Losing the Home Game

For Democrats, it was neither an everyday election nor an everyday defeat. The symbolic significance of this fiasco couldn’t be any greater.

The east coast state of Massachusetts is to Democrats what the city-state of Hamburg once was to Germany’s Social Democrats. Now, they’ve lost a Senate seat that, just last August, belonged to the late Ted Kennedy.

In the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama carried the state of Massachusetts by 26 percent over his Republican adversary, John McCain. It was a walk in the park. Senator Kennedy defended his Senate seat for 46 years, generally winning by comfortably wide margins.

Kennedy, the “Lion of the Senate,” should be turning over in his grave. This latest loss means the Democrats now only control 59 Senate seats, one vote short of the number needed to overcome Republican filibusters and get legislation to the floor more quickly. The irony of fate is that the Democrats’ planned health care reform that was closest to Ted Kennedy’s heart, and for which he steadfastly fought for decades and for which he longed just prior to his death, will now be damned difficult to achieve in the Senate.

Massachusetts hadn’t sent a Republican to the Senate for 30 years. How did this happen, particularly on the one-year anniversary of Obama’s inauguration?

An old maxim assures us that “all politics is local.” That’s assuredly true. The Democratic candidate, Martha Coakley, was ineffective, took victory for granted and realized only too late that she was losing. Her Republican opponent, Scott Brown, is popular and waged a furious campaign. It’s amazing how the Democrats have thrown away their chances with colorless and poorly organized candidates in recent months.

Many voters have had it up to their eyeballs with the Democratic Party in Massachusetts; for years, they’ve occupied every public office and behaved as if the state belonged to them and that any opposition was an insult. Wherever you look, Ted Kennedy. That Senate seat doesn’t belong to one family nor to one party: it belongs to the people. The Massachusetts voters have always been Democratic, from square one. But that’s only half the story. Congress and even the new president deserve the comeuppance the Democrats got in Massachusetts. Barack Obama is still well liked personally, but his policies and the direction in which he is leading the nation are being increasingly questioned.

Americans are afraid that Obama’s planned reforms are too expensive, that he is piling up too much debt and inflating government. Despite the enthusiasm for the black candidate in 2008, Americans (and particularly white Americans, who remain far more unified than all the various minorities when going to the polls) want to have a leaner government; a government that controls itself and leaves the people undisturbed as much as possible.

How might this all play out? It would be a mistake to shelve the health care reform plans. The perception that it is not only morally important but also economically necessary has not changed. Likewise, Obama shouldn’t shelve his other plans such as new environmental protection laws. America needs renewal, and Obama needs to be able to show a victory somewhere.

But first the people need to feel that economic conditions are improving for them, that the president is doing something about the many unemployed, that he’s going after the ruthless sharks on Wall Street and that he is holding back the avalanche of government debt.

Barack Obama, this eloquent speechmaker, has to be devilishly careful that the Republicans don’t destroy his message of change and renewal. Their populist approach of being anti-everything the White House and the Democrats favor is finding increasing resonance with the people. Obama needs to hone and polish his message more and keep it in the public eye with renewed vigor. The good news among all the bad is that a majority of Americans still believe Obama is taking America in the right direction over the long run.