Here we are with the final column before the US Senate special election on Tuesday!
This was actually supposed to be in this week’s print edition, but thanks to a mix-up stuff that appeared in last week’s online version saw print, which what you’ll read below is just for your eyes only, web-surfers.
Unless you’ve been living in a cave on Mars with your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears for the past several months, you know well that our three candidates for the seat left vacant with Edward M. Kennedy’s passing are: Democrat Martha Coakley, currently Massachusetts Attorney General; State Senator Scott P. Brown (R – Wrentham); and Joseph L. Kennedy II, a Libertarian running as an independent who is in no way related to THE Kennedys.
Now, before any of you dismiss the election and think to yourselves, “I don’t have to vote, Coakley is going to slam-dunk this baby,” consider: a Rasmussen Reports poll of 500 voters who say they are likely to vote Tuesday had AG Coakley winning the race by only a nine-point margin. Half of those surveyed said they planned to support AG Coakley, 41 percent said they were behind Sen. Brown, seven percent were undecided, and one percent were voting for Mr. Kennedy (ouch…fourth place in a three-way race!).
Most notable, I think, is that unenrolled voters—who make up more than half of all Massachusetts voters—were more firmly behind Sen. Brown.
Then there is the Public Policy Polling poll that shows Sen. Brown ahead by one percentage point (48 percent to AG Coakley’s 47 percent), but then there is the Boston Globe poll that has AG Coakley ahead by 15 percentage points.
For what it’s worth, readers, none of these people are exactly lighting my world on fire, but Sen. Brown I’ve found particularly disappointing throughout this race. His campaign has been less about telling voters what he’s about than it has been about telling voters why AG Coakley would stink up the Senate, and despite his repeated claims he would be an “independent voice” in Washington while AG Coakley would mindlessly follow the Democratic Party line, his six-times-a-day e-mails (you think I’m kidding?) have been steeped in stock GOP rhetoric.
Which isn’t to say AG Coakley hasn’t been spouting Democrat-approved rhetoric like a good little zombie, but I personally couldn’t tell you because the Dems can’t get a strong and consistent message out to save their lives (if the GOP excels at anything, it’s staying on-message to a fault).
Kennedy? Well, he lost me the minute he proclaimed himself the “Tea Party Candidate,” because so-called Tea Partiers have yet to show me they’re anything but conservative Republicans in a very thin and flimsy disguise (unless Fox News is suddenly hot to rile up the liberal Democrat base, ho ho).
* * *
A reminder that State Representative Jeffrey D. Perry’s (R – Sandwich) annual “Jokes With Jeff” fundraiser is coming up on Friday, January 29. Rep. Perry welcomes comedian Robbie Printz to the Cape Codder Resort for a night of comedy and politics. Michael Graham has been added to the evening’s roster of entertainment.
Doors open at 7 PM, the show starts at 8 PM. To reserve a seat for the night, go to www.electjeffperry.com/donation_online.html and make a donation to his 2010 reelection campaign.
Political news and announcements may be sent to Michael Bailey, Region editor and senior political reporter, at bailey@capenews.net
The views and opinions in the Enterprise blogs are those of the author and are not neccessarily shared by Falmouth Publishing.
Your link for Scott Brown goes to Martha Coakley’s website.
Wow, you really believe all the drivel that you wrote? I guess you do. I used to be a die hard liberal but one day my mind woke up and I saw the gilded road I was being led down that ended in slavery to big government.
I find it absolutely amazing now how anyone can be a liberal that has even half a brain. Wake up and look at what they do and how they constantly lie!
Please go and read the words of our founding fathers and get a clue. It is time for the people of The United States of America to take back our God given right to FREEDOM!
Coakley is an ambitious hack who has no principles. How could you possibly vote for Coakley? Let us not forget that Coakley, to advance her own career, convinced Jane Swift not to sign the recommended release of Gerald Amirault. Remember him? He was sent to jail, innocent of the crime that didn’t happen – the Fells Acre Child Abuse case.
Vote for Scott Brown, my fellow voters!
Martha Coakley wants to help the thugs in Washington.
Martha Coakley has been bought and paid for by the Democrats.
Vote for Scott Brown.
Robert, I think you’re a robot. Not a mindless disciple of the GOP/right but an actual spambot that auto-posts things to blogs. I mean, a real person would speak in sentences that express complete thoughts.
T. Taylor, how could you possibly vote for Brown? He’s an ambitious hack that has no principles that aren’t spoon-fed to him by his party. Let us not forget that he introduced an amendment that would have allowed hospital personnel to force their own beliefs on a person seeking emergency contraception, even in the cases of rape, and even members of his own party decried the move, calling the amendment “poison.” His denial of all this in recent interviews is completely dishonest.
Chris, I didn’t feel free under an administration that wanted the authority to tap my phone without a warrant and suspend the writ of habeus corpus if had any reason, no matter how feeble, to believe I might be up to no good. You’re just as enslaved as you were before, you simply have switched masters, and if you have half a brain, you’ll realize that they aren’t looking out for your best interests either. Conservatives are as faulty as liberals.
Basically, people, both candidates suck out loud. Neither one is going to do anything so wonderful that it validates their election to the office, and in two years whoever is in office is going to face a hard re-election campaign.
Mike Bailey,
You made no comment whatsoever about my reference to Gerald Amirault. Do you know about that one? Coakley kept Gerald in jail for years – just to further her career. That is why I call her an ambitious hack. And there were many other cases she twisted in order to “get ahead.” Ugh!
Brown is not a lock-step Republican. He does not agree with the Republicans on several issues: he believes in a woman’s “right to choose,” for instance. And… your allegation that Brown’s amendment would have allowed hospital personal to “force their own beliefs” etc. etc. is not accurate.
Have you actually read the amendment he proposed?
I can tell you haven’t, because it did not say anything about hospital personnel being able to “force” anything on patients. It said that HOSPITAL PERSONNEL should not BE forced – to go against their own beliefs in treating ER patients, but that OTHER hospital personal WOULD DO THE JOB. And that is perfectly reasonable.
This is the USA, and people’s religious views and beliefs are respected. You should read things before you quote them, Mikey.
What about Jane Swift’s role in it? Coakley did lobby to keep Amirault in prison, but Swift had an opportunity to commute his sentence after the state parole board unanimously recommended his release (despite having no exculpatory evidence), so people in both parties got dirty on this one.
It’s also an assumption on your part that Coakley acted the way she did out of career concerns rather than a belief she was acting in the public’s best interests. Without a damning statement from Coakley or someone close to her, your speculation is just that.
Whether Brown is a lock-step Republican remains to be seen, but I am keeping my expectations low. Not because of Brown specifically, but because very few people in elected office, Democrat or Republican, have the guts to defy their party poobahs; odds are Brown won’t be any different, and if he is, then fantastic. More power to him, literally.
As for the amendment Brown introduced, he said on the State House floor: “Through our conversations, I’ve heard, ‘what if somebody has a sincerely held religious conviction about dispensing the emergency contraception medication? What about their rights? How do we address those?’ ’’
Hospital workers have a job to do,and if they can’t separate personal feelings from their duties, they have no business in that job. Some faiths don’t believe in organ transplants, blood transfusions, or even medication as simple as aspirin. Those beliefs are as “sincerely held,” so why shouldn’t they also be allowed to deny certain kinds of care? Why should we cater to one specific faith?
All religious beliefs should indeed be respected, but that does not mean letting someone else’s faith-based beliefs intrude on the personal decisions that impact another’s life. I don’t want anyone else telling me I can’t use contraception, proactive or reactive, because they think it’s “wrong” based on a very subjective set of personal beliefs.
And, for the record, the amendment reads: “If it is deemed that said employee, physician or nurse of any facility has a sincerely held religious conflict administering the contraception, then said treating facility shall have in place a validated referral procedure policy for referring patients for administration of the emergency contraception that will administer the emergency contraception, which may include a contract with another facility.”
In short, someone doesn’t want to give a patient the morning-after pill, so the patient could be told, “Sorry, you’ll have to go someplace else.” How is this in any way sensitive to a rape victim? What good is served by making a woman who is already deeply traumatized go elsewhere for care she could as easily receive at whatever facility she winds up at?
Finally: Keep calling me “Mikey” and I’m going to start thinking you’re sweet on me.