Since the election, the situation has become increasingly inexplicable: with no uncertainty regarding the outcome of January 19’s vote, why is appointed Kennedy family crony Paul Kirk still in the US Senate? And for what reason must Scott Brown wait weeks for his victory to be certified?
Beyond partisan politics, there’s no logical purpose served whatsoever.
For the first few days, it seemed appropriate for Brown to visit Washington and get the lay of the land. If legally dubious, Kirk’s continued presence there could be argued by some as legitimate.
As of two weeks later, however, with more than a week of stall tactics ahead of us, there’s simply no excuse.
But what surprises me most is the extraordinary patience of Brown and so many others as this process drags along for no apparent reason. That patience wore out suddenly today as Brown and supporters wondered why Kirk won’t leave the chamber.
So what changed? Blame WRKO’s Howie Carr- his column in today’s Herald takes it straight to Kirk & Company:
Hey Sen. Paul Kirk - screw!
You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here, here being the U.S. Senate.
It’s been 15 days now since a Republican won the special election in Massachusetts, and Kirk is still squatting in Ted Kennedy’s office.
Hey Paul Kirk - how can we miss you if you won’t go away?
What’s it going to take to pry this guy out of office, the Jaws of Life?
From there, something seemed to click and Brown suddenly demanded to be seated immediately. But that led to a instant backlash from the state-run media, which seems to be adopting partisan talking points in accusing him of “breaking the deal” to wait until February 11.
Show me a similar “deal” that has a Republican appointee keeping a seat warm while a Democratic Party victor happily waits patiently for weeks after a special election- good luck in your search.
If Cockroach of the Year Paul Kirk had any decency, he would step down immediately, but clearly has no interest in giving up the seat.
— Maddow links robocalls for Joe Kennedy to voter confusion, then why does Joe have only 1% of the vote
— Another unwatched MSNBC host, Rachel Maddow appears to deliver the bad news
— Chris Matthews is rambling on about Haiti and “wars”, have another drink, buddy
— Brown winning Quincy is huge, that’s not GOP territory, it’s a fairly large city
— some of Brown’s best suburbs on the North Shore have yet to report
— It looks like a funeral at MSNBC right now, Chris Matthews looks glum, am I the only person watching?
— Brown not doing as badly as one would expect in Boston, but it’s a bit early there
— Brown wins several outer / lower Cape towns that went for Obama in 2008
— Brown winning Plymouth, Obama won there in 2008
— Very difficult to reach Herald and Globie websites, isn’t it?
— Just returned from last-minute sign-waving outside the precinct. Brown supporters upbeat, one die-hard Coakley backer there as well. Lots of friendly waves and honks…
— Looks like Martha’s banking on placing a cloud over the election with her crazy tampering allegation. But who will believe that the GOP has fixed the election in Cambridge and Brighton? Isn’t that a joke?
— RNC’s Michael Steelearriving in Boston to celebrate potential win. But if Scott wins, it will be despite the national party’s efforts, not because of it.
— GLOBIES CALL IT FOR MARSHA? Yes, it’s a practice page, but you’ve got to love their wishful thinking
— I’m hearing from a number of listeners who are baffled as to why WRKO would preempt Rush Limbaugh at such an important time. Sure, local talent is filling in, but Rush is talking about Massachusetts! So why the switcheroo?
I believe this is Entercom’s way of sticking it to Limbaugh’s syndicator ahead of a likely move to Clear Channel’s new talk station, scheduled to debut here in April. Expect more petty silliness between now and then.
In my area, however, this isn’t a problem: WXTK-FM offers a excellent alternative.
We’ll cover the issue more after the election is sorted out.
— Fellow libtalker Stephanie Miller couldn’t find anything substantive to say about Martha Coakley, so she resorted to crude sexual remarks about Scott Brown
— Here’s a surprise: the Cape Cod Timeshas endorsed Scott Brown. Coming from a fairly hard core lefty newsroom, that was not expected. But Cape Wind may have been the deciding factor: Brown is opposed, Coakley supports.
The Times has adamantly opposed Cape Wind for years.
— Watch for: can we have our state back please? I realize the Senate race has national implications, but it feels like we’ve been hijacked by outside interests who’ve poured in at the last minute. I’ll have more to say about this soon.
A number of well-meaning Scott Brown supporters have been led to believe that in-state polling is key to waking up sleepy Beltway GOP leaders who’ve so far missed what is clearly a much closer US Senate race than outsiders realize.
To that end, they’ve pushed for polling, even collecting donations to fund such an effort. And there is additional excitement over an expected Rasmussen Poll that was supposedly conducted in the Bay State last night.
Unfortunately, polling is the wrong way to back Brown, for these reasons:
— No pollster in his right mind would release results showing a Republican ahead in Massachusetts, even if the data supported it. They’d redo the survey for the sake of political credibility.
— If Brown is catching up with Coakley, it isn’t something you’d want plastered all over the news, because it could increase Democratic votes. Low turnout is key to any Brown victory (and I DO mean low).
— Any money diverted toward polling would be better spent making sure his clever spots actually reach the airwaves.
Meanwhile, at National Review Online’sCampaign Spot, Jim Geraghty believes primary results show Brown probably doesn’t have a chance, but he’s missing a key point: Dem turnout was higher proportionally due to a hotly-contested, four-way race. That was not the case on the GOP ballot, where Scott had no real competition.
In addition, unenrolled voters, who make up a majority in the Bay State, will be up for grabs. Beltway coverage of Massachusetts politics almost always overlooks the huge percentage of independent voters here.
It was passed during fishy Town Meeting proceedings by just three votes. Small business owners there are rabidly opposing the tax hike, fighting it tooth and nail. This could help Brown in a key stronghold as voters turn out in greater numbers to repeal it.
Not only has Martha Coakley confirmed our suspicions that Scott Brown’s feisty effort has her worried, but the Democratic Party’s US Senate nominee has made the mistake of revealing her surprisingly unsophisticated campaigning skills.
In attempting to fire back at Brown after a series of challenges to her non-presence on the campaign trail, Coakley made the rookie mistake of repeating the primary charge against her:
“It’s not clear to me that he’s articulated anything other than he feels I’m not campaigning hard enough,” Coakley said. “Having no plans is not an option.
In Campaigning 101, the first thing prospective candidates are taught is NEVER to repeat your opponent’s charges! It only lends credibility to the allegations.
From there, it quickly goes downhill as Coakley claims she’s working hard during the campaign by creating “white papers” on issues. Too bad she’s forgotten to let us in on what these profound documents actually address.
Meanwhile:
— At The New Republic, Editor Marty Peretz believesBrown may win the election. A supporter of Democrat Alan Khazei during the primary battle, Peretz calls Coakley “a run-of-the-mill candidate” and believes sudden Democratic Party panic over the US Senate race may be “apt”.
Sure, they’re on the same side of the fence, so this should be expected. But Romney has a history of keeping a firm distance from candidates he believes don’t have a chance at winning, most notably in the last Massachusetts gubernatorial election.
If Romney really believes this, he should make a greater effort to steer money Brown’s way in short order.
For the US Senate general election, here’s a clever way to approach the “Kennedy legacy” question: turn it on its ear.
With a new ad unveiled today, State Senator Scott Brown (R-Wrentham) has done just that, by choosing a different Kennedy to address. By echoing JFK’s onetime call for tax cuts, Brown is able to project a positive economic message and show just how far from the mainstream the party opposite has come over the past half-century.
It’s clever and powerful, but the likelihood that the spot will air extensively is in doubt, thanks to continued ineptitude from the GOP at the national level:
The Globies and Politico have their own coverage here and here. Interestingly, the Boring Broadsheet notes that Coakley has yet to air a single television ad for the general election. Does she ever stop coasting?
After convincing most of us she wasn’t worried about coasting to victory in January’s special US Senate election, Martha Coakley’s actions tell a different story. The Democratic Party nominee’s cynical move to include phony candidate Joseph L Kennedy in upcoming debates is designed to eliminate the unpleasant prospect of directly facing Republican Scott Brown on camera.
As Coakley has a reputation for weak campaigning skills (due to a lack of opponents over the years) and a cold, distant public speaking style, adding fraudulent faker Kennedy (who is attempting to capitalize on surname confusion, he is unrelated to the family) is a ploy to undermine Brown.
If the general election was truly a cakewalk, Coakley wouldn’t waste the energy making a silly move like this, as it wouldn’t matter. Clearly, her internal polling shows this to be a tighter race than the public would believe (especially due to incredibly low expected turnout). She’s a lousy poker player.
So that begs the question: WHY is there cause for worry from the Coakley camp?
Instead, she won in a relative squeaker, slightly more than five percentage points ahead of Ogonowski, a badly underfunded Republican whose claim to fame was based on his brother’s heroic role as a pilot during the 9-11 attacks.
Here’s the kicker: the national political climate two years ago heavily favored Democrats, as Bush’s popularity faded and the GOP lost control of Congress. It never should have been a competitive race, yet just a bit of attention from the increasingly inept national party could have put the Republican over the top.
If Scott Brown were to run a more effective (aggressive) campaign than Ogonowski in 2007, Martha’s cakewalk vanishes and this becomes a truly tight race.
Coakley’s also got an even bigger problem: many of her voters may wrongly assume the race ended on primary day. Or, if they’re aware of the general election, they assume Coakley will sail to victory, so there’s no need to vote.
By contrast, the opposition is chomping at the bit to get a chance to go to the polls and express their disgust. It’s up to Scott Brown to channel that energy and get his own side fired up as much as possible.
For days when you find The Globies just aren’t partisan enough, try enduring an issue of the Patriot-Ledger and its flunky sister papers scattered across various towns in the region.
The Patriot-Ledger combines the establishment-backing elitism of the Boring Broadsheet with a dippy, no-questions-asked approach to covering the Bay State’s ruling class.
Today’s edition has a fantastic example, but there’s far more to this than mere media bias, it really points to the brain rot that has infected Massachusetts political life.
SCITUATE — U.S. Sen. Paul G. Kirk urged a group of middle schoolers to make life a learning opportunity.
Kirk, who was appointed on an interim basis to the Senate seat left vacant by the death of Edward M. Kennedy in August, visited the Inly Montessori School on Friday at the invitation of literature teacher Shelley Sommer. She worked for him at the John F. Kennedy Library.
“Whatever you do in life, don’t waste your time,” Kirk told about 40 students from Inly School and the Thacher Montessori School of Milton.
Kirk said he made the visit in hopes of inspiring students to volunteer and do community service work rather than be idle.
Phoebe Knox, an eighth-grader from Scituate, asked Kirk to describe the positives and negatives of being a senator.
Kirk said differences between political parties are disappointing.
“There’s not enough working together,” he said. “Working across the aisle is missing.”
Kirk told students he believes President Barack Obama is committed to a government health-care plan and that he agrees with the government bailouts to stimulate the economy.
Parents and teachers said students learned a lot from the visit.
“It’s an incredible honor that someone of that status would come to this little school,” said Holly Clifford, an Inly School parent.
So what did our children learn from Phony Senator Kirk?
— That success in life isn’t earned, it’s seized through connections to sleazy politicians.
— That “democracy” has outlived its usefulness, leading to a Senate chamber that looks more and more like the House Of Lords.
— That adults in Massachusetts have been conditioned to believe that decision-making is best left to appointed rulers, as we are not intelligent enough to think for ourselves. Accept the burden of a massive government bureaucracy and the hefty bill that comes with it (which will be covered by our children and grandchildren).
A creep like Paul Kirk has absolutely nothing of value to teach our children, can we at least keep him out of local schools?
Pro-life groups are up in arms today over the refusal of WBZ Radio to air one of their ads, a spot that has already run without incident on many other stations in the region.
The censorship incident reinforces WBZ’s longstanding reputation as a partisan left-wing news outlet.
Boston CBS Affiliate Won’t Run Pro-Life Group’s Ads on Abortion, Health Care
by Steven Ertelt
Boston, MA (LifeNews.com) — The Boston, Massachusetts CBS affiliate, radio station WBZ, has refused to sell time to a state pro-life group seeking to run ads asking that abortion funding be kept out of the health care bills in Congress. When asked to put in writing their reasons for declining the ads, the station declined.
Anne Fox, the president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, the pro-life organization seeking air time to run the ads, told LifeNews.com they have aired without problem on other radio stations.
“These ads and similar ads have already aired on WRKO in Boston, WTAG in Worcester, and WHYN in Springfield,” she said. “They address abortion, rationing, and denial of care based on age or disability.”
Fox said the WBZ told her the ads were inaccurate but would still not say how so or why they would be denied even after she offer proof about the group’s claims.
“At first WBZ told me that we had to substantiate our ‘claims’. Then, even as I offered to do so, they decided they would not take the ads,” she said.
“This is a news station which should be dedicated to presenting all sides of an issue - especially one of such importance to their listening audience,” Fox continued. “The media, in general, is unquestioningly in favor of these bills. As a premier news station WBZ should be happy to air views that may not be exactly the same as theirs.”
Fox said the ad is something most listeners won’t hear when they watch or listen to the news reporting about the health care bill.
“When they hear the ad, I am sure people will agree that is a valuable addition to the health care debate,” she said.
ACTION: To complain, contact Chris Hill at chris.hill@CBSradio.com, write WBZ NewsRadio 1030, 1170 Soldiers Field Rd., Boston MA, 02134, or call (617) 787-7171
