Media advance dubious claim that MA Senate election was a referendum on Obama

The Associated Press, the New York Post, and MSNBC's Joe Scarborough advanced the claim that the Massachusetts special U.S. Senate election was, in Scarborough's words, "a rejection of Barack Obama." But election night polling showing that the majority of Massachusetts voters approve of Obama's job performance undermines this claim, and Scott Brown himself has stated that the race was "not a referendum on Obama." Media advance claim that MA election was referendum on Obama AP: "Race seen as a referendum on Obama's first year in office." The AP wrote in a January 20 article that the Massachusetts Senate race was "seen as a referendum on Obama's first year in office." NY Post: "Republicans said the race was a referendum on Obama." A January 20 New York Post article claimed that "[g]leeful Republicans said the race was a referendum on Obama." The Post then quoted a National Republican Senatorial Committee statement as saying, "Democrats nationwide should be on notice." Scarborough: Election a "rejection of Barack Obama." On the January 20 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, Scarborough said of the Senate race, "[A]nyway you look at it, this is a rejection of Barack Obama." Exit polls of MA voters show majority support for Obama Rasmussen: Fifty-three percent of MA voters approve of Obama job performance. In its election night polling, Rasmussen Reports found that 53 percent of Massachusetts voters "approve of the way that Barack Obama has handled his job as President." As Media Matters for America has documented, pollster Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, reportedly worked for President George W. Bush's re-election campaign and for the Republican National Committee in 2003 and 2004. Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates: Obama held a 59 percent favorability mark and 55 percent job approval rating among MA voters. A January 20 Politico article reported that a Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates exit poll found that "Obama's personal favorability remained high with voters." The poll found that "Obama boasted a 59 percent favorability mark" and "Obama's job approval rating even stayed at a respectable 55 percent as voters trekked to the ballot box to oppose the candidate he campaigned for just two days earlier. The president even earned a passing mark on his handling of the economy (50 percent approval) and received a clear majority's support for his work in the war in Afghanistan (59 percent approval)." Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates is a Republican polling firm. Even Brown himself stated that the election was "not a referendum on the president" Brown's "Last Pitch": "It's not a referendum on the president. There are many issues." In his January 18 "Last Pitch" interview with Boston's ABC affiliate, Brown said of the race: "It's not a referendum on the president. There are many issues; you're talking about national security, taxes, spending -- the health care plan certainly is important." M.C.L comment: Like Ed Schultz said on his show Scott Brown didn't run like a Republican plus Brown didn't run as the tea bag candidate. Brown used the Ronald Reagan/George W. Bush playbook look pretty for the camera, drive a pick up truck cuz those indie voters love a man in a truck and be very vague on your personal beliefs and be generic as possible when you talk public policy.. But if President Obama wants to take something out of the election from last night it should be this, forget the Republicans they want the country to crash and burn around him so he should fight for the average person that means be tougher on the banks, push a more progressive health care bill with 51 democrats instead of the weaker senate bill and work on a strong progressive jobs bill. Because right now the Republicans funded tea parties are clouding the real debate and the corporate media have no interest in setting the record straight about them. And what progressive should take from this election if you want a more progressive Democratic party you have to fight for it, somebody had to pick Martha Coakley in the primary and if there was a candidate that truly embodied Ted Kennedy vision where were progressive in Massachusetts? Progressives can't take their ball and go home because they didn't get 100% in the first year, if progressives sit at home for the 2010 and the 2012 election you're placing us at the mercy of the misinform and the dumb. And I know progressives don't want to see another Ronald Reagan/George W. Bush type being swore in on January 20, 2013.. Be active, be honest and fight like those bastards stole money from you.

Brown victory party featured flag calling for a ‘second’ revolution, tea party-inspired civil war.

By Lee Fang

State Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), who won the special election to represent Massachusetts in the United States Senate yesterday, celebrated his win at the Boston Park Plaza last night. ThinkProgress attended the event and observed a variant of the original revolutionary war flag, which depicts a roman numeral II within the original thirteen stars, widely distributed throughout Brown party. Jeff McQueen, who designed the flag and sells it through his own business “USRevolution2,” explained that the flags means, “REVOLUTION . . . ROUND 2! I also thought the ‘II’ could have two meanings: ‘Second’ American Revolution and ‘Second’ Amendment.” McQueen, a tea party organizer, has repeatedly used tea party websites to call for a revolution. In one of his posts, he explains that the country would be better served by splitting states between Democratic and Republican:

We are now as divided as America was in the 1860s. When two people find they can no longer communicate, while living under the same roof, they often split apart and go there seperate ways. So what if . . . we took the United States and just split it in half . . . 24 states become The United States of the Democrats and 24 states become The United States of the Republicans (including Ron Paul supporters and Libertarians etc . . .). California and New York can be split in half and go the the side they choose.

Watch Brown supporters wave second revolution war flags at his victory party:

ThinkProgress also observed the same flags waved at Brown rallies in Boston, Worcester, and Hyannis.

By GLEN JOHNSON and LIZ SIDOTI BOSTON — In an epic upset in liberal Massachusetts, Republican Scott Brown rode a wave of voter anger to defeat Democrat Martha Coakley in a U.S. Senate election Tuesday that left President Barack Obama's health care overhaul in doubt and marred the end of his first year in office.

The loss by the once-favored Coakley for the seat that the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy held for nearly half a century signaled big political problems for the president's party this fall when House, Senate and gubernatorial candidates are on the ballot nationwide.

More immediately, Brown will become the 41st Republican in the 100-member Senate, which could allow the GOP to block the president's health care legislation and the rest of Obama's agenda. Democrats needed Coakley to win for a 60th vote to thwart Republican filibusters.

Democratic fingerpointing began more than a week ago as polls started showing a tight race, with the White House accusing Coakley of a poor campaign and the Coakley camp laying at some of the blame on the administration. Obama flew to Boston for last-ditch personal campaigning on Sunday.

With 87 percent of precincts counted, Brown led Coakley, 52 percent to 47 percent.

The election transformed reliably Democratic Massachusetts into a battleground state. One day shy of the first anniversary of Obama's swearing-in, it played out amid a backdrop of animosity and resentment from voters over persistently high unemployment, industry bailouts, exploding federal budget deficits and partisan wrangling over health care.

For weeks considered a long shot, Brown seized on such discontent to overtake Coakley in the final stretch of the campaign. Surveys showed his candidacy energized Republicans, including backers of the grass-roots "tea party" movement, while attracting disappointed Democrats and independents uneasy with where they felt the nation was heading.

Turnout was relatively heavy for a special election despite a mix of snow and rain showers across the state virtually all day.

Though he wasn't on the ballot, the president was on many voters' minds.

"I voted for Obama because I wanted change. ... I thought he'd bring it to us, but I just don't like the direction that he's heading," said John Triolo, 38, a registered independent who voted in Fitchburg.

He said his frustrations, including what he considered the too-quick pace of health care legislation, led him to vote for Brown.

But Robert Hickman, 55, of New Bedford, said he backed Coakley "to stay on the same page with the president."

Even before the first results were announced, administration officials were privately accusing Coakley of a poorly run campaign and playing down the notion that Obama or a toxic political landscape had much to do with the outcome.

Coakley's supporters, in turn, blamed that very environment, saying her lead dropped significantly after the Senate passed health care reform shortly before Christmas and after the Christmas Day attempted airliner bombing that Obama himself said showed a failure of his administration.

While votes were still being cast, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president "was both surprised and frustrated ... not pleased" at how competitive the race had become in the final weeks.

Wall Street watched the election closely. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 116 points, and analysts attributed the increase to hopes the election would make it harder for Obama to make his changes to health care. That eased investor concerns that profits at companies such as insurers and drug makers would suffer.

Across Massachusetts, voters who had been bombarded with phone calls and dizzied with nonstop campaign commercials for Coakley and Brown gave a fitting turnout despite intermittent snow and rain statewide.

Secretary of State William Galvin, who discounted sporadic reports of voter irregularities throughout the day, predicted turnout ranging from 1.6 million to 2.2 million, 40 percent to 55 percent of registered voters. The Dec. 8 primary had a scant turnout of about 20 percent.

Voters considered national issues including health care and the federal budget deficits.

"We don't want health care just for the rich and the middle class. We need it for everyone," said Democrat Neicei Degen, 82, who voted for Coakley in hopes of saving Obama's plan that would extend coverage to millions of uninsured.

Fears about spending drove Karla Bunch, 49, to vote for Brown. "It's time for the country, for the taxpayers, to take back their money," she said.

For others, feelings about the candidates themselves shaped their votes.

Recalling that Brown once posed nude for Cosmopolitan magazine, Kaitlin Addams, 50, said she reluctantly voted for Coakley "to make sure the pinup boy doesn't get into office. I don't like his stand on issues. He's an extreme conservative."

Conversely, Elizabeth Reddin, 65, voted for Brown because she said she was turned off by the Democrat's negative advertisements, saying: "The Coakley stuff was disgusting."

As polls opened, Brown drove up to his polling place in Wrentham in the green pickup truck that came to symbolize his upstart, workmanlike campaign that in the past week pulled him into a surprise dead heat in polls.

"It would make everybody the 41st senator, and it would bring fairness and discussion back to the equation," the state senator said of a potential victory. He spent the rest of the day out of public view, crafting evening rally remarks that had the potential to be an early State of the Union speech for the national Republican Party.

Coakley, stunned to see a double-digit lead evaporate in recent weeks, counted on labor unions and reawakened Democrats to turn out on her behalf and preserve a seat Kennedy and his brother, President John F. Kennedy, held for over 50 years. The senator died in August of brain cancer.

"We're paying attention to the ground game," Coakley, the state's attorney general, said casting her vote in suburban Medford. "Every game has its own dynamics. M.C.L comment: It's 10:40 and Sean Hannity is in his dressing room with a hand lotion and paper towels watching Scott Brown and the forces of social regression celebrating their victory. Now the story-line from this election is that Dems are going to duck in their shells and act like Republicans or play prevent defense in the midterms. While the Republicans secure the 41th vote to tell millions of the uninsured don't get sick and if you do get sick die quickly, Democrats can't pee in their pants and run in the middle for two reasons there is no middle and if you present people the option of a Democrat that act like a Republican and a true Republican the people will vote for the true Republican every time. This is not the time for Dems play "let's stab each other in the back" game understand why Mrs. Coakley lost and make a game plan to prevent other Dems from falling victim to faux right wing populist. And from I seen in the media leading up to this event Coakley took the voters for granted, she didn't hit Brown back when he lied and didn't challenge the faux right wing populism. And speaking of faux right wing populism, isn't ironic the same people that cheered and voted for Scott Brown were the same people that gave George W. Bush two terms in office and didn't raise a stink at the things he was doing i.e. bloating the national debt.

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Politico runs interference for Scott Brown

by Eric Boehlert

Politico's Ben Smith seemed to go out of his way to create a false equivalency with his recent report on the Mass. special election:

Headline:

Massachusetts gets ugly

Lede:

Given the stakes and the growing possibility of a historic upset, the two campaigns closed with fervor. Coakley’s backers accused Brown of indulging a crude, violent remark by a supporter, while Brown blasted Coakley with claims that she had misused the legacy of Martin Luther King on a day that brought the candidates into the same room for the last time for a sedate breakfast honoring the memory of the slain civil rights icon.

See, both sides were getting ugly, according to Smith. But was that really true? According to Smith's reporting, the claim that Democratic Martha Coakley's campaign had become "ugly," was the suggestion by her opponent that she inappropriately campaigned at an MLK event.

Is that "ugly"? Doesn't really seem that way to me. And yes, that's the only example Smith included to document how the Coakley campaign had become "ugly." So we'd say that's pretty thin stuff.

As for Republican Brown? Behold [emphasis added]:

[He's accused of] smiling and encouraging a supporter’s entreaty to “shove a curling iron up [Coakley’s] butt.” A video shows Brown smiling, nodding, and saying, “We can do it,” immediately after his supporter shouted the words at a West Springfield event.

Now that sounds kinda of ugly. (Brown's rep claimed the candidate didn't hear the vulgar remark.) But according to Smith's telling, both sides on Mass. campaign were getting ugly, even though Smith only provided evidence of the Republican doing so.

UPDATED: Politico conducted an "exclusive" poll on the Mass. race with InsiderAdvantage, which uncovered horrible news for Coakley. News that InsiderAdvantage chief Matt Towery seemed eager to tout in Politico:

"I actually think the bottom is falling out," said InsiderAdvantage CEO Matt Towery, referring to Coakley's fall in the polls over the last ten days. "I think that this candidate is in free fall. Clearly this race is imploding for her."

And who is Matt Towery? He's "a former aide to Newt Gingrich." An interesting choice in polling partner for Politico, to say the least.