Post hoc rationalization - Brown vs. Shaheen

At National Review Online, Katherine Connell reads the exit polls on the Scott Brown loss in NH:

One thing that jumps out from the exit polls was that a majority of voters thought Brown was too new to their state.

Fifty-three percent answered “no” to the question, “Has Brown lived in N.H. long enough?” Of those who felt that Brown’s migration to the Granite State was too recent, 89 percent voted for Jeanne Shaheen. Of the 45 percent who thought Brown had been there long enough, 93 percent voted for him.

I've lived in, or on the border of, New Hampshire for 30 years now, and you can count me among the group that thinks the "carpetbagger" assessment is strictly post hoc rationalization from Shaheen supporters. If they wanted an alternative to Shaheen, they'd have voted for Brown. They didn't. I would be surprised if there 10 votes cast in Tuesday's election that really hinged in any significant way on Brown's newcomer status.

New Hampshire is not a conservative state, at this point, it's a liberal state, because it's majority-populated by people living within 30 miles of Massachusetts who were Massachusetts residents 25 years ago. Scott Brown was no less a carpetbagger than the majority of those who voted against him. And if he'd been there for fifty years, the race would have turned out the same way. Jeanne Shaheen has won statewide races in New Hampshire consistently for the last 20 years, often by large margins, and the state has continued to grow more liberal during that entire time. Obviously 2008 was a much better environment for running as a Democrat, but she beat an incumbent, John Sununu, who was a lifelong New Hampshire resident by 7 points then, and the state has continued to grow more liberal over the six years since.

To be fair to Connell, she acknowledges this possibility - "Of course, it could be that voters who had made up their mind to support Brown would simply say that they didn’t mind his state-hopping from Massachusetts, and those who favored Shaheen would be inclined to criticize him for it." But she does so almost dismissively, and I think that she's wrong to do so.

I wrote about this effect once several years ago.

Any arguments that too inexperienced and callow to be elected are legitimate.

But if I were to make them, it would be a lie. It would be to imply that, if only he weren't so young and inexperienced, I might vote for him. And the fact is, based on his entire career, the people he's chosen to align himself with and his voting record, there are no realistic circumstances under which I would ever vote for him...It's kind of like the NFL tie-breakers. If you go far enough down the list, you get to things like net points in division games. It's relevant, but the NFL is unlikely to ever actually make a decision based on it, because there are more important things that will separate the teams before you get to it. Obama's youth, his past drug "experimentation," McCain's temper, the Keating five, Hillary's "misstatements" about her trip to Bosnia - all interesting, all legitimate and all so far down the list as to be essentially irrelevant in making a decision.

That's' what's happening here.  No one didn't vote for Scott Brown because he was a carpetbagger, because he just made New Hampshire his full-time residence two years ago.  But if you were going to support Shaheen anyway, you'd be happy to offer that as a criticism of Brown.  I believe that this issue played no real part in any voters' actual decision to choose Shaheen over Brown.

Franchise exercised

Down to the polling place, this morning, waiting in line for the door to answer.  Eighteen year old daughter voting for the first time.  (So is the nineteen year old son, who is in the service and stationed out of state, so voted absentee two weeks ago.)  My wife fed the first ballots into the machine.

The first three votes cast in my precinct went to Mitt Romney for President, and for Scott Brown for the US Senate. 

I doubt that either will win that precinct, but there it is...

Scott Brown is not perfect...

...but Ted Kennedy would never have proposed this...

Taxpayers are entitled to see exactly where their money is being spent and how much Uncle Sam borrows each year.

Under this legislation, every taxpayer who files an income tax return would receive an itemized receipt – similar to a grocery store receipt – from the IRS that lists where their payroll and income taxes are spent. The receipt would include key categories such as the interest on the national debt, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, national defense, education, veterans’ benefits, environmental protection, foreign aid – and, last but not least, Congress.

Taxpayers also would be directed to a website where they could get more detailed information on programs not included on the one-page receipt. Additionally, the receipt would provide taxpayers with the amount of debt per American – which currently is more than $45,000 - and how much new borrowing we put on the national credit card in the past year.

Brown a no on "financial reform" bill

According to Sissy Willis,

Scott Brown "has listened to his constituents," an aide in our junior Senator's office just told us, and will definitely vote "no" on the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform bill should it come to the floor.

This is a good thing. Now, honesty compels me to admit that I don't know exactly what this bill would do¹. But it can almost always be truthfully said of anything that, if Chris Dodd and Barney Frank and Barack Obama are fer it, I'm agin it. So, Go Scott! Vote no! Kill that sucker!


¹ - Of course, neither do its authors. They just think that they do.

Mr. Brown Goes To Washington

One of the things that people may have noticed during the coverage of the special Massachusetts Senate election last month was that I didn't actually have much to say about Scott Brown. I had a lot to say about Coakley, but not much of substance on Brown. There are a couple of reasons for that.

1. I had legitimate strong feelings about Coakley, for legitimate reasons.
2. I didn't know a lot about Scott Brown's record.
3. I expected, based on the little that I did know, that Brown was going to be a disappointment to me fully half the time, if not more.

So this doesn't surprise me at all.

Sen. Scott Brown (R., Mass) broke with his party this afternoon and voted with the Democrats on an important procedural vote on the jobs bill, boosting Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s chances of passing his $15 billion jobs package.

“I came to Washington to be an independent voice, to put politics aside, and to do everything in my power to help create jobs for Massachusetts families,” Brown said in a statement. “This Senate jobs bill is not perfect. I wish the tax cuts were deeper and broader, but I voted for it because it contains measures that will help put people back to work.”

...


Three other Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins (Me.), Olympia Snowe (Me.), and George Voinovich (Ohio) also voted for cloture.

That last line speaks volumes.

I'm not outraged, of course. I don't know the details of this bill's contents, but I'm quite confident that any bill coming out of this particular Congress is going to be bad for the country, so I'm disappointed, but not outraged and not surprised. Scott seems like a pretty good guy, but I don't see any evidence that he's a real conservative, not even a real fiscal conservative. Is he the ideal Senator for me? Absolutely not, and I had no expectation that he would be.

He might, however, be the most conservative Senator that I can reasonably expect the citizens of Massachusetts to elect...

Joe Biden == Chauncey Gardener?

Joe Biden. In a city filled with the biggest jackasses on the planet, this guy still stands out as a jackass.



Does anyone happen to know what it is that Scott Brown has done for a living? That's right, he's a lawyer. Does anyone know where he's practiced law? That's right, in the National Guard. For 30 years. He's "currently the Guard's top defense attorney in New England." The idea that Joe Biden's got anything useful to say to Scott Brown about military tribunals is laughable.

Brown said he is particularly incensed by Biden’s remarks because he’s served in the Massachusetts Army National Guard for more than 30 years and is currently the Guard's top defense attorney in New England.

“I know the military rules and regulations and procedures from A to Z,” Brown said.

...


“I’ve always felt that suspected terrorists should be tried in military tribunals and not civilian court, and as a matter of fact so do the majority of Americans,” Brown said. “The big difference is are we going to pay $1,000 an hour for a private attorney and treat him as a civilian or ordinary criminal in a criminal court, or are we going give him a military attorney who’s going to be paid as a captain, major or lieutenant colonel, and obviously go through the military tribunal process?”

Of course, the idea that Joe Biden has anything useful to say to anyone about any subject whatsoever is laughable. Has anyone ever combined clueless and condescension in quite such a smarmy, superior manner? I think it was Churchill who said of Clement Atlee that he was a humble man "with much to be humble about." Biden's got as much to be humble about as any man that ever lived, but thinks that he's Churchill and Oliver Wendell Holmes (and probably Sherlock Holmes, too) in one charming package.

Seriously - how is one to respect, indeed, how is one to avoid having utter contempt for, government when a man of the caliber of Joe Biden can spend 30 years in the Senate and then become Vice President? Is there a dimmer bulb anywhere? He's a daffodil who thinks that he's an oak, a Lilliputian who thinks that he's a Brobdingnagian...

Senator Scott Brown

For the first time since I moved to Massachusetts in 1990, nearly 20 years ago, there's a member of Congress for whom I voted...



Our long national nightmare is now over...

And hey, lets all help the people of Rhode Island retire Patches Kennedy...

Special election certified

Mr. Brown's going to Washington...

The upset election of Scott P. Brown to the US Senate was officially certified this morning in a brief procedural hearing at the State House, clearing the way for the Republican to take the oath of office this evening in Washington.

The independently elected Governor's Council voted 6-0 to accept the official results, which showed that Brown won last month's special election by 107,317 votes. Nearly two dozen reporters and six television cameras crowded the cramped Governor's Council Chamber for the unanimous vote, which concluded when Governor Deval Patrick slammed down his gavel.

"Motion carried," Patrick said "Done."

He's expected to be officially sworn in this afternoon.

The Senate seat which Brown will take has been held by a Kennedy or a Kennedy coat-holder since JFK's election in 1952. Fifty-eight years ago.

Our long national nightmare is nearly over...

This would be offensive

If this happens, then the Republicans need to make a fuss about it.

Patricia Smith, President Obama's nominee for Solicitor of Labor, appears to have lied to Congress, according to e-mails released from during her tenure as Commissioner of the New York State Labor Department.

...

Senate Labor ranking member Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., has asked that Smith's nomination be withdrawn.
...

Smith's actions with respect to this program seem to show she has a heavy bias toward labor and against business -- no big surprise, perhaps, considering who is appointing her. But why she would mislead or even directly lie to Congress about any of this is a bit odd. Even when given the opportunity to revise her testimony in written questions, Smith stuck to a story that does not seem consistent with the paper-trail.

On Monday, Smith will get a cloture vote in the Senate. With Scott Brown waiting at least another week to be seated in the Senate, there is a chance her nomination will slide right through.

The other day, I said that I thought that Paul Kirk shouldn't be voting now, but it wouldn't make much difference unless there were a strictly-partisan cloture vote on something, or a 51-49 where he was in the majority. Freddoso's piece seems to imply the possibility of a strictly partisan-line cloture vote. If that takes place with Paul Kirk representing the 60th vote because Scott Brown, elected two weeks ago tomorrow, hasn't been seated yet, it's a travesty, an offense to the body politic, and the Republicans should be loud about it.

Why is Senator Kirk not yet former Senator Kirk?

SusanAnne Hiller has an excellent question:

The Senate has voted on three pieces of legislation today that required 60 votes–to raise the debt ceiling to $14.3 trillion, to reduce the deficit by establishing five-year discretionary spending caps, and Ben Bernanke’s confirmation–all of which interim Senator Paul Kirk (D-MA) has voted on. In addition, there have been other Senate votes since Scott Brown was elected as Massachusetts senator that Kirk cast a vote.

The main question here is: why is former Senator Kirk still voting on these legislative pieces? According to Senate rules and precedent, Kirk’s term expired last Tuesday upon the election of Scott Brown.

My suspicion is that, if the Senate tried to vote on a cloture motion which was going to be a 60-40 partisan vote, so that the vote actually mattered, the Republicans would make noise and fight it. None of the votes that they've taken in the past week-and-a-half have been such that it would have made any difference which way Senator MA-Jr. voted.

I think it's a bad precedent, but it hasn't made a difference in anything, so it isn't something that would be necessarily productive to squawk about.

"It's just a flesh wound!"

White House Spokesmoronperson Robert Gibbs was on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace this morning. If the first step to finding a solution is recognizing that you've got a problem, then this suggests that Obama White House is not yet headed anywhere near the right direction...

WALLACE: Scott Brown explicitly campaigned against the — campaigned against the Obama agenda.

GIBBS: That may be what he campaigned on but that's not why the voters of Massachusetts sent him to Washington. If you look at exit poll, done by the ""Washington Post"" —

WALLACE: It wasn't an exit poll. They did a poll.

GIBBS: Poll where voters participated to why they voted. More people voted to express support for Obama than to oppose him. His approval rating among the electorate was 61%. The enthusiasm for Republican policies among that electorate was for republicans 40%

I don't know what poll he's talking about, but I'm in Massachusetts, talking to people, and the idea that this election produced anything other than a "stop-Obamacare" result is delusional. Seriously, dementedly delusional...

Hitler finds out that Scott Brown won Massachusetts...

Yes, you've probably seen the clip elsewhere. Hitler finds out that USC beat Ohio State, or finds out the ending of Harry Potter, or finds out that Sarah Palin resigned. But is can be amusing, and here, he finds out that Scott Brown won in Massachusetts. [Mild language warning]



Best line: "Now we know why Obama won't release his school records. Bush got C's. Obama probably failed lunch."


(H/T: The Right Coast)

Obama to Congress: You'd better not do what I've been demanding that you do!

Great news, everybody!

President Obama warned Democrats in Congress today not to "jam" a health care reform bill through now that they've lost their commanding majority in the Senate, and said they must wait for newly elected Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown to be sworn into office.

That's great to know, isn't it? President Obama is going to protect us from the predatory depredations of that out-of-control Congress which has spent the last year trying to do exactly what President Obama demands that they do!


I'm reminded of The Office's Secret Santa episode:

"When you need my help because I am ruining everything, don't look at me!"

- Barack Obama Michael Scott, the Oval Office

How Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Massachusetts Democrats elected Scott Brown

There are so many items on the agenda today that I don't have time to get to all of them. Let's start with a little Law of Unintended Consequences consideration.

So let me start with this statement: Democrats, both in Massachusetts and in the Federal Government, are responsible for the election of Scott Brown.

Here's why:

Q: Why is Scott Brown the Senator-elect from Massachusetts today?
A: He won the special election to fill the seat left vacant when Ted Kennedy died.

Q: He won in Massachusetts? How did that happen?
A: It was the only election in the country, and drew national attention, as well as millions of dollars of donations from all over.

Q: That's it? It was the only election?
A: Well, that's not the only thing. A significant majority has been offended by the actions of the Senate Democrats and the President over the past two months as they've attempted to force through a health care "reform" bill that the electorate has clearly decided it doesn't want. That energized people so that everyone who wanted that bill stopped saw Scott Brown as a way to do it.

Q: Why was the election held in January when Federal elections generally take place in November?
A: Senator Kennedy died in August, and the law required that they hold a special election within 145 days of a vacancy.

Q: Doesn't the governor normally appoint an interim Senator until the next Federal election?
A: In most states, that is the case. It was the case in Massachusetts, as well, until 2004.

Q: What happened in 2004?
A: The Democrats in the state house, thinking that John Kerry might win the White House and fearing that Governor Mitt Romney would appoint a Republican who would hold that Senate seat for two years, changed the law¹, and overrode a gubernatorial veto, to require a special election.

Q: Wait a minute - if the Democrats changed the law to remove appointment power, what has Paul Kirk been doing in Washington?
A: Well, when Ted Kennedy got sick, the Democrats feared that a vote may come up on health care reform between the time of his death and the holding of the special election, so they changed the law again², allowing for the appointment of an interim Senator.


There are several alternate scenarios under which the Democrats would still hold that Senate seat. But the Law of Unintended Consequences is relentless and remorseless.

Alternate scenario 1: The Democrats don't play politics and change the law in 2004. Upon Kennedy's death, Deval Patrick appoints an interim Senator who will be up for re-election in November of 2010, along with 33 other Senators and every member of the House of Representatives.

Alternate scenario 2: Senator Kennedy resigns upon being diagnosed in May of 2008. The seat is filled during the November 2008 election that saw Barack Obama win the White House. The Democratic candidate, whether Martha Coakley or someone else, wins handily in a race that draws little attention inside the state and no national coverage.

Alternate scenario 3: The Democrats don't play politics and change the law in 2009. The seat remains empty from the time of Senator Kennedy's death until the special election. Without 60 votes, the Senate Democrats have to make an effort to convince at least one Republican to come on board. They don't bribe Ben Nelson or ram through the bill on strictly partisan lines on Christmas eve, and the national groundswell of support for Brown doesn't develop.

Alternate scenario 4: The Democrats don't convince Arlen Specter to change parties. Without 60 votes, the Senate Democrats have to make an effort to convince at least one Republican to come on board. They don't bribe Ben Nelson or ram through the bill on strictly partisan lines on Christmas eve, and the national groundswell of support for Brown doesn't develop.

Alternate scenario 5: The Democrats don't steal the Minnesota Senate seat from Norm Coleman. Without 60 votes, the Senate Democrats have to make an effort to convince at least one Republican to come on board. They don't bribe Ben Nelson or ram through the bill on strictly partisan lines on Christmas eve, and the national groundswell of support for Brown doesn't develop.

Alternate scenario 6: Barack Obama governs as he campaigned. The Federal Government doesn't pass a $700 billion stimulus, doesn't take over GM and Chrysler and banks, doesn't try to nationalize one-sixth of the US economy, and, therefore, doesn't turn an economic downturn into a deep recession. The anger around the country doesn't materialize to the extent that it has now, and Coakley, despite a lackluster campaign, wins fairly easily.

But they did those things, and now the seat is gone. Scott Brown will be a United States Senator for the next two years.


¹ - Boston Globe, 2/19/2004

Massachusetts Democrats are devising a plan to keep John F. Kerry's US Senate seat in their party's hands by blocking Governor Mitt Romney from naming an interim replacement if Kerry wins the White House.

Frank Phillips, Globe Staff. (2004, February 19). DEMOCRATS EYE PLAN TO PROTECT KERRY SENATE SEAT :[THIRD Edition]. Boston Globe,p. A.1. Retrieved January 20, 2010, from Business Dateline. (Document ID: 547183041).


² - Boston Globe, 9/23/2009

The state Senate approved a bill yesterday that would let Governor Deval Patrick appoint an interim successor to Edward M. Kennedy, paving the way for the appointment of a new US senator as early as tomorrow and providing Democrats in Washington the potential 60th vote they have been seeking to pass a health care overhaul.

Matt Viser. (2009, September 23). Senate OK's Kennedy successor bill :Governor could name interim pick tomorrow. Boston Globe,p. A.1. Retrieved January 20, 2010, from Business Dateline. (Document ID: 1864237401).

"He's done everything wrong..."

The one person most responsible for Scott Brown's win in Massachusetts isn't Scott Brown. And it isn't Martha Coakley.

It's Barack Obama.

Mort Zuckerman:

He’s misjudged the character of the country in his whole approach. There’s the saying, “It’s the economy, stupid.” He didn’t get it. He was determined somehow or other to adopt a whole new agenda. He didn’t address the main issue.

This health-care plan is going to be a fiscal disaster for the country. Most of the country wanted to deal with costs, not expansion of coverage. This is going to raise costs dramatically.

In the campaign, he said he would change politics as usual. He did change them. It’s now worse than it was. I’ve now seen the kind of buying off of politicians that I’ve never seen before. It’s politically corrupt and it’s starting at the top. It’s revolting.

Every word is both true and self-evident.

I'll have more on Obama's responsibility, and the rest of the Democrats', later on...

And it's official...

Martha Coakley has conceded. Scott Brown, a REPUBLICAN will take the US Senate seat held for the past 47 years by Edward Kennedy. The REPUBLICAN gives the REPUBLICANS in the Senate 41 votes, sufficient to sustain a filibuster. Furthermore, the victory for the REPUBLICAN Scott Brown not only makes it virtually impossible for the Democrats to get their modified health care reform bill through the Senate, it makes it exceedingly unlikely that the House of Representatives would be able to pass the bill that the Senate has already passed. This means that the Obamacare health care takeover is very nearly dead.

More analysis tomorrow...

First numbers analysis...

In 2006, Massachusetts had a Gubernatorial election which put Deval Patrick into office with ~55% of the vote. The Republican candidate (Kerry Healey) was hurt by the presence of a Republican-leaning Independent (Christy Mihos) on the ballot. There was also a Green Party candidate (? Ross) who took less than two percent of the vote.

The first 39 communities to fully report tonight represented 132 precincts. In 2006, Deval Patrick took 51.39% of the vote in those precincts to Kerry Healey's 39.89%. The "left" candidates took those precincts with ~53% of the vote to 47% for the "right" candidates.

Tonight (as of about 20 minutes ago), Scott Brown has taken those precincts with 57% of the vote to Martha Coakley's 42%.

If those relationships hold across the rest of the state, Scott Brown would end up taking about 53% of the vote tonight.

UPDATE: (9:10 PM) 438 precincts, 130 communites.

Patrick/Ross 2006 - 285691 (52.7%)
Coakley 2010 - 234463 (41.4%)

Healey/Mihos 2006 - 256235 (47.3%)
Brown 2010 - 326043 (57.6%)

The vote is up 4.3% over 2006 in those precincts, and Brown is overperforming both the "right" candidates from four years ago and the "left" candidates from four years ago.

Brown remains on a pace to win 53% of the vote.

Election returns

The Secretary of State's office does not seem to have a link to election returns. But WRKO does.

The polls have closed

The polls have closed here in Massachusetts. I'm not going to call the race now (though Michael Graham did a couple of hours ago), but I've followed pretty much all of the available information about this race over the past week. That includes today, with all of the turnout stories, body language stories, memos and what-not. I'm not going to call it now.

But I no longer think it's going to be a late night...

Circumstantial evidence, piling up...

I've said that everything that's happened since the middle of last week has boded well for Scott Brown and ill for Martha Coakley. There haven't been any contrary indicators - everything's pointed to a Brown win. Everything.

Just about every election night, Republican pollster Frank Luntz assembles a focus group of likely voters to help predict election results. Tonight you can see Luntz interview an assembly of Massachusetts voters on Fox at 9:10 p.m. EST.

But you probably won’t see all the work that went into it. As of late this afternoon, Luntz was still scrambling to balance his focus group with supporters of Democrat Martha Coakley. “I just lost another one,” Luntz growled over his cell phone from a hotel ballroom at Logan Airport. In the last 24 hours, six Coakley voters have dropped out. By contrast, Luntz hasn’t lost a single supporter of her opponent, Scott Brown.
...

Instead, says Luntz, they’re ashamed. “They don’t want to be on television defending Martha Coakley. It’s passé. It’s socially unacceptable. I never dreamed I’d see Democrats in Massachusetts embarrassed to admit they’re Democrats.”

In all his years of running focus groups, Luntz remembers only a single other experience like this one. It was January of 2004, in Iowa....“All my Dean people quit two days out,” he remembers...It all comes back to Luntz now as he works to find bodies willing to represent Martha Coakley. “This is definition of collapse,” he says.

Polls close in 1 hour and 22 minutes...