Massachusetts Election, According to Politico “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.” But “[w]hatever words Obama chooses, however, will have trouble masking the substantive reality: A Massachusetts embarrassment would strongly increase the pressure Obama was already facing to retreat or slow down the ‘big bang’ agenda he laid out a year ago”.
“Democrat Martha Coakley’s struggle to stave off a potentially devastating defeat in Tuesday’s special Senate election in Massachusetts marks a critical turning point in the year-long debate about health-care reform.” A win by Scott Brown “would give Republicans 41 votes in the Senate and further embolden them to challenge the core of President Obama’s agenda.”
“Even before the polls opened, White House officials sought to blunt the narrative that the race was a referendum on the president’s health-care initiative, in part by arguing that Massachusetts already has universal coverage.” But Republicans “scoffed at the assertion” that health reform wasn’t a force behind Coakley’s struggles in the polls (Balz and Cillizza.
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