What Can Brown Do For You?
So, Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat went to a fairly unknown Republican named Scott Brown. That’s what everyone is jabbering about, so I figure I might as well chime in. Now, to be fair, there were lots of reasons that Brown won that seat. The first is that he is an excellent campaigner. No doubt about it. He assimilated a lot of what worked for the Democrats in the past few election cycles, learned from it, even improved on it to a point, and then applied that same strategy to what most people thought was an impossible race. Keep in mind, however, that most people thought that some of the Democratic gains in 2006 and 2008 were impossible as well.
Scott Brown also won because Martha Coakley was a mediocre candidate who ran a shit-tastic campaign. She assumed that Massachusetts would never put a Republican in Teddy’s old chair, so she didn’t have to try that hard. And what she did try, she hosed up pretty thoroughly. She had a sloppy work ethic, an utter lack of charisma or even feigned enthusiasm for the race, and honestly? Her organization seems like it was being run by a pack of narcoleptics on an opium bender. I’ve clipped my toenails with more vigor and verve than this woman ran for the United States Senate.
So while I don’t much agree with Brown’s positions, I’m not surprised that he won. Would I rather a Democrat take that seat? Sure. Am I glad Coakley, specifically, got her ass handed to her? You bet I am. She deserved it, and it will hopefully serve as a wake-up call for complacent Democrats who think that their base will infinitely elect them simply because there’s a (D) at the end of their name. On the up side, Brown has to run for re-election in just two short years, so there will be a chance to get a competent challenger into the race then.
Now, as for this whole “No More Super Majority” sky-is-falling bullshit that I keep seeing from every pundit and reporter in the free world? I’d really like to know just what in the hell they’re talking about. The Democrats never had a supermajority in the Senate. Ever. Even if you, for some reason, count the “Blue Dogs” like Nelson and Bayh? That still only gets the Democrats to 58. Bernie Sanders makes 59, though he’s pretty left of center. So I’ll give them that one. But magical mister sixty? Why, that would be Joe Lieberman.
When the critical vote in your supermajority Senate is a guy that got primaried out of your own party, gave a speech at the opposition party’s National Convention, and spent almost the full eight years sniffing George Bush’s shit and telling him it didn’t stink? That’s not a fucking supermajority. That’s 59 Senators and one adversary. I don’t care what party he claims to officially caucus with – Joe Lieberman was the sixtieth Democrat in the same way that Yoko Ono was the fifth Beatle. The absurd difficulty that the Senate had passing health care reform alone should be proof that whatever the Democrats have, it sure as hell wasn’t and isn’t a supermajority.
But you know who else didn’t have a supermajority? The Republicans under Bush. Nope. Never had it. They couldn’t force a cloture vote on anything without help from at least a few Democratic Senators. And yet that didn’t stop them from hammering out eight long years of the shittiest governance in American history. And the reason it didn’t stop them is that the Democratic minority lacked the sack to ever dare to filibuster the Republicans – on anything. And I’m not just talking about the September 12th Senate or the Recently Bitchslapped At The Polls 2003 Senate. Even in 2006, when the Democrats were obviously riding a wave of George Bush fueled populist outrage, they refused to stand the hell up.
I’ve always given the Republicans credit for sheer brass ball-ism and their uncanny ability to get things done. And this Republican Congress is no exception. Though I guess right now it’s their uncanny ability to not get things done that deserves damning praise. Because their basic position is that they will filibuster everything the Democrats throw at them unless they receive their concessions and are allowed to pollute, water down and otherwise piss on the legislation. And, of course, once they monkey wrench up the bill, they vote against it anyway. That’s some chutzpa, friend. But the Democrats let them get away with it, and that’s where the blame should fall.
So maybe, in the end, losing the false mantle of supermajority won’t really matter all that much. The Democrats still won’t get anything significant done. They’ll still piss away their basic majority (even with the Blue Dogs in play, the Democrats can manage the basic fifty votes for just about anything on their agenda). And the public might be able to go an entire week without having to hear from Joe Fucking Lieberman and his magical sixtieth vote.
Ultimately, the Brown victory should be a wake-up call for more than just fickle campaigners and smug partisans. It should be a clear message to all Senate Democrats that it’s time for them to take off the kiddie gloves and realize that the GOP will oppose anything and everything they want to accomplish (and often after screwing it up in committee). It’s high past time to replace Reid with a competent, steely-toothed majority leader who’s willing to let the Republicans filibuster if they so threaten. Parade them in front of the American voters. Shame them if need be. But start actually using the power that those voters gave to you, or they damn sure will take it away again.