Democrats Frustated with Obama

Congressional Democrats — stunned out of silence by Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts — say they’re done swallowing their anger with President Barack Obama and ready to go public with their gripes.

If the sentiment isn’t quite heads-must-roll, it’s getting there.

Hill Democrats are demanding that Obama’s brain trust — especially senior adviser David Axelrod and chief of staff Rahm Emanuel — shelve their grand legislative ambitions to focus on the economic issues that will determine the fates of shaky Democratic majorities in both houses.

And they want the White House to step up — quickly — to help shape the party’s message and steer it through the wreckage of health care reform.

“The administration has got to be in the forefront now, instead of throwing some meat on the track and seeing what the House can work out,” said New Jersey Rep. Bill Pascrell, expressing the frustrations also voiced by about two dozen Democratic elected officials and aides interviewed by POLITICO.

“I haven’t seen Rahm Emanuel except on television. We used to see him a lot; I’d like him to come out from behind his desk and meet with the common folk,” added Pascrell.

“What happened was they got so caught up in all these other issues like health care and cap and trade and all this other stuff, that because of that they maybe didn’t put enough focus on the economy,” said Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson, a moderate who represents a conservative, rural district hard-hit by the economic crisis. - Politico Story

Obama Bank Plan Crashes Stock Market

(AP) A drop in financial shares pounded the stock market after President Barack Obama proposed greater restrictions on big banks.

The Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 213 points after dropping 122 on Wednesday. The index has seen four straight triple-digit moves and the latest slide erased the Dow's gains for 2010. Bond prices rose as the stock market became more volatile.

Tightening the rules on risk-taking and trading at banks could hurt profits at those companies. Obama said he would seek to limit the size and complexity of large financial companies so that a bank's collapse wouldn't endanger the overall financial system.

The move could mean changes for how big financial institutions like Bank of America, Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are structured. Each of the stocks fell more than 4 percent.

Weakness in manufacturing also brought concern that the economy might not be recovering as quickly as hoped. The Philadelphia Federal Reserve said manufacturing in its region fell in January from December. Its index of regional manufacturing conditions fell to 15.2 from a revised 22.5 last month.

Another test for the market could come Friday. Google Inc. posted a fivefold jump in its fourth-quarter profit after the closing bell on double-digit revenue growth, but the results fell short of expectations. The stock fell $27.40, or 4.7 percent, to $553.01 in after-hours electronic trading after edging up 0.4 percent in regular trading. - CBS News Story

Supreme Court Strikes Down Law Restricting Corporate Spending

In a significant reversal of court precedent, the Supreme Court today invalidated decades-old federal legislation restricting corporate spending in political campaigns.

In a 5-4 decision, the court called into question the constitutionality of all federal and state regulation of independent corporate political advocacy, including a federal law dating back to 1947 and the laws of dozens of states.

President Obama today assailed the ruling and promised a "forceful response" to the court's decision, which he says gives "a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics."

The court effectively struck down restrictions on corporations and unions for how and when they spend money on ads and other political communications during campaigns.

Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy concluded, "When Government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought. This is unlawful." - ABC News Story

Progressive Radio Files for Bankruptcy.....Should of Got a Bailout?

Air America Radio, a radio network that was launched in 2004 as a liberal alternative to Rush Limbaugh and other conservative commentators, on Thursday shut down abruptly due to financial woes.

The network once boasted hosts such as Al Franken and Rachel Maddow, but struggled from the outset, including multiple management shake-ups, a bankruptcy in 2006 and sale for $4.25 million the following year.

Air America ceased airing new programs Thursday afternoon and said it will soon file to be liquidated under Chapter 7 bankruptcy. It began broadcasting reruns of programs and would end those as well Monday night.

"The very difficult economic environment has had a significant impact on Air America's business. This past year has seen a `perfect storm' in the media industry generally," the company said in a statement on its Web site. - ABC News Story

Democrats Partisanship Led to Health Car Bill - Now Scrap It!!!

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday she does not have the votes to pass the Senate's version of a health insurance bill that is now in severe jeopardy of being scrapped.

Just days ago, that was the most viable option for keeping alive President Obama's top domestic priority, but with the election of Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts, the fragile coalition of Democrats has broken apart as lawmakers bicker over which portions of the $900 billion, 10-year Senate bill they will and won't accept.

Emerging from a closed-door meeting with her caucus, the House speaker vented frustration with the massive version of the legislation.

"In its present form without any changes I don't think it's possible to pass the Senate bill in the House," said Pelosi, D-Calif. "I don't see the votes for it at this time."

Among the issues that House lawmakers are unwilling to accept is the 40 percent excise tax on high-value insurance plans that unions earned an exemption from until 2018 after major backlash toward the Democratic-led Congress.

Lawmakers are now looking at options that were left on the drawing board as the party looks to pursue a more modest bill. Senior House Democratic aides say they are evaluating the potential of taking parts of the existing bill and passing it in a piecemeal fashion. But they say privately there is no roadmap and they don't expect to have a decision for a couple of weeks.

Pelosi didn't present a blueprint for how Democrats might proceed on health care, except to say that "everything is on the table." - FOX News Story

Pelosi to Push on for Health Care Reform

Scott Brown’s stunning upset victory in Massachusetts has reshuffled the Senate, but its immediate consequences have fallen hardest on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who now faces perhaps the defining moment of her career.

Tuesday’s loss of the 60-vote Democratic Senate majority means Pelosi must shoulder the main burden of salvaging President Barack Obama’s health care reform deal, even as she copes with an uprising among Democratic incumbents terrified by the far-reaching implications of the party’s Massachusetts meltdown.

If she manages to thread this legislative needle and pass a real health reform bill, the San Francisco Democrat would most likely go down as one the most powerful speakers in history.

If she fails, she could be relegated to the crowded ranks of liberals who have aimed high and fallen flat.

“She knows exactly what happened in Massachusetts,” says Brian Wolff, a longtime Pelosi adviser. “She’s going to listen to her caucus, and she’s only going to do what can get done. [Health care] is a big issue, and she needs to pass something they can run on. ... She’s going to do what’s best for her caucus first and foremost.”

When an aide informed Pelosi of Brown’s win around 9 p.m. Tuesday, the speaker summoned her leadership team to her office at the Capitol, ejected her staff and attacked her options as if her career depended on it.

On Wednesday, while other Democrats sulked, Pelosi declared her intention to pass health care reform — and strategized with Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the freshman and sophomore caucuses, the Blue Dogs, progressives and more than a dozen outside consultants and advisers. - Politico Story

Democrats Get Wake Call - Will Leadership Listen?

The Republican victory in Massachusetts has sent a wave of fear through the halls of the Senate, with moderate and liberal Democrats second-guessing their party’s agenda — and worrying that they’ll be the next victims of voters’ anger.

“If there’s anybody in this building that doesn’t tell you they’re more worried about elections today, you absolutely should slap them,” said Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.).

Republican Scott Brown rode a wave of voter discontent to defeat Democrat Martha Coakley in the race for Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat. Republicans moved quickly to capitalize Wednesday, with National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (R-Texas) telling POLITICO that he’s approaching possible candidates who passed up his initial entreaties to join the 2010 field.

“People, I think, are going to sense opportunities that they didn’t sense” Tuesday, Cornyn said.

Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) called the Massachusetts race a “wake-up call” for his party and said his colleagues were in a “reflective” mood at a private lunch Wednesday.

Several Democratic incumbents said later that none of the 19 Democratic seats up this year are safe — and that fundamental parts of the agenda need to be re-examined to win over voters back home.

“Every state is now in play,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who faces the toughest reelection battle of her career — most likely against wealthy Republican Carly Fiorina.

Boxer is pushing a cap-and-trade bill to control greenhouse gases, but her counterpart from California, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, said a “large cap-and-trade bill isn’t going to go ahead at this time.” - Politico Story

Health Care Hits the Breaks

Democrats are being forced to re-evaluate their plans for health care reform after Republican Scott Brown's victory for the U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts made clear that independent and even many Democratic voters are concerned about health insurance reforms being debated in Washington.

Brown's win Tuesday is a colossal hit to Democrats, since it will break the party's 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority in the Senate at a time when health care reform is in its final stages. Brown has vowed to vote against the bill if he gets the chance.

Though Democrats have discussed ways to fast-track the legislation so as to send it to President Obama's desk before Brown gets sworn in, cracks in the Democrats' resolve started to show Tuesday night.

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., said it would "only be fair and prudent that we suspend further votes on health care legislation until Brown is seated."

Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., a fierce advocate for health care reform, also said it might be time to take a time-out on health care reform and focus on jobs. - FOX News Story

He Did It!!!! Brown Winds Massachusetts

Washington was waking up Wednesday to a new Senate make-up, one featuring Republican Massachusetts Senator-elect Scott Brown, who defeated Democrat Martha Coakley in a victory few thought possible just a month ago.

The race for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by the late Ted Kennedy is a win that could grind President Obama's agenda to a halt and portend unexpected 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 nearly all 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. Even Brown appeared a bit in shock by his victory. Visibly giddy during his remarks, Brown went script and at one point offering up his daughters to the dating circuit -- and later he earned supporters' laughter by flubbing his campaign pitch line, "I'm Scott Brown. I'm from Wrentham. And I drive a truck."

Brown's victory 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. - FOX News Story

Democrats Rethink Health Care Bill

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) released a statement Tuesday night warning that it would be wrong "to pass a health care bill as if the Massachusetts election had not happened."

The statement seems to advocate against ramming reform through Congress before Republican Scott Brown is seated and acknowledges that the House-Senate-White House negotiations are likely over.

The liberal congressman said he was "disappointed" in Tuesday's election results—and that with Brown's victory, "a reasonable compromise" between the House and Senate bills is no longer possible and support from GOP senators is now required to move the legislation.

"I feel strongly that the Democratic majority in congress must respect the process and make no effort to bypass the electoral results," Frank said. "If Martha Coakley had won, I believe we could have worked out a reasonable compromise between the House and Senate health care bills. But since Scott Brown has won and the Republicans now have 41 votes in the senate, that approach is no longer appropriate." - Politico Story

Massachusetts Elects - Hope and Change

BOSTON — Republican Scott Brown’s eye-opening victory in Massachusetts Tuesday has unmistakably framed the problem for President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party:

The same forces of disgust with establishment politicians and hunger for change in Washington that vaulted Obama to power 14 months ago can be harnessed with equal success by people who want to stop his agenda in its tracks.

The argument that will now consume Democrats is over the remedy — a disagreement that once again opens up the party’s ideological gulf and vastly complicates Obama’s task in trying to push his signature health care agenda to final passage.

Is the Massachusetts humiliation a sign that Obama and congressional Democrats should embrace the inevitability of mortal conflict with Republicans and respond with a sharper, more combative policy and political message? Even before Democrat Martha Coakley’s defeat became official, some liberal voices on Capitol Hill and others close to the White House were urging exactly that.

Many moderates were urging the opposite, arguing that when Democrats lose a Senate seat that for nearly 50 years belonged to the late Ted Kennedy, they should know they are badly estranged from the center of public opinion.

What neither side disputes is that the Massachusetts results are directly relevant to Obama.

That itself is a sign of Democrats coming to grips with a problem that began emerging last summer, when polls showed independent voters taking flight from Democrats. Even so, after Republicans in November won off-year gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia — two states that Obama won a year earlier — White House officials responded with happy talk, saying these were strictly the result of local conditions and weak candidates. - Politico Story

Kennedy - Voters are Out for Blood

The son of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy says a Republican victory in the race for his father's Senate seat is a sign that the American public is out for "blood."

As election returns came in Tuesday night, Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) said it's clear that voters wanted “a whipping boy” for all the lost jobs and foreclosed homes.

“It’s like in Roman times they’d be trotted out to the coliseum and the lions would be brought out,” Kennedy told reporters at the Capitol Tuesday night. “I mean, they’re wanting blood and they’re not getting it so they want to protest and, you know, you can’t blame them. But frankly, the fact is we inherited this mess and it’s becoming ours.”

Kennedy did not fully wade into the battle for the seat, he said, he "never wanted anyone to think for a moment” that it was his family’s seat.

“It wasn’t my dad’s seat, it was Massachusetts’s seat,” Kennedy said. “My dad was honored to occupy it every six years when the people of Massachusetts voted him in again.”

But Kennedy also offered a scathing review of Democrats and perhaps a back-handed jab at Democratic candidate Martha Coakley, whom many in the party are blaming for the loss of a seat Kennedy's father held for more than four decades.

While he said that the swing toward Republican Scott Brown represented a "general protest vote," he also said that each candidate has an obligation to do his best to make his case. - Politico Story

Democrats See Agenda Crash to the Ground

House Democrats watched the election results come in from Massachusetts with a sense of impending doom for their agenda — and panic for their vulnerable freshmen.

“I feel sorry for them,” Rep. Allen Boyd (D-Fla.) said of his most junior colleagues. “It’s like they walked in and got hit upside the head with a big jackhammer.”

Moderate Democrats have grown increasingly anxious over the past few months, watching nervously as Democratic incumbents in swing districts announced retirements, as one of their own switched parties, as Republicans scored some recruiting coups and as Democrats lost key gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey.

But nothing set the alarms bells ringing quite like Scott Brown's come-from -behind victory over Martha Coakley in Massachusetts — and with it the loss of not just Ted Kennedy's Senate seat but also their party's 60-vote super majority in the upper chamber.

Kennedy's son, Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) said Democrats have to understand that they've entered a different era — and that they can't just assume that voters will be with them.

“It’s like in Roman times, they’d be trotted out to the coliseum and the lions would be brought out,” Kennedy said Tuesday night. “I mean, they’re wanting blood and they’re not getting it so they want to protest. And, you know, you can’t blame them. But frankly, the fact is we inherited this mess, and it’s becoming ours.” - Politico Story

Yeah OK. You inherited Health Care Reform? You inherited bringing terrorists to the US for Trial? You inherited bailing out the Auto Companies? You inherited a Treasury Secretary who failed to Pay Taxes and Set up The AIG Bailout? You inherited the Cash for Clunkers?

I will give you the fact that you inherited an economy in decline. You found a way to make it far worse and continued to make it worse and worse and worse.

Obama Vows to Fight if Republicans Win

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.”

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.

There won’t be any grand proclamation that “the era of Big Government is over” — the words President Bill Clinton uttered after Republicans won the Congress in the 1990s and he was forced to trim a once-ambitious agenda.

“The response will not be to do incremental things and try to salvage a few seats in the fall,” a presidential adviser said. “The best political route also happens to be the boldest rhetorical route, which is to go out and fight and let the chips fall where they may. We can say, ‘At least we fought for these things, and the Republicans said no.’” - Politico Story

Dems Blaming Dems on Massachusetts Election

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — As voters head to the polls in Massachusetts, nervous Democrats have already begun to blame one another for putting at risk the Senate seat Ted Kennedy held for more than 40 years.

Many angry Democrats blame their candidate, state Attorney General Martha Coakley, for running a sluggish campaign that let Republican Scott Brown set the contours of the race.

Some Democratic strategists lay the fault at the feet of President Barack Obama, saying he should have done more to sell the party’s agenda.

And in private conversations, Hill sources say White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has blamed Coakley, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Democratic pollster Celinda Lake for failing to see Brown’s surge in time to stop it.

“With the legislative and political stakes so high, it’s unbelievable that the Senate committee and White House let this race get so out of hand,” said one senior Washington Democrat. “There’s a lot of blame to go around. Martha Coakley is only one of the problems here.”

Coakley is at the center of the criticism. Democrats complain that her campaign was caught napping after last month’s primary — and that Brown was able to use the pause to shape the race. - Politico Story

Obama Suffers Steepest decline in Job Approval of Any First Year President

As President Obama contemplates his first year in office, he might be forgiven for recalling the words of Queen Elizabeth II, looking back on a year rife with royal scandal: an annus horribilus, she called it, and you don't need six years of Latin to translate her sentiments.

Mr. Obama has suffered the steepest decline in job approval of any first year president since they started keeping such data: in most surveys, he is barely at, or under fifty per cent. His health-care plan, the signature effort of his first year in office, has grown steadily less popular and its survival, as one Congressional Democrat put it, "Hangs by a thread."

It may, in fact, be doomed on the precise one-year anniversary of his Inaugural, if Massachusetts voters send a Republican to the U.S. Senate today to fill the seat held for nearly half a century, by Edward Kennedy, the patron saint of liberal health care.

The coming year does not appear to hold out hope for better times: the jobless rate is likely to remain at or above ten percent, and the real unemployment rate -- which includes those who've given up looking and those working part-time who want full time jobs -- is at 17 percent. And historically, no president in modern times has significantly improved his approval numbers in his second year -- a gloomy atmosphere in which to move into midterm elections.

What's happened: "Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan," John Kennedy famously said -- but political trouble also has a thousand diagnosticians, each offering (sometimes contradictory) notions.

One of the most commonly heard refrains -- one that makes a lot of sense -- is the broad appeal that was Mr. Obama's political strength became a governing liability. As he himself once said, he was a vessel into which people poured their own political desires. He was the tribune of progressivism, the man to redeem the promise of Robert Kennedy. No, he was the post-conflict president, the candidate who promised to "turn the page" on the wearisome conflicts of the past.

Because so many people expected Mr. Obama to do so many different, conflicting things, he could not possibly hold those who voted for him together. More important, he did not come to office with a strong sense of where he was going. - CBS News Story

Heavy Turnout Expect in Massachusetts Election

Voters thronged to the polls in Massachusetts Tuesday in a special election Republicans hope will be a national game-changer, slowing down President Barack Obama's agenda and loosening the Democratic grip on the U.S. Senate.

As dawn broke in the frosty Northeast, the GOP publicly relished the possibility that a previously obscure state senator, Scott Brown, could wrest the election from Democrat Martha Coakley, considered the overwhelming favorite until just a few days ago.

In contrast to the light turnout for the party primaries last month, both candidates expected heavy a turnout following the national attention thrust upon their race. There was a clear sign at one polling place: A line of cars stretched for nearly a half-mile from the gymnasium at North Andover High School, the polling place for a community of about 30,000 about a half-hour north of Boston. Some drivers turned around in exasperation. - ABC News Story

Obama Administration Taking Heat for Slowness in Haiti

U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Kenneth Merten tackled criticism on Monday that the American relief effort in Haiti has been moving too slowly.

"Are things moving here as quickly as everybody would like? Maybe not, but it's happening as best as it possibly can," Merten said on CNN's "American Morning."

The United States launched a massive search and rescue effort on the island shortly after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck the country last week.

Yet, tensions have sprung up between countries coordinating disaster relief. France, Brazil and Italy were reportedly upset that planes were diverted from the Port-au-Prince airport and French ambassador to Haiti Didier Le Bret said that it has become "not an airport for the international community. It is an annex of Washington."

"You know, we regret that there are people that are upset about that, but we've been able to address those concerns," Merten said. "I was -- I got in touch with the folks here and we got the French planes in the very next day. So we're dealing with them as quickly as we can." - Politico Story

You know I have to agree with Merten. In these situations things just aren't going to happen without flaws and most definitely as quick as you would like.

However, with that being said, I have no sympathy for the extreme pressure that the Obama Administration finds itself in. They didn't show any compassion or sympathy when it was the Bush Administration and it was New Orleans.

Welcome to your own hell.

"We are in deep s--- if we lose on Tuesday," - Democrats Worry about Massachussetts

The bad breaks keep piling up for Martha Coakley in her bid for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts, with a string of gaffes causing her problems, Democratic strategists predicting the worst and the latest polls suggesting the state attorney general's campaign is missing the kind of enthusiasm that Republican Scott Brown has generated.

President Obama tried to give Coakley a life raft Sunday by stumping for her in Boston and accusing Brown of being a "lockstep" Republican who's looking out for bankers on Wall Street as opposed to the people of Massachusetts.

But while Democrats are trying to portray Brown as a shill for corporate interests, the Republican state senator has been able to project the image of the people's candidate, driving around in his truck and shaking hands while Coakley spurned such shoe-leather tactics.

Coakley's low-key approach to the campaign has drawn recriminations from fellow Democrats who are stunned the race is so close on the eve of Tuesday's special election to fill the seat held for decades by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.

"She let it become a personality contest and that was a mistake," said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. "Some of us complained about it and we think it's turned around."

"We are in deep s--- if we lose on Tuesday," a Democratic operative said.

A new poll out of Public Policy Polling on Monday underscored the depth of Coakley's challenge. - FOX News Story

Nebraska's Big Payout in Health Bill - Unconstitutional?

It was a single paragraph, added at the last minute on Page 2,129 of the Senate's mammoth health-care bill: a promise that the federal government would pay forever for extra poor people to join Medicaid in Nebraska. And it triggered a swift, partisan backlash.

The rebellion against the $100 million promise has spread to nearly one-third of the nation's attorneys general, including two Democrats. Meanwhile, the Nebraskan whose state would get the help -- Sen. Ben Nelson, a conservative Democrat who was the crucial 60th vote for the bill -- says he never asked for the favor to get his vote and wants it to go away.

The dispute is one of the issues Senate and House negotiators are trying to resolve as they work with the White House to mesh their health-care bills. On Friday, former president Bill Clinton joined the critics, telling House Democrats in a private speech in the U.S. Capitol, "That Nebraska thing is really hurting us."

As talks go on behind closed doors, debate rages off Capitol Hill over whether the Senate's offer of extra Medicaid money to one state is unconstitutional, as its critics allege, and whether any court would intervene. The furor comes from two sources: states' long-standing worries about the financial burden of Medicaid, and the polarized politics of health-care reform. - Washington Post Story

Pants on the Ground

Win or Lose, GOP Makes Statement in Massachusetts

Washington (CNN) – A prominent Republican strategist and one-time aide to former Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday that a Republican win in an upcoming special election, or even a narrow Democratic victory, could shake the foundations of President Obama’s ambitious agenda.

Massachusetts voters will go to the polls Tuesday to choose between Martha Coakley, the state’s Democratic attorney general, and Scott Brown, a Republican state senator, in a contest to fill the seat of the late Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy. (Under Massachusetts law, the state’s governor appointed Paul Kirk, a longtime Kennedy ally, to the Senate to serve as an interim Kennedy successor until a permanent replacement could be elected in Tuesday’s vote.) While Coakley was once considered the favorite in the historically Democratic state, polls and political analysts in recent days have suggested the race is tightening to the point of being a toss-up or even tilting in Brown’s favor. Brown’s momentum stems in part from his pledge, if elected, to be the one additional vote Senate Republicans need to carry off a successful filibuster of Democrats’ health care reform bill.

Asked about the closely watched race Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, Republican strategist Mary Matalin said a strong showing by Brown had the potential to be a game-changer for Democrats’ agenda.

It was “once said of Mike Tyson, he hits you so hard, he changes the way you taste. If we win a seat in [Massachusetts] on the signature issue of the Obama agenda, health care, this will change the way politics tastes,” Matalin told CNN Chief National Correspondent John King.

A win by Scott Brown would be “apocalyptic” for Democrats, Matalin said. Should Coakley win, the fact that “we got this close, is nothing short of cataclysmic.”

“[Obama’s] agenda is going to change,” she declared. - CNN Story

Obama Scrambles to Help Democrat in Mass. Race

(AP) His agenda at risk, President Barack Obama fought on Sunday to save a sinking Democratic U.S. Senate candidate and the critical 60th vote needed for his health care plan while the White House and congressional Democrats scrambled to pass the legislation quickly in case of a loss.

"When the chips are down, when the tough votes come on the fights that matter to middle-class families around this Commonwealth, who is going to be on your side?" the president asked during a rally for embattled nominee Martha Coakley as he tried to energize his dispirited base in this Democratic stronghold. "Martha's going to be on your side."

The president also made a direct appeal to independents who are trending away from the Democrat and he assailed GOP Scott Brown. "It's hard to suggest he's going to be significantly independent from the Republican agenda," Obama said.

The unexpectedly tight race for the seat held so long by Edward M. Kennedy, in a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 3-to-1, reflects a nasty anti-establishment environment that threatens Obama's support in Congress now and heading into this fall's elections.

Brown, a little-known state senator, has tapped into voter anger and anxiety over federal spending to pull even with Coakley, the state's attorney general.

On Sunday, Brown used New England's love of its sports teams in rallying voter support in his race for Senate.

Former Boston Red Sox pitcher and World Series champion Curt Schilling and former Boston College and NFL quarterback Doug Flutie appeared with Brown at a rally Sunday in Worcester.

Brown is seeking to build on momentum from polls showing the race to fill the late Edward Kennedy's U.S. Senate seat too close to call. His rally took place just moments before President Barack Obama arrived in Boston to campaign for Democrat Martha Coakley.

Brown also was joined by a celebrity from close to home, his daughter Ayla, a former contestant on "American Idol."

Also Sunday, a panicky White House and Democratic allies scrambled Sunday for a plan to salvage their hard-fought health care package in case a Republican wins Tuesday's Senate race in Massachusetts, which would enable the GOP to block further Senate action. - CBS News Story

Legal Battles Loom in Massachusetts?

A victory by Republican Scott Brown Tuesday in Massachusetts could quickly turn into a legal battle over the man he would replace – Sen. Paul Kirk – with the future of health reform in the Senate hanging in the balance.

Conservative commentator Fred Barnes is arguing that Kirk will lose his vote in the Senate after Tuesday's special election, no matter who wins, signaling a possible GOP line of attack against health reform if it passes with Kirk’s vote.

GOP elected officials haven't embraced that argument, and two academic election law experts contacted by POLITICO refuted the notion that Kirk will no longer be a senator after Tuesday's election. But it’s a sign of the fierce legal and political battles likely to ensue if Brown upsets Democrat Martha Coakley in the race to fill the late Sen. Ted Kennedy's Senate seat.

And Kirk would be in the middle of it all. Brown would take over for Kirk, a supporter of reform, and become the 41st vote against the health bill - ending the Democrats' filibuster-proof majority and throwing reform's future into serious doubt.

Republicans are worried that if Brown wins, Democrats will try to jam through a Senate health reform vote while Kirk still occupies the seat, in the time between Brown's election and when he is certified the winner.

Kirk has pledged to vote for reform for as long as he remains a senator, even if Brown wins Tuesday. Some Republican lawyers are arguing he won’t have the chance. - Politico Story

Democrats Continue to Struggle Ahead of Election

Public Policy Polling's final survey finds Scott Brown up 51% to 46%, a result that's within the margin for error of the poll but which mirrors most other recent polls in giving the Republican a lead in the race.

The quick summary:

Over the last week Brown has continued his dominance with independents and increased his ability to win over Obama voters as Coakley's favorability numbers have declined into negative territory. At the same time Democratic leaning voters have started to take more interest in the election, a trend that if it continues in the final 36 hours of the campaign could put her over the finish line.

Striking numbers:

-Brown is up 64-32 with independents and is winning 20% of the vote from people who supported Barack Obama in 2008 while Coakley is getting just 4% of the McCain vote.

-Those planning to turn out continue to be skeptical of the Democratic health care plan, saying they oppose it by a 48/40 margin.

- Politico

Democrats in Nightmare Called Massachusetts

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said Friday that if Republicans prevail the Massachusetts Senate seat, health care reform is dead.

"If Scott Brown wins, it'll kill the health bill," Frank told reporters, although he added that he thought Democrat Martha Coakley would defeat Brown.

Losing the Massachusetts race presents a nightmare scenario for Democrats, many of whom would want to pass the legislation before Brown is seated. But Democrats would face an onslaught of criticism from Republicans, as well as cold feet from rank and file.

And the party isn't united on what exactly would happen following a defeat.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the Senate health committee, disputed Frank's prediction, saying Democrats would pass a bill.

"Well, those are kind of apocalyptic terms. I still think there is a wellspring of support in this country for doing something about health care because people are losing their health care every day, thousands every day. All these things are out there, so the momentum is still there for getting a health care bill."

Either way, the second-guessing has begun. Frank said Coakley should have campaigned harder for the seat held by Ted Kennedy, who passed away last summer. - Politico Story

Obama Trying to Save Massachussetts

With the political winds at the back of Republican Scott Brown, pollsters tracking the Massachusetts Senate race are skeptical that President Obama’s Boston rally on Sunday will be enough to put Democrat Martha Coakley over the top.

Her supporters are holding on to the hope that Obama’s appearance, along with the wave of reports about Brown’s surging poll numbers, will inspire Democrats who’ve been cool to Coakley and the race until now to turn out at the polls to back her.

Given the state’s leftward tilt – it last elected a Republican senator in 1972, and Democrats outnumber Republicans by about three-to-one – that could avert a stunning Democratic loss of a seat that seemed safe as recently as two weeks ago.

“A lot of people don’t even realize there is an election on Tuesday to fill the unexpired term of Ted Kennedy,” Obama says in a robocall that state voters began receiving Friday. “They don’t realize why it’s so important.”

David Paleologos, the director of the Political Research Center at Boston's Suffolk University, said Obama’s visit was “less about persuasion – just one percent of voters are still undecided – and more about inspiration,” making sure Democrats voters disinterested in the race or cool to Coakley head to the polls.

But so far it’s been Brown who’s benefited from turning the election into a referendum on the president’s policies. He’s based much of his campaign on a promise to stop Obama’s health plan, since his win would leave Democrats one vote shy of the 60 needed to stop a filibuster, while Coakley has vowed to pass it.

According to a Suffolk University poll released Thursday—the first to show Brown in the lead—55 percent of Bay Staters have a favorable view of Obama .

But only 48 percent approve of the job he’s doing and just 36 percent like his signature health care bill. Brown’s late jump in the polls has been pushed by independents – who make up just over half the electorate in Massachusetts, where they’re allowed to vote in party primaries – and Republicans fired up by their opposition to the president’s health plan. - Politico Story