Conversation 2010: What Do You Think?
- Nov 3, 2010, 10:15 AM
- 3 Comments
Massachusetts went all-blue Tuesday. (Dominick Reuter for WBUR)
Massachusetts stemmed a nationwide red tide Tuesday, with Democrats winning virtually every single race in the state. Democratic political analyst Dan Payne called the heralded Scott Brown victory a “fluke.”
On our live call-in special this morning, Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi said Brown was a catalyst who kicked the Dems into gear. Many of you had observations, too.
Twitterer @cellocat75 writes:
I really think the election results show that the Scott Brown win was more anti Kennedy & anti establishment than pro Republican.
@jendeaderick tweets:
If voters are angry that the government isn’t doing enough for them, it means they want more government, not less. Anti-GOP position.
A number of people have expressed pride in their blue state today. “MA is an island of sanity in this crazy country,” tweets @cmatjones. “Massachusetts is awesome and the rest of the country is jumping off the cliff,” @joegrav tweets.
Some folks, such as @harmonywho, think national Democrats could learn a thing or two from Mass.
“liberal” candidates who make their case, involve citizens/voters can, do win. Pay attention DNC.
What do you think?
- Do Democrats have a permanent majority in Massachusetts?
- Why did Republican Charlie Baker lose the governor’s race? Bad candidate or wrong candidate?
- Should the national Democratic Party learn something from Massachusetts?
- Are you pleased with last night’s outcome?
- Who will oppose Sen. Brown in 2012?
Thanks for all your tweets over the past 24 hours. Keep the conversation going in the comments.
Previously On Hubbub…
« Live Coverage: Massachusetts Election 2010
Hubbub is a blog about what’s happening now in Boston, with contributions from WBUR’s producers and reporters.
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That’s interesting, Tyrone, because I heard about the Tierney case on WBUR and then read more in the Globe. I don’t even live in the district. So it seems to me that if someone wanted to know, they had multiple options to learn about Tierney and his wife. It appears that many folks in the district have felt Tierney has represented their values and interests in Congress and voting for a GOP candidate who has likened the President to Osama bin Laden and questioned Obama’s birthplace would hardly be an acceptable alternative.
As a liberal I was extremely relieved to see that Massachusetts had a Democratic sweep. However as I’ve listening to the election coverage over the last several months I’ve been baffled by some of the comments by conservative voters. One comment I kept hearing was that Obama is not listening and a conservitive vote will force him to hear the Tea Party/conservative view point. It seems to me that Obama has always been listening even if the results have not been what these voters have desired. In fact I remember one of the highlights of his acceptance speech being an acknowledgement of the voters who did not choose him- saying that he would serve them just as he would serve the democrats. I remember this being a stark constrast to G.W. who claimed his narrow victory as a mandate to do exactly what he wanted, completely disregarding the view points of those who didn’t support him.
This is one of the many points where I find my experience of the world so radically different from conservatives that I really wonder what causes this huge gap. Perhaps its because I live in a very liberal state… But what makes Massachusetts so different from some of those strongly conservative states?
Unfortunately, the results don’t show Massachusetts voters as being “smart”. It shows that Massachusetts voters are unthinking party line voters. The Congressional seat of John Tierney is a good example. His wife gets indicted for laundering $8M in cash through her & John’s joint bank accounts over a two-year period for the mafia, of which her brother is a member. That’s $10,000 per week! Just before the election, in a plea bargain with the DoJ (a Pulitzer Prize for some reporter if they investigate that deal), she pleads guilty to laundering a lesser amount, but still considerable. There’s no way to justify sending this man back to Congress. Either he knew his wife was running money at several times his Congressional salary through their accounts and looked the other way, which would make him part of the criminal conspiracy. Or, he truly didn’t know that for 2 years his wife was running money at several times his Congressional salary through their accounts, in which case no one that oblivious and incompetent should be sent to Congress. Yet due to the Globe and others like NPR burying this story, almost no one in the 6th Congressional District knows about this. Terrible, but not surprising, for Massachusetts “blinders” voters.