John Sides: Please Don’t Tell Me What the MA Special Election "Means".
You will see the pundits hold forth on what the Massachusetts special election “means” for the Republicans, the Democrats, Obama, Curt Schilling, and Lord knows what else.
The correct answer will be: I don’t know. This election could turn on national politics. It could turn on local factors and issues. It could turn on both, although we won’t know how important each was. Who wins can’t tell us why they won. And there won’t be an exit poll, which would give us only the most tentative interpretation anyway.
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There is only one truly significant potential consequence of the MA race, and that’s what having 59 as opposed to 60 Senators will do to the prospects for certain pieces of legislation, notably health care reform.
Nevertheless, a whoooole lot of people tonight and in the ensuing days are going to try.
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January 19th, 2025 at 5:39 pm
I just wrote about this. It is absolutely driving me nuts. Anyone that opines that this election has very much at all to do with national politics is at best disingenuous and probably a liar. There is no excuse for the Dems to lose a special election for Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat unless there is something tragically flawed about the candidate, campaign, or (as I believe in this case) both. Obama has a 60% approval rating in the state and the Democrats chose a doofuss. Congratulation GOP, but don’t make this what it ain’t.
January 19th, 2025 at 5:43 pm
Well, I think it is clear that the election has something to do with national politics and could have, as noted, some immediate national implications. On the other, the notion that we can know exactly how much national politics mattered or really exactly what the election means about November is clearly unknowable in any definitive sense.
January 19th, 2025 at 6:35 pm
> Anyone that opines that this election has very much at all to do with national politics is at best disingenuous and probably a liar.
That’s interesting, because I believe Obama has been making that very statement to drive people to the polls for Coakley.
Additionally, Brown has been making that argument in addition to running as “better than Coakley,” eg., “One Party rule is a Bad Thing.”
January 19th, 2025 at 7:03 pm
I don’t deny that who wins this election could have national implications, what I meant was that national implications won’t determine the winner of this election by any reasonable amount.
January 19th, 2025 at 7:33 pm
FWIW, my mom in New York state called tonight and we chatted about the MA Senate race. She was interested for no other reason than she wanted to see health care reform defeated.
January 19th, 2025 at 7:54 pm
Eric,
There is no doubt that the election has (as noted in the post) a very specific national implication and for that reason it has garnered a lot of attention.
I think that the thing you can’t say is that Brown won because of X and that it therefore means Y, Z and Q about national politics.
January 19th, 2025 at 10:39 pm
> I think that the thing you can’t say is that Brown won because of X and that it therefore means Y, Z and Q about national politics.
But you can say (and Professor Taylor *has* said) that the fact that a moderate won Massachusetts is a surprise.
And whether there’s a message, many Blue Dog Democrats are going to see one in there.
January 19th, 2025 at 10:56 pm
Max,
I agree: it is ultimately a surprising outcome in historical context.
However, the Blue Dogs in question will ultimately end up having to assess their own circumstances, and a different context (and that is the X, Y and Z point).
If anything, one would presume that sitting Blue Dogs are better candidates than Martha Coakley, for example.
January 19th, 2025 at 10:59 pm
BTW, I will readily agree that the results will rattle some politicos facing re-election in November.
However, as was the point of the post, I would caution at trying to draw too many long-term conclusions or patterns from the event.
January 20th, 2025 at 1:25 am
From a “regain control of Congress” point of view, the best thing that could happen to me would be for the Democrats to continue whistling past the graveyard.
From a “I’m not all that excited about impending inflation ( http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?s1id=AMBNS ), high unemployment, higher taxes for companies that would rather be hiring, having a Treasury Secretary able to seize companies he declares are a ’systemic risk’ to the economy ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/23/AR2009032302830.html , note that there is no definition of ’systemic risk’ other than ‘what the Treasury Secretary says it is’), etc.” standpoint, I would hope that politicians look at Virginia, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Reid’s numbers in Nevada and start to wonder if there might just be a pattern. Especially given that many of the seats that flipped to the Democrats in the last four years are held by people who campaigned on the claim that they were moderate or conservative.
So, no, don’t read too much into Massachusetts alone. But maybe there is a pattern when you look at other recent races that Obama was unable to get in front of. Add the recent Democratic retirements and I start to see something like a pattern.
January 20th, 2025 at 7:42 am
I have maintained for some time now (well, as long as I have talking about it, however long that has been) that Democrats will lose seats in November. I still don’t think it likely that they will lose control of either chamber.
Reid, I think, is a goner. Reid’s problems have been building for a while, however.
In regards to VA and NJ, if you are referring to the governor’s race, the thing is: those states have had Republican governors before (and are competitive in those contests even when Dems win). Governor’s races aren’t all that useful for predicting congressional races in any event.
And if we are building a pattern, we have to include NY-23, where a Dem won a Rep district.
January 20th, 2025 at 7:43 am
Oh, and I would note that there have been more GOP retirements from the Senate than Democratic ones.
And of the two recent Dem retirements, the Dodd one helps the Dems hold the seat, although I do think that the Dorgan retirement means a likely flip to the GOP.
January 20th, 2025 at 9:17 am
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