REPUBLICANS IN MASS?

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	~~If the~~ Republicans ~~win~~ won the Senate seat of the late Ted Kennedy, and here are some of the reasons behind it to consider: 1. Obama and company made a huge, huge mistake letting Congress try to work out the “details” of health reform. It resulted in a year long mess, a political dirt ball battle, that was broadcast to the American public and stirred many to anger. 2. The Democrats generally made another huge mistake in linking cost containment into health care reform. Too much, too soon. They went for the whole watermelon when they should have taken some smaller slices. Getting a handle on medicare costs, and health costs in general, is enough for one, separate piece of legislation. That’s a very, very big in itself. Trying to do it all at once was part of what scared the public. When you shove a thousands things at the public, particularly on such an important issue, people get the idea that you are trying to pull something over on them by burying details in the process. 3. The Republicans, and the insurance lobby, came out hard and strong against the whole idea, any idea, whatever the idea was. Once again, the Democrats were dumbfounded by how virulent and determined he opposition turned out to be (and how well funded). The Democrats never caught up to the barrage of criticism and they haven’t caught up yet. They will lose many seats in the House and lose their 60 seat, filibuster proof majority in the Senate, which will make the next two years very hard for them and Obama. Bye bye, big mandate. We hardly knew ye 4. Obama talks too much and says too little. Why the heck does he have to be on every television channel yet invented? Why did he have to be defending health care reform when no one even knew, months ago, what the heck it was going to be? The Obama handlers think they have an ultimate golden boy who can’t miss when it goes up to the plate. They’ve sent him up to bat way too many times and he gets less accomplished the more he swings. 5. The Democrats fell victim to the same thing that hit Bush in his second term: they over estimated the value of their election victory and tried to cash in, big time. Bush won a small victory and treated it like a landslide. Obama won a landslide and tried to treat like the end of traditional politics. 6. The Democrats thought they had a forever safe seat in Massachusetts. Turns out, they didn’t. They took it for granted and didn’t try hard enough. Being against health care reform stirs passions, being for it, not so much. Lesson learned? We’ll see. Doug Terry, 6:50 PM, 1.19.10 (now, back to the real story, Haiti)

		FOR THE DEMOCRATS, losing Tuesday in Massachusetts could be one of the best things to happen in a long time: wake-up call, anyone? More on this soon.

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