Sometimes in politics, currents converge is ways that no one could have predicted.
It happens in campaigns, where events can permanently alter the political landscape. “Game-changers,” they’re called. Affairs (Gary Hart and John Edwards). Tears (Ed Muskie). Assassinations (Robert Kennedy). Wars that don't go well (Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush). Scandals, as when the House bank debacle helped end a generation of Democratic control of the House in 1994. Tom Delay, Jack Abramoff and Florida Congressman Mark Foley brought back a Democratic House in 2006. Plagiarism ended Joe Biden's Presidential campaign in 1984.
Those of us in the political profession write books and draw lessons about game- changing events. It’s an unpredictable profession; irony and politics are constant companions.
One year ago, nobody could have foreseen that the seat held by Ted Kennedy for nearly 50 years would become a game-changer in the debate over national health care. Yet, as Barney Frank observed yesterday, "If Scott Brown wins, it'll kill the health bill."
Is Democrat Martha Coakley really in danger of losing this seat? You bet. Why else would David Axelrod be dispatching the President, on the Sunday before the special election, to stump in a state with a 3-1 Democratic registration edge?
This is a state that has not elected a Republican to the U.S. Senate since 1972. Massachusetts was the only state in the union to award its electoral votes to George McGovern. Its Congressional delegation contains not a single Republican.
To be sure, Martha Coakley is not a great candidate. She’s taken too much for granted and she’s committed more than her share of gaffes, but there are plenty of men and women with lesser political skills now serving in the Senate.
The real reason Coakley is in trouble in this bastion of liberalism is health care. This race has become a referendum on one-party control of the United States government, and on the leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
It has become a referendum on secret deals made in the middle of the night; giveaways to special interests; of legislation rushed through the sausage-grinder before any Member has had time to fully understand it, let alone read it.
It has become a referendum on the arrogance of Pelosi and Reid and tin-eared politicians who dare call their dissenters “brown-shirted thugs.” That this race is competitive is one of the delicious ironies of the Obama era.
Even if Coakley does manage to eke out a victory, the fact that it took so much to save the seat of a Senator who championed the cause of socialized medicine for five decades will surely persuade a new crop of Blue Dog Democrats to head for the retirement room.
If Coakley loses? Credit Barney Frank for his candor. Brown has vowed to oppose the health care bill.
As I discuss in the seventh DVD of my series, “So You Want to Run for Public Office,” there are four pressure points in politics: voters, contributors, the media and interest groups. The most important of these? The voters. As the ancient Romans wisely said, “Vox populi, vox Dei” – the voice of the people is the voice of God.
For the first time since both Houses rushed through passage of their badly defective versions of health care reform, real voters will now have a chance to weigh in. President Obama and those who have rammed through this monstrosity against the wishes of the American people are right to be petrified of the public’s verdict.
