BRAIN DEAD AND TONE DEAF – AT 8:35 A.M. ET:  That is a very bad medical combination, and Martha Coakley, the Dem Senate candidate in Massachusetts (see story below) has been diagnosed. Her condition is serious and unstable.

Where was Martha Coakley last night?  Was she in Massachusetts, speaking with voters, trying to salvage her Senate race?  No.  Martha Coakley was in Washington, attending a fundraiser for her thrown by lobbyists for the health-care industry, among the least popular people in America.  The Wall Street Journal reports:

We've argued that the leading health industry CEOs will one day be exposed as the most short-sighted business leaders in history, but how to explain the gala fundraiser that their top lobbyists hosted for Martha Coakley last night?

Amid a Beltway panic, the health lobby is riding to the rescue of the Massachusetts liberal, whose defeat in the special Senate race next Tuesday could deny Democrats the 60th vote for ObamaCare and thus maybe spare the U.S. health system from the coming damage.

And...

Money follows power in Washington, obviously, though this example seems especially inexplicable given that Ms. Coakley's GOP opponent, state senator Scott Brown, may be the last chance to defuse the health-care doomsday machine. But maybe someone in the press corps will bother to mention this episode the next time President Obama takes aim at the "special interests" he claims are opposing his agenda.

Against overwhelming public opposition, the only things keeping ObamaCare alive at this point are power politics and the misguided corporate cease-fire that Democrats have either coerced or bought—or is homegrown at companies like Pfizer that are deeply invested in more government control of the economy. Ms. Coakley's election would make that outcome a certainty.

COMMENT:  We hope that Scott Brown's campaign is cutting ads right now exposing Martha Coakley as a lapdog for the health-care lobby.  I can't imagine that these corporate flacks are particularly loved in Massachusetts, even among committed liberals.

Coakley is a walking mistake.  Keep walking, madam candidate.

January 13, 2010