massachusetts dislike ObamaCare and they voted for a candidate who pledged to filibuster the bill if it comes back to the Senate