Mainline Florida

The Washington pundits have been talking about how reactionary Alabama ex-judge Roy Moore, who won the special Republican U.S. Senate primary this past week, is likely to win the special general election for Jeff Sessions' old Senate seat in December, and how that will make an already dysfunctional Senate even more so - or Moore so.   But meanwhile, in Florida, a Democratic victory in a special election could portend what's to come in 2018. 

Former Miami-Dade County Democratic chair Annette Taddeo (above) just won a special election to fill a vacancy in the Florida State Senate, and the seat, which is in a Hispanic-majority district, had been previously held by a Republican.  The Miami area's Cuban-dominated Hispanic population has been solidly Republican for years, so the victory of Taddeo - a Colombian-American - is a big deal.  It shows that more voters are beginning to doubt the GOP's effectiveness at governance at the state and local level, and it demonstrates just how serious some Democrats - maybe even DNC chair Tom Perez (ha!) - are at winning back state legislative offices in order to put themselves in a better position to win congressional (the word "congressional" refers to both the House and Senate here) and gubernatorial elections in 2018.  

Taddeo's victory doesn't give the Democrats a majority in the Florida State Senate, but it should go a long way toward energizing Florida Democrats as they look to 2018, when Democratic U.S. Senator Bill Nelson is up for re-election and the state's voters choose a new governor to succeed the insufferable Rick Scott, who is thankfully ineligible to run for a third term.  Taddeo is the seventh Democrat to flip a former Republican state legislative seat since Trump won the Presidency.  Martin O'Malley and Joe Biden - both potential candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination - campaigned for her.  They get it.  Let's hope Perez finally does as well.   

(P.S.  Also, in New Hampshire, Democrat Kari Lerner won a special election for a seat in the state House of Representatives, defeating her Republican opponent in a upset and becoming the eighth Democrat to flip a former Republican state legislative seat since November 2016.)

Make Massachusetts Scott-Free!

Scott Brown is a dangerous man. He's Sarah Palin in a suit and tie.

Scott Brown, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Massachusetts's special election to replace the late Ted Kennedy, more than opposes the Obama health care plan. He opposes taxing the banks to restore fairness to the economic system in this country. He opposes financial reform of any kind. He also opposes emergency abortions for impregnated rape victims. Martha Coakley favors more punitive taxes on the greedy bankers and no punitive restrictions on woman's reproductive rights - or any women's rights. You vote for Brown, you vote for reactionarism that sets the country back to the George Walker Bush days.

I reiterate this blog's endorsement of Martha Coakley for the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts. Please make sure that the Coakley loss I predicted does . . . not . . . happen!

Martha my dear . . . you, go, girl! (Beatles title mixed with hip-hop slang - nice touch, huh?)

Martha My God!

You would think that a nice Irish Catholic girl like Martha Coakley, a woman who's a loyal Democrat, a lifelong resident of Massachusetts (Massachusettian? It doesn't come up correct on my spellchecker), and an accomplished state attorney general, would be a lead-pipe cinch for wining next week's special election to fill the seat of the late Senator Ted Kennedy for the next three years. You'd think the Republican opponent, a tea-party conservative candidate named Scott Brown, wouldn't stand a chance.

You'd be wrong.

Coakley, who led Brown in Massachusetts polls only recently, is now in a dead heat with Brown in one poll and in serious danger of losing. Seeking a chance to gain the most prestigious Democratic seat in the United States Senate, Republicans have been dumping negative ads against Coakley the way Bostonians dumped tea in the harbor on a cold December night in 1773. Brown has been emphasizing the need to rein in government, campaigning on lower taxes and in opposition to the health care plan before Congress today. This contrasts sharply with Coakley's support for targeted tax cuts for the middle class, as well as her support for an individual mandate and a public option to lower health insurance costs. So what's going wrong for Martha Coakley?

Maybe it's that she's a flawed candidate. As Massachusetts Attorney General, she has refused to investigating Boston mayor Tom Menino for allegedly destroying public e-mail records in violation of the law. When state district attorneys made allegedly inaccurate and misleading charges about a marijuana policy initiative up for a referendum in an effort to defeat the law, such as suggesting anyone could carry pot any time (it passed), Coakley replied that "nothing in the proposed law explicitly forbids public use of the drug." In fact, the law still levies a $100 fine and confiscation for adults and mandatory community service for minors, suggesting Coakley, who as the state Attorney General should know what she's talking about, didn't read the bill.

Even Coakley's actions as a district attorney have been under attack A Somerville, Massachusetts police officer was charged with sexually abusing a 23-month-old girl in 2005. Coakley, serving on the grand jury in the case, decided not to indict him and allowed him to be released without bail. (Coakley's successor in that office charged him and got a conviction; the policeman is now serving two life sentences. Coakley defended her actions in the sexual abuse, insisting her decision was based on all the evidence available to her. How did the evidence that allowed the conviction to go forward, though, suddenly show up after she left that DA office?

Coakley's candidacy smacks of complacency among Massachusetts Democrats. After all, the state's entire congressional delegation is Democratic, and the Bay State hasn't sent a Republican to the Senate since re-electing Edward Brooke in 1972. But Massachusetts voters will elect a Republican for pragmatic reasons; as recently as 2002, they elected a Mormon businessman as governor because a skilled capitalist with moral rectitude who also rescued the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics was seen as the right man for the job. (Mitt Romney's election was the fourth straight Republican victory in a Massachusetts gubernatorial contest.) Even Massachusetts's reputation as a liberal state is inflated. The Boston busing controversy of 1974 had a lot of racial overtones, many white Boston residents angered by the plan to integrate their kids with black children in black schools that were seen as inferior. Scott Brown's success so far suggested that the people of Massachusetts are no more enamored with President Obama's agenda that residents of other states. It's typical of Democrats to take something for granted and put up anyone for office thinking nomination is tantamount to election.

So what does this have to do with everyone outside Massachusetts? Everything. The health care bill, flawed as it is, is the best chance for reform we're likely to get for another fifteen years. Brown opposes it. If he wins the special Senate election next week, he will be the forty-first Republican vote in the Senate needed to block the bill from proceeding. That is, if Coakley loses, health care reform loses.

The silver lining is that Coakley is a ahead of Brown by fifteen points in a Boston Globe poll, and she has a chance to turn things in her favor in a debate with Brown tonight. But even if she wins next Tuesday, I hope this serves as a lesson to Democrats in states where the party is dominant that a Democratic nominee only has to stay alive until Election Day to win.