Republican Scott Brown’s unexpected victory in the Massachusetts senate election last week may signal a new shift in the national political scene.
In last Tuesday’s special election to fill the late Ted Kennedy’s open senate seat, Brown defeated Democratic candidate Martha Coakley in historically Democratic Massachusetts with just over 51 percent of the vote.
At a time when the Obama administration is working to pass health care reform through the senate, Brown’s victory has proven to be a stumbling block. Thus, the election results are seen by many as a Democratic defeat rather than a Republican victory.
During his campaign, Brown promised to block health care reform in Washington, a cause that was championed for decades by his late predecessor. Now, Brown will provide the Republicans with their 41st vote to block the Obama health care plan.
This will eliminate the two-thirds majority the Democrats need to stop filibustering and pass health care reform.
According to UCLA political science Professor John Zaller, Brown’s victory is similar to Democrat Bill Foster’s win in a 2008 special election to fill former Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert’s seat, following Hastert’s early retirement.
Although that election was in a historically Republican district, the national tide favored the Democrats. Zaller says the opposite is occurring now.
“There is a national tide favoring the Republicans,” Zaller said. “Unless the economy picks up, this tide will continue and grow; if the economy does turn around, it could dampen the pro-Republican tide.”
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the unemployment rate had increased from 7.7 percent to 10 percent from January to December of last year.
According to a Gallup Poll, Obama’s approval rating decreased from 68 percent to 48 percent in that time frame.
In a lecture in Kerckhoff Hall last Thursday, conservative New York Times columnist Dinesh D’Souza said the improbable Republican victory should send a message to President Barack Obama that the Democrats are quickly losing support from the American people.
“It was as unlikely as Arnold Schwarzenegger having a sex change operation,” D’Souza said. “What (the) Massachusetts (election) says is that even in (Obama’s) home turf, people are saying, “˜Whoa, wait a minute.'”
However, former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis said it is a mistake to call his state historically Democratic.
“We voted for Reagan twice, and we had four Republican governors in a row for sixteen years before Governor (Deval) Patrick was elected in 2006,” wrote Dukakis, a visiting professor of public policy at UCLA, in an e-mail.
Nevertheless, D’Souza said Obama’s decreasing approval rating and Brown’s victory in Massachusetts are directly related.
“When Obama said change, the American people said yes, but the Democrats thought change is a mandate to do what they want: … essentially to have a federalized U.S. economy,” he said.
D’Souza said Bill Clinton faced similar circumstances in 1994 and that the former president’s ability to adapt allowed him to win reelection and have bipartisan support during his impeachment trials.
“The question is if Obama will get the message,” he said.