Brown Scores Upset Victory Over Coakley in Massachusetts Senate Race
Monti Says: Hey Washington! There’s a new sheriff in town!
Foxnews.com
January 19, 2010
In a victory few thought possible just a month ago, Republican Scott Brown defeated Democrat Martha Coakley Tuesday in the race for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy — a win that could grind President Obama’s agenda to a halt and portend huge losses for Democrats in the November midterms.
In a victory few thought possible just a month ago, Republican Scott Brown defeated Democrat Martha Coakley Tuesday in the race for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy — a win that could grind President Obama’s agenda to a halt and portend huge losses for Democrats in the November midterms.
In his victory speech, Brown declared that he had “defied the odds and the pundits,” and said he would try to be a “worthy successor” to Kennedy.
“Tonight, the independent voice of Massachusetts has spoken,” Brown said. “This Senate seat belongs to no one person, no one political party. … This is the people’s seat.”
With 97 percent of precincts reporting, returns showed Brown leading Coakley 52-47 percent, by a margin of 120,000 votes. Independent candidate Joseph Kennedy was pulling 1 percent.
The victory marks a stunning upset in a race thought to be safe for Democrats until Brown’s campaign began to surge just weeks ago. It has powerful ramifications for Obama’s agenda.
The GOP state senator, once sworn in, will break the Democrats’ 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority in Washington. This creates problems for proposed legislation ranging from financial regulatory reform to cap-and-trade, but most immediately Brown’s win sends Democrats into a scramble to pass health care reform before he arrives in Washington. Democrats were already weighing options for how to fast-track the bill before polls closed Tuesday.
Brown blasted the health care bill in his Tuesday night speech. He was visibly giddy during the address, going off script and at one point offering up his daughters to the dating circuit — and later flubbing his campaign pitch line, “I’m Scott Brown. I’m from Wrentham. And I drive a truck.”
Coakley, in her concession speech, said she was “heartbroken” by the result but thanked the Kennedy family for their support in the race and said she respects the voters’ choice.
“There will be plenty of Wednesday-morning quarterbacking about what happened, what went right, what went wrong …. We will be honest about the assessment of this race and although I was very disappointed, I always respect the voters’ choice,” she said.
Brown’s margin of victory is significant, making it difficult for any potential challenges to slow down his certification as the winner. The state senator becomes the first Republican to be elected to the Senate from the Bay State since 1972.
Kennedy, who died in August, held the post for 47 years.
“This is a lot different than my victory,” former Massachusetts Republican Gov. Mitt Romney told Fox News. “To have a Republican senator, that’s unheard of. … This is monumental. This is epic.”
He and other Republicans said the race sends a warning sign to Washington that voters are not happy with Obama’s policy decisions.
The White House said Obama has spoken with both candidates. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama told Brown he “looks forward to working with him on the urgent economic challenges facing Massachusetts families and struggling families across our nation.”
Considering how much was on the line, Brown’s late-in-the-game surge commanded the attention of the Democratic Party establishment, which dispatched top officials over the past week to try to keep the seat formerly held by Kennedy in Democratic hands. Voter interest in the race for U.S. Senate also seemed high throughout the day. Poll workers reported a steady stream of voters at the ballot box despite the snow.
Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin was predicting turnout could be as high as 50 percent.
Brown’s campaign marked an upset just by being as competitive as it was against Coakley’s.
Democrats outnumber Republicans 3-to-1 in the state — 37 percent of registered voters are Democrats, 12 percent are Republicans and 51 percent are unaffiliated. Obama won the state by 26 percentage points in the 2008 presidential election.
But Brown was pulling far more support across the state Tuesday than Republican presidential candidate John McCain did in 2008.
The campaigns had been inundated with help from outside the state in recent days. Obama and former President Bill Clinton both came to campaign rallies for Coakley, and Obama appeared in a television ad.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee in Washington also “emptied out the building” of staff to send nearly everyone to Massachusetts to help Brown get out the vote. The NRSC reportedly quietly shifted $500,000 to help Brown’s campaign in the last two weeks.
Brown’s swift rise in the reliably blue state has startled Democrats nationally who are already worried about a backlash in the midterms.
“When there’s trouble in Massachusetts, there’s trouble everywhere, and they know it,” Brown said Tuesday night.
Sen. Robert Menendez, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, acknowledged the rough road ahead for the party.
“I have no interest in sugar coating what happened in Massachusetts. There is a lot of anxiety in the country right now,” he said in a statement. “In the days ahead, we will sort through the lessons of Massachusetts: the need to redouble our efforts on the economy, the need to show that our commitment to real change is as powerful as it was in 2008, and the reality that we cannot take a single thing for granted and cannot afford even a second of complacency.”
Brown will have to run for re-election in November 2012.
Massachusetts: ‘Bottom has fallen out’ of Coakley’s polls; Dems prepare to explain defeat, protect Obama
Monti Says: Hey left, wing-nut Democrats! What goes up, must come down! Bye bye unconstitutional healthcare bill!
Washingtonexaminer.com
January 15, 2010
Byron York
Here in Massachusetts, as well as in Washington, a growing sense of gloom is setting in among Democrats about the fortunes of Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley. “I have heard that in the last two days the bottom has fallen out of her poll numbers,” says one well-connected Democratic strategist. In her own polling, Coakley is said to be around five points behind Republican Scott Brown. “If she’s not six or eight ahead going into the election, all the intensity is on the other side in terms of turnout,” the Democrat says. “So right now, she is destined to lose.”
Intensifying the gloom, the Democrat says, is the fact that the same polls showing Coakley falling behind also show President Obama with a healthy approval rating in the state. “With Obama at 60 percent in Massachusetts, this shouldn’t be happening, but it is,” the Democrat says.
Given those numbers, some Democrats, eager to distance Obama from any electoral failure, are beginning to compare Coakley to Creigh Deeds, the losing Democratic candidate in the Virginia governor’s race last year. Deeds ran such a lackluster campaign, Democrats say, that his defeat could be solely attributed to his own shortcomings, and should not be seen as a referendum on President Obama’s policies or those of the national Democratic party.
The same sort of thinking is emerging in Massachusetts. “This is a Creigh Deeds situation,” the Democrat says. “I don’t think it says that the Obama agenda is a problem. I think it says, 1) that she’s a terrible candidate, 2) that she ran a terrible campaign, 3) that the climate is difficult but she should have been able to overcome it, and 4) that Democrats beware — you better run good campaigns, or you’re going to lose.”
With the election still four days away, Democrats are still hoping that “something could happen” to change the dynamics of the race. But until that thing happens, the situation as it exists today explains Barack Obama’s decision not to travel to Massachusetts to campaign for Coakley. “If the White House thinks she can win, Obama will be there,” the Democrat says. “If they don’t think she can win, he won’t be there.” For national Democrats, the task is now to insulate Obama against any suggestion that a Coakley defeat would be a judgment on the president’s agenda and performance in office.
The private talk among Democrats is also reflected in some public polling on the race. Late Thursday, we learned the results of a Suffolk University poll showing Brown in the lead by four points, 50 percent to 46 percent. That poll showed Obama with a 55 percent approval rating. Also on Thursday, two of Washington’s leading political analysts, Stuart Rothenberg and Charlie Cook, each changed their assessment of the Brown/Coakley race from a narrow advantage for Coakley to a toss-up.
President Obama Must Choose Sides
So how much rocket science does it take to figure out that the Obameister’s policy of appeasement just isn’t working? And the better question is why didn’t more people see that he was ill prepared to be the Commander-in-Chief while we were at war with an enemy he is afraid to name: Jihadist Islam?
AMERCAN THINKER
January 10, 2010
Pop star admits that she was a little tipsy during her award show acceptance speech.
Monti Says: How many women are hot even while drunk like Mariah was? She’s given me inspiration to launch my new page: Monti’s Foxy’s. Enjoy!
Associated Press
January 6, 2010
Monti Says: This low-life, corrupt, coward is not retiring. He’s quitting because the going is getting tough. The silver lining is that the American people will no longer suffer because this political thief’s public service career is over!
The Washington Post
January 6, 2010
By Chris Cillizza
Embattled Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) has scheduled a news conference for Wednesday at which he is expected to announce he will not seek reelection, sources familiar with his plans said Tuesday night.
Word of Dodd’s retirement plans comes after months of speculation about his political future, his faltering poll numbers and a growing sense among the Democratic establishment that he could not win a sixth term in the Senate. The news also came on the same day Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) announced he would not seek reelection.
Once among the safest of incumbents, Dodd’s political star fell over a two-year period, during which he moved his family to Iowa to pursue the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination and was linked to a VIP mortgage loan program overseen by a controversial Wall Street financier. He also drew harsh questions about his oversight of Wall Street, as chair of the Senate Banking Committee, in the years when the nation’s financial system was heading toward near collapse.
Dodd’s poll numbers plummeted last spring before rebounding somewhat over the summer. But another dive in the polls late last year led to widespread concern that Dodd needed to vacate the seat for Democrats to have a chance at retaining it in the 2010 elections.
Dodd’s troubles were politically ironic, coming at a time when his power on Capitol Hill had reached a height that most legislators only dream of. In addition to the banking committee, he also held pivotal posts on the health and foreign relations committees.
Over the past 18 months, he has been the primary author or co-author of legislation rewriting housing mortgage rules; the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street; key portions of the $787 billion stimulus package; a consumer protection bill overseeing the credit card industry; and the nearly $900 billion health-care legislation that has passed the Senate and is in final negotiations with the House now.
With each major piece of legislation Dodd ushered into law, the senator also endured criticism that he did not anticipate. The mortgage bill came in mid-2008, which some said was delayed because of Dodd’s presidential aspirations, and the financial bailout became one of the most unpopular pieces of legislation passed in recent memory. His work on the stimulus bill, approved last February, was an attempt to rein in executive compensation at firms that had been bailed out but instead led to sharp criticism when executives at AIG, the largest recipient of taxpayer dollars, still received seven-figure bonuses shortly thereafter.
Without Dodd on the ballot, Republicans’ chances of taking over a seat in solid-blue Connecticut are considerably diminished.
Richard Blumenthal (D), who has served as state attorney general since 1990, is widely expected to declare his candidacy for the seat. The most popular politician in the state, Blumenthal has long coveted a Senate seat, and he had already signaled that he would run for the Democratic nomination against Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I) in 2012.
Former Rep. Rob Simmons and businesswoman Linda McMahon are battling for the Republican nomination, but either would start as an underdog in a general-election match-up with Blumenthal.
Dodd, 65, was elected to the Senate in 1980, after three terms in the House, following the path blazed by his father, Thomas. By the early 1990s, Chris Dodd had set his sights on Senate leadership.
He ran for Democratic leader in the wake of the 1994 elections, but he lost in a close race to Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.). President Bill Clinton selected Dodd to chair the Democratic National Committee, overseeing Clinton’s reelection as president in 1996, but the DNC’s fundraising practices during the 1996 campaign landed him in some political hot water.
After Daschle was voted out of office in 2004, Dodd considered jumping into the race to succeed him, but he quickly stepped aside when he realized Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) had overwhelming support to claim the post.
Instead, Dodd began laying the groundwork for a presidential campaign in 2008. Always a long shot in a field filled with better-known and better-financed candidates, he moved his family to Iowa in fall 2007 in hopes of generating some excitement for his bid. But the move backfired in Connecticut, where voters bristled.
The next year, it was reported that Dodd had received special treatment in his acquisition of a mortgage loan from Countrywide Financial, through a program that labeled him and others as friends of Countrywide chief executive Angelo Mozilo. Dodd insisted he was unaware of his inclusion in the program, and he was cleared of any wrongdoing by the Senate Ethics Committee, but the political damage was done.
Staff writers Paul Kane and Dan Balz contributed to this report.
Pelosi tells C-SPAN: ‘There has never been a more open process’
Monti Says: This woman has the integrity of an “ass” and the intelligence of a “hole”. You put it together and you get the U.S. Speaker of the House!
The Hill
January 5, 2010
By Eric Zimmermann and Michael O’Brien
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) defended Congress’ work on a healthcare bill Tuesday saying the process has displayed historic transparency, just as C-SPAN mounts an effort to open the negotiations.
C-SPAN wrote a letter to congressional leaders Tuesday asking that TV cameras be allowed to film negotiations to reconcile the House and Senate versions of healthcare reform legislation.
But Pelosi said Congress has already been transparent throughout the process.
“There has never been a more open process for any legislation,” Pelosi said at a press conference.
Pelosi also hinted that holding informal negotiations–likely without TV cameras–might be the most practical way to push the legislation through.
“We will do what is necessary to pass the bill,” Pelosi said.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), assistant to the Speaker, said the healthcare bill had been “subjected to unprecedented level of public scrutiny.”
Pressed on whether C-SPAN cameras would be allowed in negotiations, Van Hollen hedged.
“We don’t even know if there’s going to be a conference committee,” he said, alluding to the likelihood that Democrats will reconcile the two bills behind closed doors.
Beleaguered Nelson to air TV ad tonight
Monti Says: You think we can’t fight “city hall”? Guess again. Bye bye Ben! You are finished! Great job Nebraska!
JournalStar.com
December 30, 2009
Don Walton
As a fresh poll measured the political cost of Sen. Ben Nelson’s health reform vote, he prepared Tuesday to take his case directly to Nebraskans during Wednesday night’s Holiday Bowl game.
Nelson will air a new TV ad in which he attempts to debunk opposition claims that the Senate legislation represents a government takeover, and he makes the case for health care reform.
“With all the distortions about health care reform, I want you to hear directly from me,” the Democratic senator says in the ad.
Nelson, dressed in an open-necked shirt and sweater, speaks directly into the camera during the 30-second ad.
The message will be launched during the Nebraska-Arizona football game and continue to air statewide for an undisclosed number of days.
The political damage Nelson may have incurred in providing the critical 60th vote that cleared the way for Senate passage of the health care reform bill showed up Tuesday in a poll released by Rasmussen Reports.
The telephone survey of 500 Nebraskans, conducted Monday, suggested Republican Gov. Dave Heineman would defeat Nelson in a potential 2012 Senate race by a 61-30 margin.
The poll showed Nelson with a 55 percent unfavorable rating and 64 percent disapproval for Democratic health care reform legislation.
“The good news for (Nelson) is that he doesn’t have to face Nebraska voters until 2012,” Rasmussen Reports stated in posting results of the survey on its Web site.
Nelson would be seeking a third term should he choose to be a candidate for re-election three years from now.
Heineman is seeking re-election as governor in 2010 and would be at mid-term if he chooses to enter the Senate race in 2012.
Julie Schmit-Albin, executive director of Nebraska Right to Life, said the Rasmussen results demonstrate that Nelson’s votes on health care are “clearly out of touch with the majority” of Nebraskans.
Earlier, Schmit-Albin said Nelson betrayed his pro-life supporters when he agreed to compromise language prohibiting federal funding of abortions.
She has argued that the language would allow federal funding to be used to subsidize abortions. Nelson maintains there would be no funding of abortions with federal money.
“One wonders if (Nelson) misjudged the level of opposition to this legislation from his constituents,” Schmit-Albin said.
“Or if he had already made a decision to never seek office again.”
In his TV message to Nebraskans, Nelson says: “I listened to you and took a common-sense approach to improve the bill.
“Now it lowers costs for families and small business, protects Medicare, finally guarantees coverage for pre-existing conditions and reduces the defici
“And it’s not run by the government.
“I’m convinced this is right for Nebraska,” Nelson says.
House passes IRAN REFINED PETROLEUM SANCTIONS ACT in a vote of 412 TO 12
December 16, 2009
These Congresspeople ABSOLUTELY MUST be voted out of office. In a vote of 412 to 12 last night, these morons had the audacity to vote against, vote a meaningless “present” or not vote on a very important piece of legislation that passed overwhelmingly:
The IRAN REFINED PETROLEUM SANCTIONS ACT OF 2009. More than 3/4 of the House co-sponsored this act and these idiots have revealed their true hate for America. Let’s dump them ALL at the next bus stop, America!
Send this to everyone on your email list!!
—- NOES 12 —
| Baldwin Blumenauer Conyers Duncan |
Flake Hinchey Kucinich Lynch |
McDermott Moore (WI) Paul Stark |
| Johnson, E. B. Kilpatrick (MI) |
Lee (CA) Waters |
| Barrett (SC) Clay |
Deal (GA) Murtha |
Radanovich Sanchez, Loretta |
Uranium Deuteride: Iran’s “Next Secret”
And why should this surprise anyone?
If attacked, Iran wants Syria to hit back at Israel. Damascus hedges
No doubt this is more smokescreen rhetoric from the madmen in Iran. Sure, let’s ignore the illegal nuclear buildup in Iran and have the world focus on tiny Israel, who is only trying to defend itself against these aggressors.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
December 10, 2009
DEBKAfile‘s military sources report that this message Iran’s defense minister Ahmad Vahidi brought to Damascus where he is attending a session of the high Iranian-Syrian defense committee which went into its second day Thursday, Dec. 10. Syrian defense minister Ali Habib is in the chair.
The Iranian visitor indicated that Tehran expects an Israeli attack within a month. According to Iranian intelligence, Jerusalem will take its green light from President Barack Obama’s forced admission after Christmas that his policy of dialogue and stiffer sanctions have failed in the face of Tehran’s rejection of the international proposal to send its enriched uranium for overseas processing.
“The countdown for war is coming close to its end,” said Vahidi to the joint defense committee. “And we must get our strategic partnership in shape ahead of time.”
The leitmotif of the Iranian defense secretary’s talks in Damascus was the fate Iran and Syria share and their strategic partnership as the only safeguards against what he called “‘American-backed Zionist aggression.” Syria must commit itself to joint military action against Israel, because “stronger defense ties between Iran and Syria are elements of deterrence in confronting the Zionist regime’s threats to the countries of the region.”
For the first, time, Gen. Vahidi openly threatened to respond to a possible Israel attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities by striking Israel’s “chemical, microbiological and banned nuclear weapons” production sites.
His message brought forth a tepid Syrian response: The Iranian news agency IRNA quoted Syrian Secretary of Defense Ali Habib as commenting early Thursday, December 10, that an attack on Iran by any party would be deemed an attack on Syria and draw commensurate retaliation.
But DEBKAfile‘s military sources point out that comment did not satisfy Tehran because it is short of clear language pledging specific military action. Iranian officials mean to stay in Damascus and keep up the pressure until they elicit a firm, binding Syrian commitment to strike Israel on its ally’s behalf if Iran comes under attack.
Gen. Vahidi arrived in Damascus Tuesday aboard a special Iranian military aircraft. It carried the largest Iranian military delegation ever seen in the Syrian capital, representing every branch of Iran’s armed forces, Revolutionary Guards Corps and intelligence.
Preparations for coordinated retaliation for a potential Israeli attack also brought a top Hizballah delegation incoming from Lebanon to Damascus Tuesday night, Dec. 8, headed by its secretary general Hassan Nasrallah.
When they met, Syrian and Iranian military officials proposed that Hizballah and the Palestinian terrorist organizations start heating up Israel’s borders in the coming days to draw the attention from the world’s focus on the Iranian and Syrian nuclear programs.
Sunday, December 6, DEBKAfile‘s Washington sources reported that the Obama administration was about to launch a campaign against Syria’s covert military nuclear program based on the “smoking gun” of traces of highly processed plutonium found by UN inspectors at the bombed Syrian-North Korean facility at Dir a-Zur. The campaign will focus on this finding as evidence of Iran’s covert nuclear activities and proliferation activities
