Ted Kennedy

One of the first important tests of the Republican party in 2010 will involve a suburban Irish "Generation Jones" attorney from the Northeast.

No, it's not me. Although I have a lot of similarities to the Republican candidate to replace Ted Kennedy in the U.S. Senate, State Senator Scott Brown (one difference is I do not have a child with any entertainment talent)

No, Brown is more of the sort of candidate we need to be running--a self-starter who rose up the ranks from the vast suburban middle class.

The Massachusetts Republicans almost made the same mistake many Republicans are making for 2010---running a certified pre-owned candidate.   However, former Bush 43 Chief  of Staff Andrew Card declined to run for the open seat.

So, let's answer two quick questions. Is Brown a guy worth backing and does he have a plausible hope of winning?

I think yes.

Before Senator Kennedy's untimely demise the Boston Globe was touting Brown as a rising star in the Republican ranks.  The Globe pointed out that Brown won re-election against a well-funded Democratic opponent by 18 points in a district where Barack Obama won by 20 points. Why? Perhaps because Brown was perceived as a problem-solver and a straight shooter.

Brown is focusing his campaign as being a fiscal conservative and a Washington outsider.  Ironically, this sort of persona worked well for candidates for Massachusetts Governor for over a decade, starting with the admittedly more liberal William Weld.  But until Deval Patrick won in 2006, Massachusetts Republicans had a long streak of winning non-presidential elections.  (Patrick is now painfully unpopular)

This makes one question whether Massachusetts reputation as a one -party bastion is somewhat inflated by increased presidential year election turnout.

In 2006 Deval Patrick received about 1.2 million votes. But the Democratic gubernatorial candidates in the contested 1990, 1998 and 2002 elections received between 900,000 to 1,100,000 votes; the Republican candidates ranged from a low of 985,000 to Weld's 1,175,000 and received a remarkably constant % of the total vote cast---from 50.8% to 49.8%

On the other hand, Republican presidential candidates in 2004 and 2008 got...hmmm...about 1.1 million votes in Massachusetts.

So it seems the Republican vote might be a bit "stickier"  in MA then the Democratic vote,  which baloons in high turnout contests, and this makes a difference when the special election is scheduled for January 19, 2010, when weather conditions in New England are likely to be adverse.

If we are going to sneak over the finish line in the Bay State, this might be the best chance to do it.

One thing which will be critical is whether the Democratic primary on December 8 turns out to be a bloodbath. The present contenders are Attorney General Martha Coakley, Congressman Mike Capuano and Congressman Stephen Lynch

All three contenders are from Boston or its urbanized close-in suburbs. Coakley leads in early polls, but lacks the seven figure warchest of the incumbent congressmen. No woman has won a major office in Massachusetts history, Coakley would be the first.  Of the House members, Capuano has a reputation as a a wonkish but doctrinaire liberal; Lynch is a blue-collar pro-union pro-life candidate who may appeal to swing voters but could struggle in a feminist dominated statewide primary.

So, the chance for blood on the floor is there. But the geography is also important.  Brown is from the area Republicans have traditionally amassed statewide margins--the I-495 belt on the fringe of the Boston media market.

In the 2002 election almost 80% of the the total vote in the Commonwealth was cast in the Boston media market and Romney won by more than his statewide plurality here; Democrat Shannon O' Brien actually carried the areas in the Providence, Springfield and Albany TV markets.  And the critical area was not the close-in urbanized area. O'Brien won the city and the close-in's by a 209,000 to 134,000 margin. But in the rest of Middlesex and Norfolk counties, and in Essex and Plymouth counties...Romney amassed a 576, 000 to 414,000 margin.  In the reaches beyond I-495 (metro Worcester and Cape Cod) Romney won  by 202,000 to 144,000.

Now, obviously neither Bush or McCain attained these sorts of margins in the fringe of the Boston media market.  They also weren't perceived as attentive to the local zeitgeist.  A Scott Brown might well succed as being seen as a "local guy" not one of those nasty Red State Republicans.    

So , while Boston is not a "cheap" TV market, Massachusetts may not be that a expensive state to "play" in, since more than 85% of the voters are covered by just two in-state markets; (Springfield is a rather cheap market; costs about 1/7 of Boston per point) .    A MA campaign today is cheaper than a VA or NC campaign in this day and age; where one needs to buy either multiple markets or "waste" a lot of coverage. 

And we are taking about a short campaign; especially post-primary.

I don;t need to mention that the impact of a Brown victory in the perceived heartland of liberal Democrats would have a rather disheartening effort on national Democrats.

We'd do well to keep our eyes on this race. I'd rather seen us spend money here than propping up someone in a 60% GOP district with poor manners.

A few weeks ago, Chris Dodd was eager to take over the official chairmanship of the Senate Health, Education Labor and Pensions Committee as a tribute to his good friend Ted Kennedy, so as to continue Ted's life work of bringing socialized medicine to the United States.

Tonight, Dodd decided to stay with the sinking ship he's already been piloting, the Senate Banking Committee 

This is quite a surprise, since the conventional wisdom just days ago was the Dodd would benefit politically from quitting the Committee responsible for the 2008 Financial Meltdown and going to the committee that is writing the Ted Kennedy Memorial Health Care bill. (not that anyone can figure out exactly what it says, anyway)

So what happened?

Maybe Dodd decided that being blamed for only one sinking ship was enough, and once Obamacare sank it would be wise to be out of the line of sight when folks went looking for scapegoats.

What also happened is one of Dodd's Republican opponents, Sam Caligiuri,  has been hammering Dodd for trying to run two committees at once, and failing at both jobs. 

I  am calling on Senator Dodd to decline the position of the HELP Committee Chairman, if it is offered to him. He should be finishing the job he has barely started of fixing the financial sector problems that got us into this economic disaster in the first place, and not spending his time promoting ill advised health care legislation.

Guess Mr. Dodd couldn;t conjure up a coherent response to Senator Caligiuri's challenge. 

Of course, there's been no progress on reforming the financial regulatory system all year, because Dodd was out pretending to be Teddy Kennedy. Now Dodd returns to a reform effort in tatters. , as nothing has been done in months to advance the complex issue.

Hey, it's not like we didn;t have a financial meltdown recently or anything that would warrant making this a priority.

Well, let's give Dodd credit.  He's staying on the same sinking ship he's already captained. After all, Captain Smith is treated more kindly by history than Bruce Ismay.   

The passing of Teddy Kennedy has given Chris Dodd a dicey dilemma to deal with.

For months Dodd has been the de facto head of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, sheparding a partisan public option health care bill through the committee in Kennedy's absence.

All the while, Dodd was still supposedly chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, which now, as the bailout era has reached a pause, reverted to the same lassitude it displayed in 2007 and 2008 as the financial system proceeded to meltdown.

Nevermind that financial market reform was supposedly a high point of President Obama's agenda, and that Secretary Geithner recently took to reaming out other bureaucrats for their lack of support of the administration's effort.  The bill has yet to even be scheduled for committee mark-up.

Now, Dodd can do what Washington politicians suggest would be a good career move--abandon the albatross of his failed chairmanship of the Banking Committee and take over for Teddy on the Health Committee--with the avowed goal of passing Obamacare as a trillion dollar tribute to the late Senator.

Amazingly, the clueless Dodd thinks the entire protest movement over socialized medicine will fade away in the good vibes generated by the Teddy funeral.

Yep, this guy really is so haughty he thinks we will meekly agree to whatever the power brokers on Capitol Hill think is really, really good for us.

Some Connecticut Republicans have other ideas. Like Senate candidate Sam Caligiuri      

Sure the lefties are upset but someone has to call out Chris Dodd on this!

Caligiuri is outraged that Dodd would leave the Banking Committee without cleaning up the monumental mess that the chairman has made of the financial economy.

Republican U.S. Senate Candidate Sam Caligiuri today started an online petition calling on Senate Majority Leader Reid to force Senator Dodd to do his job at the Banking Committee rather than leaving it to take over the chairmanship of the Health Committee left vacant by the death of Senator Kennedy. Caligiuri issued the following statement:“At the end of my tenure on this committee," Senator Dodd said in early 2007 of his role at Banking, "I want it to be said that the safety and soundness of our financial institutions was not weakened on my watch.” (See the full article here) As of today, it must be said that Chris Dodd failed and the safety and soundness of our financial institutions has been badly weakened over the past two-and-a-half years since Senator Dodd’s comment. Now, at a time when our economy and our financial institutions need oversight and attention to ensure our country is on the road to financial recovery, Chris Dodd has conveniently taken on a new and massive undertaking with the current health care debate – yet he still is grossly negligent in the job he is supposed to do – protecting our financial institutions. It is time for him to actually complete the task assigned to him at the Banking Committee, not to try and pass it along to another senator and sweep his failings under the rug. 

If you think Chris Dodd should clean up the mess he already made, before making a new mess out of the nation's health care system, you can sign this petition here.

We'll how eager Harry Reid is to anger Connecticut voters even further by letting Dodd pull a switch akin to that of Bob Torricelli. 

Chris Dodd thinks he can move on to something more pleasant and leave the nation's damaged economy to someone else to fix. He abandoned the Banking Committee before to run for President. Now he wants to abandon it again so he can pretend to be Teddy Kennedy and improve his fading chances for re-election.

Connecticut voters are a little smarter than that, Chris.  You may try and quit us; but we're ready to fire you.  

The latest Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report recently reported their findings on the cost of the Senator Ted Kennedy’s health care bill that would cover 16 million of the 46-47 million uninsured.  Before going into the nitty-gritty of the report, the uninsured count includes illegal immigrants, those who are eligible for federal programs but have not signed up, and those who have the ability to pay for insurance but choose not to do so.

Back to the costs: The CBO has estimated that $1.3 trillion would be required over 10 years to cover just 16 million of the uninsured. This does not include the public option, the deal that President Barack Obama wants. The reality is that the public option would ultimately lead to a government-run, single-payer health care plan for America.

Based on these numbers, the cost to cover one of the uninsured is $8,125 per person per year. If the estimated population of the United States was put at 307 million, the end cost per year of ObamaCare would be just over $2.49 trillion per year.

Considering that there are over $77 trillion coming in liabilities in Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, interest on the debt, and the debt itself, adding this will ultimately break the bank and kill any hope of economic freedom for Americans who will be enslaved by the government to cover the debt either by confiscation taxes on all Americans or by massive hyperinflation.

Congratulations, America. You’ve been had (for electing these weasels in Washington) and now you, your children, and your children's children are going to pay the consequences.

Obama mistakenly states his great-uncle liberated Auschwitz when Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army. (Hat Tip: Campaign Spot.) Oops, wrong camp. Darn geography strikes again.

Also, where Obama’s family debt came from.

A Democratic California Congresswoman is in the House, but she’s defaulted on 3 mortgages.

Subway’s anti-home school bias.

Ted Kennedy feeling a little better: competes in a boat race.

And Republicans have the opportunity to get rid of corrupt porker Don Young before Democrats do it for them.

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