Has Obama and the Dems Hit Bottom?

nospam@example.com (Patriot) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:45:59 -0600

Come November, the president and his party may find themselves succeeding most by failing the least.

NEWSWEEK Michael Hirsh — At this juncture in his presidency, Barack Obama might think about taking his political cue from the title of Richard Fariña's 1960s novel: Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me. In the race to the bottom that American politics has become—the only question is which party will be less popular going into the November election—Obama's been written off so completely that the Democrats' electoral prospects may be starting to look up simply because they can't drop much lower.

True, with the congressional elections still eight months away, it's impossible to say whether this is some kind of a bottom or a turning point. Many unknowns could still turn November into the rout against the Democrats that everyone now expects: soaring gas prices, double-dip recession, a terrorist setback. But consider: after months of failures and embarrassing White House miscalculations, some very serious downward trend lines are starting to stabilize or even poke upward. The jobless rate, at 9.7 percent, seems to be settling in below the politically radioactive 10 percent level.

SOURCE: http://www.newsweek.com/id/234653/page/1

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By a decisive margin, Mr. Brown (R) defeated Martha Coakley (D)

nospam@example.com (Patriot) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 05:19:27 -0600

Growing Discontent Over Government Healthcare Reflected by Vote

BOSTON — Scott Brown, a little-known Republican state senator, rode an old pickup truck and a growing sense of unease among independent voters to an extraordinary upset Tuesday night when he was elected to fill the Senate seat that was long held by Edward M. Kennedy in the overwhelmingly Democratic state of Massachusetts.

By a decisive margin, Mr. Brown defeated Martha Coakley, the state’s Democratic attorney general, who had been considered a prohibitive favorite to win just over a month ago after she easily won the Democratic primary. With 93 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Brown had 52 percent of the vote to Ms. Coakley’s 47 percent.

Senate Republicans moved quickly on Tuesday night to cast the election results in Massachusetts as a referendum on the Democrats’ health care legislation and to urge the Democrats to abandon the bill.

Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, issued a statement calling on Democrats to go back to the drawing board.

“With the election results in a state like Massachusetts, I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will be convinced to go back to the drawing board on the issue of health care reform,” Mr. Corker said. “If the president wants to take a truly bipartisan approach on health care, he would go a long way by reforming Medicare to ensure it remains solvent instead of taking money from it to create a new entitlement as the current bill does. Doing so would have a positive effect on our economy by reducing our long-term debt and strengthening the dollar.”

SOURCE: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/20/analysis.massachusetts.election/

SOURCE: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31693.html

Continue reading "By a decisive margin, Mr. Brown (R) defeated Martha Coakley (D)"

The Sad Truth Is.. - Whitehouse 2010

Has Obama and the Dems Hit Bottom?

By a decisive margin, Mr. Brown (R) defeated Martha Coakley (D)