We are monitoring Massachusetts very closely.  As soon as there are any developments, or late poll results, we'll let you know.

MONDAY,  JANUARY 18,  2010

MADNESS – AT 10:43 P.M. ET:  Sean Wilentz, a liberal Princeton professor, wrote over the weekend that Barack Obama can either do a Jack Kennedy or a Jimmy Carter.  

In other words, Obama can learn from his mistakes, as Kennedy did, or not learn, as Carter did.  So far, Barack seems to like the peanut farmer's ways, as The Politico reports:

President Barack Obama plans a combative response if, as White House aides fear, Democrats lose Tuesday’s special Senate election in Massachusetts, close advisers say.

“This is not a moment that causes the president or anybody who works for him to express any doubt,” a senior administration official said. “It more reinforces the conviction to fight hard.”

Hey, there's a cliff ahead.  Let's drive off it and see what's down there.

A defeat by Martha Coakley for the seat held by the late Edward M. Kennedy would be embarrassing for the party — and potentially debilitating, since Democrats will lose their filibuster-proof, 60-vote hold on the Senate.

A potential casualty: the health care bill that was to be the crowning achievement of the president’s first year in office.

The health care backdrop has given the White House a strong incentive to strike a defiant posture, at least rhetorically, in response to what would be an undeniable embarrassment for the president and his party.

COMMENT:  President Kennedy openly admitted he'd had a bad first year in office.  Apparently, this president hasn't gotten the message, doesn't believe it, or doesn't have the character to respond to it.  Does the phrase "one-term president" come to mind?

January 18, 2010   Permalink

QUEEN NANCY SPEAKS – AT 10:23 P.M. ET:  Massachusetts?  Never heard of it.

Nancy Pelosi now informs us that tomorrow's result in Massachusetts doesn't really count.  The health bill will go through.  Voters?  Mere peasants.  From The New York Times:

With Democrats increasingly anxious about the special election in Massachusetts on Tuesday and what it will mean for their big health care legislation, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, told reporters in California Monday that the legislation would move forward not matter what.

“Let’s remove all doubt,” Ms. Pelosi said. “We will have health care one way or another.”

I love the terminology.  "We will have health care..."  Madam Speaker, we already have health care.  What you mean is, we'll have our bill, and we'll grab one sixth of the American economy.

Ms. Pelosi acknowledged that the path forward could change if the Democrat in the Massachusetts race, Martha Coakley, loses.

“Certainly the dynamic will change depending on what happens in Massachusetts,” Ms. Pelosi said. “Just the question of how we would proceed. But it doesn’t mean we won’t have a health care bill.”

The speaker also slammed the Republican in the Massachusetts race, Scott Brown, and indeed all Congressional Republicans, for trying to block the legislation.

“I heard the candidate in Massachusetts, the Republican candidate, say ‘Let’s go back to the drawing board,’” Ms. Pelosi said.

That's what the American people are saying, in poll after poll.  But what do these ordinary people know about their families' health care?  The fools.

Kind of reminds us of the kamikaze, doesn't it?

January 18, 2010   Permalink

MASSACHUSETTS – FASCINATING POLL ANALYSIS – AT 7:29 P.M. ET:  Suggesting the possibility that Democrats in Massachusetts, the most Democratic state in the nation, are drifting toward Scott Brown.  From RealClearPolitics:

A poll conducted Sunday night for Politico by InsiderAdvantage shows Scott Brown leading Martha Coakley 52-43.

As one looks at the polls that have been released of late, there's a trend worth noting. Not only has Brown locked up his Republican base and taken a commanding lead among independent voters. But a growing number of Democrats seem to be shifting toward the Brown column. In this new survey, Brown wins Republicans 86-10 and independents 69-28. Among Democrats, Coakley's lead is just 71-24, meaning nearly one-in-four of those voters plans to cast a vote for the Republican.

COMMENT:  I suspect these are the traditional-values Democrats, the kind whose families became bound to the party during the New Deal, and who recall the days when the Democrats were the national-defense party.  Ah, nostalgia.

January 18, 2010   Permalink

THE SMOKING GUN – AT 7:15 P.M. ET:  You say you don't believe in press bias?  You say you want proof?  Well, we've got the proof, big time.

The Boston Globe, not exactly known as an institution that takes its liberalism lightly, showed us just how biased a paper could be today, in reporting the last-minute details of the Massachusetts Senate race.  Every late poll has shown Scott Brown ahead, except for one that showed him tied.  Note the way the Globe played the story:

With the clock ticking inexorably towards Tuesday's election and a new poll showing them in a dead heat, Democrat Martha Coakley and Republican Scott Brown are crisscrossing the state today in a last-minute scramble for votes in a race that has drawn national attention.

Say what?  The Globe picked the tie poll as the lead, ignoring all the others. 

Coakley, after stops in Newton and Pittsfield, swung into Springfield to rally supporters for one final stop in Western Massachusetts. As she walked into the Teamsters Local 404 hall, they shouted "Martha! Martha! Martha!"

At least they got the name right.  At another rally last night, one of the Kennedys kept referring to her as "Marcia."  Well, it's close.

"You can see the energy," Coakley said as she shook hands on the way in. "People can see it's a race."

Coakley ended the day in Framingham, before swinging by a phone bank and then gathering with staff and supporters at the Eire Pub in Dorchester.

Brown was in Boston, North Andover, and Littleton, and wrapped up his day with a rally in his hometown of Wrentham, where the Republican candidate took to the stage at a banquet hall as speakers blared "Start Me Up" by the Rolling Stones...

...The new poll, done for the liberal Daily Kos blog by Research 2000, found Brown and Coakley tied, 48-48. The telephone poll of 500 randomly selected voters was conducted Friday through Sunday and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

Thanks for the information.

Other polls have suggested that Brown, until recently a little-known state senator, is tied or slightly ahead of Coakley, the state's attorney general.

Slightly ahead?  One final poll has him up ten, another has him up seven.  Slightly ahead?

Give that reporter a promotion to the editorial page.  Wait, he's already writing editorials.

January 18, 2010   Permalink

APPALLING – AT 7:05 P.M. ET:  We said earlier that we'd watch for the race card being played in Massachusetts at the last minute.  It was played – by Martha Coakley herself.

In an act of supreme bad taste, Coakley used the occasion of a memorial breakfast for Martin Luther King Jr. to ask for votes.  From The Politico:

Scott Brown blasted his rival Martha Coakley for invoking the legacy of Martin Luther King in asking for votes at the Boston Martin Luther King Day breakfast this morning.

"I thought it was inappropriate when she started asking for people's votes when they're trying to remember Martin Luther King Jr.," he said. "I didn't know this was a rally for Martha."

Coakley asked for the votes of the audience, which included Brown, at the Hynes Convention Center:

"Tomorrow we act on the dream and we make sure that we allow me to continue that work," Coakley said. "We remember the dream tomorrow and we will act on the dream tomorrow."

COMMENT:  One of the headlines of the Massachusetts race is Martha Coakley's remarkable incompetence as a candidate.  No brains, no taste, no class.  She has always been a go-along political hack, only too willing to be the water carrier for whatever Democratic interest needed protecting, and maybe the truth caught up to her.

By contrast, Scott Brown has been the closest thing to a dream candidate that I can imagine.  Perfect pitch every minute.

January 18, 2010   Permalink

WE ARE WARNED, WE ARE WARNED – AT 5:17 P.M. ET:  This is the level of desperation to which the Cloaked have sunk.  From NRO:

Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.) thinks Scott Brown’s rallies in the Bay State are “reminiscent of the dangerous atmosphere of Sarah Palin’s 2008 campaign rallies,” the Boston Globe is reporting.

Yeah, I remember how dangerous those Sarah rallies were.  I mean, the death, the destruction, the rioting.  I just try to put it out of my mind.

Kerry says Brown supporters have engaged in “bullying and intimidation tactics” in the past few days and suggests that some of them may even be from out of state. (Would the senator rather keep the race local?)

As opposed to those in-staters, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

“I'm no stranger to hard fought campaigns, but what we've seen in the past few days is way over the line and reminiscent of the dangerous atmosphere of Sarah Palin's 2008 campaign rallies. This is not how democracy works in Massachusetts,” Kerry said in a written statement Monday.

“Scott Brown needs to speak up and get his out of state tea party supporters under control. In Massachusetts, we fight hard and win elections on the issues and on our differences, not with bullying and threats,” he added.

Right.  The Kennedy family has always been an example of genteel politics.  No hardball, no fists.  Just intellectual arguments.

Corey Welford, a Coakley spokesman, went even farther, accusing Brown of having “stoked the fires” by “smirking at threats against the Attorney General,” (a reference to this). The spokesman says Brown “has lost control of his campaign” and must “tell his out of state supporters to stand down.”

You know, you read this stuff, and you realize that some people really do live in a fantasy world.

January 18, 2010   Permalink

BULLETIN, MASSACHUSETTS – AT 4:39 P.M. ET:  A new Politico/Insider Advantage poll just published, and taken yesterday among 804 likely voters, shows Brown up by nine.

January 18, 2010   Permalink

MASSACHUSETTS UPDATE – AT 3:07 P.M. ET:  Here is the latest polling information, as of this minute:

RealClearPolitics is publishing four polls, all taken through yesterday.  They show Brown plus 10, Brown plus seven, Brown plus five, and a tie.  The tie was reported by the Daily Kos poll.  Okay, don't laugh.  It's taken by Research 2000, and is considered a serious poll.  Averaging the polls, Brown is ahead by 5.5 points.  While respectable, it is far from a guarantee. 

However, Politico is reporting this:

A Suffolk University survey of three bellwether counties found Brown "surging," according to pollsters, and leading by double digits in all three.

That last report is sweet music. 

We continue to monitor.  We haven't yet seen a last-minute poll by Rasmussen.  We assume that's coming.

January 18,  2010   Permalink

WELL, IT'S NICE TO KNOW THIS, BEFORE WE SPEND TRILLIONS – AT 9:57 A.M. ET: The more we learn about global warming, the chillier the air seems.  Another revelation, this one from The Times of London:

A WARNING that climate change will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 is likely to be retracted after a series of scientific blunders by the United Nations body that issued it.

Oh, I see.

Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world's glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.

In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC's 2007 report.

Why do I think there are more examples like this?

It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.

Hasnain has since admitted that the claim was "speculation" and was not supported by any formal research. If confirmed it would be one of the most serious failures yet seen in climate research. The IPCC was set up precisely to ensure that world leaders had the best possible scientific advice on climate change.

COMMENT:  This is absolutely and utterly disgraceful.  We have begun to realize that much of the talk of "climate change" has nothing to do with climate at all, but is a subtle assault on free enterprise.  Remember, the greatest applause at the recent so-called "climate summit" in Copenhagen went, not to President Obama, or even to Al Gore, but to the thug, Hugo Chavez, after his out-of-control assault on capitalism.

Articles like this are useful, and represent what journalism should be – a search for the truth.  We need more of them, and we need a series about the strange things that go on in the "global warming" industry.  Will it take Dorothy Rabinowitz of The Wall Street Journal to do it?

January 18, 2010   Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 9:12 A.M. ET:  From British writer and editor Harold Evans, on the style and plight of Barack Obama, one year into his presidency:

Obama enjoys working with the clever advisers he calls his "propeller heads." There is hardly any senior person in the administration who has had to manage a business or meet a payroll, a deficiency that may yet be fatal to the hopes of a recovery, of which more in a moment. His Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, is admirably loyal, but she has been vindicated in her campaign charge that Obama's willingness to meet any adversary, any time anywhere, was naive.

That's one of the best critiques of Obama that I've read.

In his first year, Obama has swallowed humiliation after humiliation from Iran, as Carter did from the ayatollahs all through his ignominious final year. The Iranian leaders have behaved like playground bullies, kicking the pacific Obama in the teeth with as much insulting vigour as they did the demon Bush. The response of the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini to the proffered handshake was: "The Great Satan now has a black face." Even last summer, when millions took to the streets across Iran to protest against the crooked election, and got killed and jailed for their pains, Obama stayed aloof on the grounds that to intervene would be meddling with Iran's elected government (Hello?).

And on the economic picture:

"They used to tell me I was building a dream" is the opening line of the song Yip Harburg wrote in 1932 for Rudy Vallee, meeting a request by President Herbert Hoover to write a melody that would make people forget the Depression. It would be too bad if "Buddy, can you spare a dime?" became the lament for the lost dreams of the Obama presidency.

COMMENT:  That is not a rave review.  I would not buy tickets to the Obama Show.  Tomorrow's vote in Massachusetts, if it works out the way we'd want it to, could be a decisive moment in modern American politics, a verdict on the Obama presidency that, unless the president changes course, can forecast the end.

January 18, 2010   Permalink 

AFGHAN ATTACK – AT 8:51 A.M. ET:  There was a spectacular Taliban attack in Afghanistan this morning, reminiscent of the "Tet Offensive" style attack of the Vietnam War.  From The New York Times:

KABUL, Afghanistan — Teams of militants launched a spectacular assault at the heart of the Afghan government Monday, with at least two men detonating suicide bombs and the rest fighting to the death only 50 feet from the gates of the presidential palace.

The attacks, the latest in a series targeting the Afghan capital, paralyzed the city for hours, as hundreds of Afghan commandos converged and opened fire. The battle unfolded in the middle of Pashtunistan Square, a traffic circle that holds the palace of President Hamid Karzai, the Ministry of Justice and the Central Bank, which appeared to be the object of the attack.

As the gun battle raged, another suicide bomber — this one driving an ambulance — struck a traffic circle a half-mile away, sending a second mass of bystanders fleeing in terror.

And...

The effect of the attack seemed primarily psychological, designed to strike fear into the usually quiet precincts of downtown Kabul — and to drive home the ease with which insurgents could strike the American-backed government here.

Yes, memories of Tet.

In that way the assault succeeded without question: The streets of Kabul emptied, merchants shuttered their shops and Afghans ran from their offices. Even guards assigned to Mr. Karzai himself came to join the fighting; it was that close.

COMMENT:  We're focused on Massachusetts today, and will be tomorrow.  But then there's work to be done in Afghanistan, Iran, and elsewhere.  Obama will be challenged on every foreign-policy front.  So far, he's bunted at best.

January 18, 2010   Permalink

SIGN OF THE TIMES – AT 8:23 A.M. ET:  New York talk-show host Mike Scully, on whose WVOX show I'm privileged to appear, sends us this sign of the times – actually a Massachusetts vehicle's rear window:

That pretty much says it.

January 18, 2010   Permalink

MASSACHUSETTS – AT 8:05 A.M. ET:  The campaign begins its last day.  Voting is tomorrow.  We hope that, tomorrow night, we will see the beginning of the end of the old order.

We should be hopeful, but guardedly so.  The polls published late yesterday all show Scott Brown ahead, by five to ten points.  We expect new polls today, even tomorrow morning.

But remember the old adage:  The only poll that counts is the one on election day. 

Tomorrow's election will be decided by turnout.  Scott Brown's troops have the enthusiasm.  Martha Coakley's troops....wait, she wouldn't say troops.  She would say multicultural electoral caregivers.  At any rate, Martha's MECs have the Democratic machine, and it is formidable in Massachusetts.

We will look today for the following things:  1) any last-minute "revelations" about Brown by the Coakheads.  In other words, any last-minute smears.  2)  The impact of King Day on the African-American community's attitude toward the election, which up to now has been indifferent.  3) Any sign of a last-minute shift, either way, as a result of Obama's visit to Massachusetts yesterday.

CNN's Ed Henry is reporting this morning that the White House believes Coakley will lose.  This can be a case of trying to lower expectations.  Or, more likely, they actually believe it.

Coakley, given certain conditions, including changes in the weather, can still pull it out.  Don't underestimate the Democrats of the Bay State.  But we should be hoping for a convincing Brown win of five points or more – enough to prevent strange things from being done with the vote count. 

We'll be monitoring this today, tonight, and through tomorrow night.

January 18,  2010   Permalink

SUNDAY,  JANUARY 17,  2010

BULLETIN - AT 11:41 P.M. ET:  PPP, a Democratic polling firm, now has Brown five points ahead of Coakley.

Brown leads 51-46 in a poll of 1,231 likely voters.  The poll was taken yesterday and today.

PPP's last poll, taken from the 7th through the 9th, had Brown ahead one point, 48-47.

We should have a Rasmussen report tomorrow.

January 17, 2010   Permalink

ANOTHER MASSACHUSETTS READER REPORT – AT 11:07 P.M. ET:  Reader Gordon Bennett files this from Brookline, Massachusetts.  Brookline is filled with people who, in 1776, would have tried to research and understand the root cause of British frustration:

Drove through Coolidge Corner in the heart of Brookline this afternoon (the Brookline of Dukakis, Kennedy, and 80%+ margins for Obama-Biden in 2008) and instead of the usual gaggle of peaceniks waving multicolored rainbow signs, two Brown supporters occupied the high ground in an apparently uncontested fight and planted his flag. As Obama frequently says, "unprecedented."

Goody.

January 17, 2010   Permalink

YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE THIS – AT 10:26 P.M. ET:  Now we know the source of Martha Coakley's problems.  It's the source of all our problems.  It's...it's...it's...

As audience members streamed out of Pres. Obama's rally on behalf of AG Martha Coakley (D) here tonight, the consensus was that the fault for Coakley's now-floundering MA SEN bid lies with one person -- George W. Bush.

"People are upset because there's so many problems," Rosemary Kverek, 70, a retired Charleston schoolteacher said as tonight's rally wrapped up. "But the problems came from the previous administration. So we're blaming poor Obama, who's working 36 hours a day ... to solve these problems that he inherited."

Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI), speaking with a gaggle of reporters after the event, said that while state Sen. Scott Brown (R) offers voters a quick fix, in reality, the problems created by "George Bush and his cronies" are not so easily solved.

COMMENT:  I knew it.  Didn't you?  What's wrong with you?  Everyone knows it's BUSH (!!).  And even worse, it's that curse of Massachusetts, CHENEY (!!!).  Oh, there's also RUMSFELD.  Remember him?

Geez.

January 17, 2010    Permalink

MORE MASSACHUSETTS OUTRAGE – AT 9:56 P.M. ET:  The remarkable smear campaign against Scott Brown, which will climax tomorrow, continues, under the direction of national Democrats.  The Politico has the latest:

The Democratic Senate Campaign Committee is making hay this morning of a clip in which Scott Brown, in the process of praising President Obama's mother for deciding to have him at age 18, expresses some doubt -- and chuckles uncomfortably -- over the question of whether his parents were married when he was born.

DSCC spokesman Eric Schultz called the video "appalling" and tried to link Brown to the Birther movement, which denies Obama's citizenship and claims he was born abroad -- things he didn't even hint at in the video.

Politico writers are thick-skinned political reporters, and even they are appalled:

The claim is a wild stretch. The fact that Obama's mother was young and had to marry on the fly (his mother was pregnant when they were married in February, 1981) is central to his biography, as is his father's absence, and while Brown seems confused on that biographical point, he doesn't suggest in any way that he's aligned with the Birthers. Indeed in a GOP where Birther claims are common on the Hill and on the airwaves, Brown's words are practically a vote of confidence.

COMMENT:  We hope there's a voter backlash against this kind of stuff, but we wonder what we're going to get tomorrow, the last day of the campaign.

January 17, 2010    Permalink

YIKES! – AT 7:49 P.M. ET:  We only have one late Massachusetts poll, by MRG and InsideMedford.com.  MRG is a respected firm.  I don't know anything about its partner.  The poll, taken late Friday, shows the following:

A poll conducted by the Merriman River Group (MRG) and InsideMedford.com indicates that Scott Brown leads Martha Coakley 50.8% – 41.2% in the contest to fill the seat of the late Senator Ted Kennedy. Liberty Party candidate Joe Kennedy pulls in just 1.8% support, while 6.2% of voters are still not sure. Brown and Coakley both have most of their supporters locked in. 98% of both candidate’s supporters say they are definitely or probably going to vote for their candidate. In contrast, 22% of Kennedy’s supporters are just leaning toward him, suggesting that Brown and Coakley may both want to take aim at swaying those voters.

That's essentially a ten-point lead for Brown.  However, the sample of likely voters was relatively small. 

MRG surveyed 565 likely voters between 5:00 P.M. and 8:45 P.M. on January 15, 2010 using touch-tone polling technology. The margin of error is +/– 4.1%. Some columns do not sum to 100% due to rounding.

Encouraging.  But we'll know in 48 hours.

January 17, 2010   Permalink

OBAMA TO MASSACHUSETTS – AT 5:04 P.M. ET:  The president flew into Massachusetts to try to save Martha Coakley from herself.  The New York Times reports:

BOSTON — President Obama swooped into Massachusetts on Sunday in an attempt to rescue the flailing candidacy of Martha Coakley, the Democratic Senate candidate in a special election on Tuesday that will determine whether the party will preserve its 60-vote majority in the United States Senate and keep alive its health care agenda.

Wait, wait, wait.  A few problems there.  The president "swooped" in?  I wonder if The Times ever had George W. Bush swooping.  So heroic, so romantic.

And, uh, the election won't determine whether the Dems can keep alive their health-care agenda.  It will only determine whether they have the 60 votes to stop a GOP filibuster.  They're already threatening to pursue their agenda through unconventional means.

“If you were fired up in the last election, I need you more fired up in this election,” Mr. Obama said, speaking over the loud applause of a packed basketball arena at Northeastern University. “Understand what’s at stake here Massachusetts. It’s whether we’re going forwards or backwards.”

Mr. President, that's your problem:  Many people think you are going backwards.

The Democratic Party deployed its full political arsenal here for the final 48 hours of the battle between Ms. Coakley, the Massachusetts attorney general, and Scott Brown, a Republican state senator, to fill the seat of the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

As the race lurched to an unpredictable finish, Republicans worked to capitalize on an uneven campaign by Ms. Coakley and a strong air of dissatisfaction with Washington. Senior Democrats conceded on Sunday the real prospect that Ms. Coakley could lose the race, but they hoped Mr. Obama’s visit would rally the Democratic base.

Translated:  Get those minorities to the polls, then ignore them between elections.

COMMENT:  We'll know in little more than 48 hours.

January 17, 2010   Permalink

FIELD REPORT – Here is a field report from Massachusetts that reader Will Stroock was kind enough to send us by e-mail:

Great Barrington and all of western Mass (I don’t know how to spell the state’s name either, and I’ve been coming here since 1973), is a burnt-out industrial section of the country. The factories were devastated by post war competition and are mostly gone. They took the tourist industry with them. What began moving in during the 1980’s was the same new-age Bohemian element that has taken over Vermont. The café I write this in is filled with dirty hippies - not a political commentary but an actual description – old time hippies who run organic farms, and the local burnouts. For some reason this café is also filled with pretty teenage girls.  I have no idea why they come here. The town nuts prefer Dunkin Donuts. Though they tend to stay away from Great Barrington’s main street, there is a large summer-residence element composed of affluent New Yorkers.  That’s me, but we owned land up here way before it was popular. They treat the locals like servants.

As for the locals, they’re usually too busy working to get political. The deli at the Price Chopper has no fewer than seven photos of children in the military, three marines, two sailors, one soldier and an airman (or woman, I don’t know the term for females). These are the people who are out on Lakes Buel and Garfield right now ice fishing and drinking beer, but mostly drinking beer. If there was ever a revolution the locals would be running the place within five minutes because they’re all armed to the teeth.

Despite the strong NRA/NASCAR element, make no mistake, this is liberal territory. In 2004 this area was filled with Kerry/Edwards signs. I used to go running in a Bush/Cheney hat and often was nearly run off the road for my trouble. In 2006 the yards were filled with Deval Patrick signs. In 2008, of course, Obama signs and stickers were everywhere. There were also a lot of creepy Obama paintings, as we have a strong artist colony here now.

This weekend I counted three Scott Brown yard signs and one Liberty or Union Revolutionary War flag (the royal navy Red Ensign with the words Liberty or Union stitched on it), up here, that make you conservative.

Now hear this: I have seen no, repeat no Martha Coakley signs, not a one. Not a sign, not a sticker, not a placard, except for one of the nuts holding a handmade sign at the bridge across the Housatonic.

Make of this what you will, but it doesn’t sound good for Coakley.

As they say, there's nothing like having boots on the ground, especially when the boots can send e-mails.

January 17, 2010   Permalink

OH PLEASE – AT 12:31 P.M. ET:  President Obama is in church today.  He's speaking at a black church in Washington, with TV coverage.   Presumably, it's about Haiti. 

Oh, come on.  Now, really.  The man hasn't been in a church, to my recollection, since inauguration day.  Look, I hate to sound cynical, but let's be cynical.  This isn't about Haiti, although I don't doubt the president's devotion.  This is about Massachusetts.  Those images are beamed to the minority community in Boston, and the message is plain:  Get out and vote for my ally on Tuesday.

Our first post this morning reported the race card already being played blatantly in Massachusetts.  This is phase two.  Phase three comes when the president flies to Boston later today.  Phase four comes tomorrow, Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  It's the way ethnic politics is played. 

January 17, 2010   Permalink

A GREAT NATION AT WORK – AT 11:27 A.M. ET:  Once again we find ourselves quoting a British writer examining the United States, and finding it good.  From London's Telegraph:

Compare and contrast the initial responses of two "major world powers" to the Haitian earthquake disaster. Within hours of Port-au-Prince crumbling into ruins, the US had sent in an aircraft carrier with 19 helicopters, hospital and assault ships, the 82nd Airborne Division with 3,500 troops and hundreds of medical personnel. They put the country's small airport back on an operational footing, and President Obama pledged an initial $100 million dollars in emergency aid.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the European Union geared itself up with a Brussels press conference led by Commission Vice-President Baroness Ashton, now the EU's High Representative – our new foreign minister. A scattering of bored-looking journalists in the Commission's lavishly appointed press room heard the former head of Hertfordshire Health Authority stumbling through a prepared statement, in which she said that she had conveyed her "condolences" to the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, and pledged three million euros in aid.

Ashton, with whom we will probably have to deal, if no one else is around, has already made a fool of herself several times.  It is rumored that her theme song is "Be a Clown."

Memories might have gone back to December 2004, which saw similarly contrasting responses to the Indian Ocean tsunami catastrophe which cost nearly 300,000 lives. Again, within hours the US took the lead in forming an alliance with Australia, India and Japan, and had sent in two battle groups fully equipped to deal with such an emergency, including 20 ships led by two carriers with 90 helicopters...

...The EU, by contrast, pledged three million euros for the tsunami victims, called for a three-minute silence (three times longer than is customary to remember the millions who died in two world wars) and proposed a "donors' conference" in Jakarta nearly two weeks later to discuss what might be done.

Finally...

The only real difference between these two episodes is that, in the five years which have elapsed since 2004, the EU has even more noisily laid claim to its status as what Tony Blair liked to call "a world superpower", capable of standing on the world stage as an equal of the US. Anyone who witnessed the dismal showing at Thursday's press conference of the High Representative, which would scarcely have passed muster at a board meeting of the Hertfordshire Health Authority, might well cringe at the thought.

Hooray for the Telegraph.  Now let's have this from some American journalists.

January 17, 2010   Permalink

SHE'S BAAACK – AT 11:05 A.M. ET:  Remember Cindy Sheehan, queen of the "anti-war" activists during the Bush administration?  She's back for Act II, but her nostalgia for those good-old BUSH (!!) years continues.  From AP:

LANGLEY, Virginia — A group led by anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan has protested near the CIA's headquarters and former Vice President Dick Cheney's home in northern Virginia.

They were protesting the use of unmanned drone aircraft to attack al-Qaida and Taliban targets.

The group of about 70 people rallied alongside a highway near the CIA compound Saturday. About half then marched to Cheney's nearby street and stayed for 20 minutes. Police kept them from going down his street.

Huh?  Cheney's street?  Do they understand that something happened last January 20th...like an inauguration? 

What outrages me is that people like this are still described by the mainstream media as "anti-war."  They're not anti-war.  They're only against any war that America has a chance of winning.  And they are utterly contemptuous of human rights and democratic principles.  When I see Cindy Sheehan protesting the cutting down of Iran's democracy demonstrators, maybe I'll think a little differently.  Until then, I'll hold my position.

January 17, 2010   Permalink

A WEEK TO REMEMBER – AT 10:48 A.M. ET:  This begins a momentous week in America.  No, I'm not talking about the Massachusetts election.  I'm talking about tonight's launch of the eighth season of "24."  In my house, that's a national holiday, marked by a dramatic pause in the counting of calories.

Fox tonight, 9 p.m. Two hours. 

Tomorrow night, 8 p.m. Two more hours.

The edition of "24" tonight is on against the Golden Globe awards.  Jack Bauer vs. Susan Sarandon.  Is there a choice there?

January 17, 2010   Permalink

MASSACHUSETTS – AT 10:08 A.M. ET:  There are no new Massachusetts polls at this hour.  We expect there'll be more either late today, or, certainly, there'll be wrap-up polls tomorrow.  There are two full days of campaigning to go before Tuesday's vote.

The key element to watch for today – the race card.  President Obama flies in later in the day to campaign for Coakley, and the focus will be on bringing out the so-called "black vote."  African-Americans have been indifferent to Coakley.

Also, and this hasn't been discussed, tomorrow is Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  Lots of focus on minorities, minority interests, minority fears.  The Dems know how to work a day like that.

How blatant is it?  It's already started:

BOSTON (AP) -- Boston Mayor Thomas Menino has told a largely black congregation that if Democrat Martha Coakley loses the U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts, it will be a victory for people who want President Barack Obama to fail.

Coakley, who's Massachusetts' attorney general, is in a tight race against Republican Scott Brown. The special election Tuesday is being held to fill the seat left vacant by the death of U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy.

Menino appeared with Coakley at a Sunday morning prayer service in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood for victims of the Haiti earthquake.

By the end of today, or tomorrow, I wouldn't be shocked to see this even worse – Brown portrayed as a friend of racists, a racist himself, or a friend of racists who takes orders from Sarah Palin. 

The Democratic Party depends heavily on the black vote.  This could be a very ugly two days. 

January 17,  2010   Permalink