01.20.2010 9:20am EST
(Boston)
Republicans are rejoicing and Democrats reeling in the wake of Scott Brown’s
stunning victory over Martha Coakley in a special Massachusetts Senate election
that Brown insists was not simply a referendum on President Barack Obama.
Still, Obama grimly faced a need to both regroup
and recoup losses on Wednesday, the anniversary of his inauguration, in a White
House shaken by the realization of what a difference a year made. The most
likely starting place was finding a way to save the much-criticized health care
overhaul he’s been trying to push through Congress.
In one of the
country’s most traditionally liberal states, Brown rode a wave of voter anger
to defeat Coakley, the attorney general who had been considered a surefire
winner until just days ago. Her loss signaled big political problems for Obama
and the Democratic Party this fall when House, Senate and gubernatorial
candidates are on the ballot nationwide.
Brown, however,
maintained in an interview Wednesday morning that claiming the election was a
referendum on Obama would be oversimplifying what had happened there. Nor, he
said, was it merely a matter of voters rejecting Coakley.
Asked on NBC’s
“Today” show if the election was a referendum on Obama, he replied, “No, it’s
bigger than that.”
“I just focused
on what I did, which is to talk about the issues – terror, taxes and the health
care plan,” he said. “I don’t think it was anything that she did.” Brown noted
that he was able to establish himself as a strong candidate, traveling across
the state “while they were in the middle of their primary. … People enjoyed the
message.”
He called the
Obama-backed health care system “not good for our state,” and said he didn’t
think the voters would stand for any effort by Democrats to delay seating him
in the Senate. Brown said Democrats would pay at the polls in November for any
“political chicanery.” He also said he believes he offered voters the vision of
a public servant who would vote in Washington for whatever is best, “whether
it’s a good Democratic idea or a Republican idea.”
Brown will become
the 41st Republican in the 100-member Senate, which could allow the GOP to
block the health care bill. Democrats needed Coakley to win for a 60th vote to
thwart Republican filibusters.
Brown became the
first Republican elected to the U.S. Senate from supposedly true-blue
Democratic Massachusetts since 1972.
“I have no
interest in sugarcoating what happened in Massachusetts,” said Sen. Robert
Menendez, the head of the Senate Democrats’ campaign committee. “There is a lot
of anxiety in the country right now. Americans are understandably impatient.”
Brown will finish
Kennedy’s unexpired term, facing re-election in 2012. Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid pledged to seat Brown immediately, a hasty retreat from pre-election
Democratic threats to delay his inauguration until after the health bill
passed.
Brown led by 52
percent to 47 percent with 100 percent of precincts counted. The third
candidate in the race, independent Joseph L. Kennedy, who is no relation to
Edward Kennedy, had less than 1 percent.
The local
election played out against a national backdrop of animosity and resentment
from voters over persistently high unemployment, Wall Street bailouts,
exploding federal budget deficits and partisan wrangling over health care.
On Wednesday,
Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele said Americans were breathing “a sigh
of relief” over the potential derailing of the health care bill.
“People across
the country are saying, ‘Slow it down,’ ” Steele said Wednesday.
But David
Plouffe, who directed Obama’s presidential campaign, rejected calls to scrap
the bill. “We have a good health care plan,” he said. “We need to pass that. We
have to lead.”
Brown’s victory
was so sweeping, he even won in the Cape Cod community where Kennedy, the
longtime liberal icon, died of brain cancer last August.
“While the honor
is mine, this Senate seat belongs to no one person, no one political party,”
Brown told his supporters Tuesday night. “This is the people’s seat,” he added
to chants of “People’s seat!”
For weeks
considered a long shot, the 50-year-old Brown seized on voter discontent to
overtake Coakley in the campaign’s final stretch. His candidacy energized
Republicans, including backers of the “tea party” protest movement, while
attracting disappointed Democrats and independents uneasy with where they felt
the nation was heading.
“I voted for
Obama because I wanted change,” said John Triolo, 38, a registered independent
who voted in Fitchburg. “I thought he’d bring it to us, but I just don’t like
the direction that he’s heading.”
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 attempted Christmas Day airliner bombing, which Obama
himself said showed a failure of his administration.