Republican Victory in Massachusetts: Referendum on Obama?

In the American media, the anniversary of Barack Obama’s inauguration, Wednesday, Jan. 20, was nearly eclipsed by the victory of the Republican candidate in the partial senatorial election in Massachusetts. According to the New York Times, “One year later, the voters sent another message.”

Fifty-year-old Scott Brown took 52 percent of the votes, versus 47 percent for his Democratic rival. Spurred by the stakes, voters went to the polls in large numbers in order to determine the successor to Edward Kennedy, who died in August 2009. The Washington Post sees the vote as a strong symbol, Kennedy having been a political mentor to Obama and a distinguished representative of the Kennedy family.

To explain the vote’s outcome, American publications first put forward the political ability of the Republican candidate. “Brown was the right candidate, at the right time, with the right message,” the Boston Herald claimed in its editorial. The Nation draws the conclusion that “the Democratic party can no longer run as a managerial and technocratic party.”

Are the Democrats the first to blame for their failure? According to Newsweek, the party’s candidate, Martha Coakley, was certainly “ill prepared” and had “won the nomination, because she was a woman and not part of the Washington scene or the party establishment.” The magazine, however, refuses to see in this “a referendum on Obama or his presidency.” For the Boston Globe, it was indeed the resentment and fears of Massachusetts voters, in view of economic uncertainty, that showed through.

Health Care Reform Blocked?

The New York Times analyzes the role of the “independent” voters, those who had rallied around Obama in 2008, but, since the Virginia and New Jersey votes in November, seem to have turned toward the Republicans.

Deprived of the 60 seats needed for a Senate majority, Democrats must be aggressive in their health care reform, the commentaries emphasize. “The Republicans will obstruct, say no, lie and try to scare Americans,” The Huffington Post projects. “To make their [Democrats’] reform pass, their options are few, and extremely complex, mostly involving legislative tactics,” the website Politico adds.

But, in a more general sense, according to the Los Angeles Times, the party of the president will have to compose the reform with the trends that give it life. The Democrats must indeed wonder whether they should “scale back their ambitions” in sight of the midterm elections at the end of this year, or act quickly, using the majority that they still have. For American Prospect, the end matters more than the means, and Democrats should not dilly-dally. “In so acting, they will achieve that for which they were elected,” the review concludes.