Time to Panic??

Establishment Democrats seem to be predisposed to panic. It is like they see a puddle on the sidewalk and instead of simply walking around it or stepping over it they decide to pull out the scuba gear, throw on the life jacket and pray that they can conjure up the specific instructions from their childhood swim lessons. People please...you are adults. I mean come on. Let's say that Martha Coakley does lose tonight. This will not be as a result of a referendum on health care reform. Massachusetts already has a universal coverage very similar to the bill being advanced through Congress. It will not be a rejection of President Obama and his "agenda". The POTUS has an approval rating in the 60's in Massachusetts. It will be the result of an arrogant candidate running an out of touch and entitled campaign. Not to mention the economic realities we face as a country.

Now here is the choice for Democrats...Man/Woman up or step aside. This isn't a time for panic. This is a time for resolve. This the the time to continue to move this country forward.

Andrew Sullivan makes the following points:

Chait is running around like a chicken with its head cut off telling the Dems to stop panicking. And it's working!

He notes how a ten percent unemployment rate in a race for a seat that seemed owned by one party is not exactly a recipe for electoral continuity. He notes that Obama's popularity remains remarkably stable and high for this kind of recessionary backdrop (especially in Massachusetts). But his strongest point is against the delusion that somehow Obama did not try for bipartisanship and that the polarization is his fault and that a more moderate stance on the stimulus or healthcare would have helped.

Look at the fricking stimulus plan, a good faith effort to stop the economic bleeding, of which one third was composed of tax cuts. How many GOP votes did he get after just being inaugurated? Zero. Scott Brown argues that it did not create or save a single job. This insane position is rebutted by ... AEI.

For Rovians, the entire game of politics is just that: a game. And it's a game we all have to resist being sucked into (excitable moi especially).

You create reality by spin and hysteria and a 24-hour propaganda channel. The actual reality - the anachronism of Reaganomics in our current moment, the need to cut spending and raise taxes, the enmeshment of the previous administration is war crimes, the crippling burden of a broken healthcare system, the role of carbon in unsettling our climate - is too complicated for them to grapple with. So they create a game and they play it, with no accountability for their own past, fear-mongering on terror, denial on torture, and recitation of the same bromides that were very relevant in 1980 but are part of the problem now.

Obama will stay cool, get his Senate health bill through the House, and move on to financial re-regulation and economic revival. If the Democrats in the House balk at this, they have to be nuts. They will be buying into the Rovian psych-out. And I don't believe that so many worked so hard for Obama so recently in order to restore the logic and priorities of Rovian cynicism. Sprung has more thoughts here.

If Coakley does lose that puts the Democratic majority in the Senate at 59 to 41. That is an 18 vote majority. Last time I checked, this by far exceeds any Republican majority that George W Bush had when he was, in the words of Jon Stewart, "doing anything the fuck he wanted".

So this is the message to all of the Dems out there. Turn off the TV, take some antacid, find some spine and conitnue working for the people of this country. Oh...and listen to that Obama guy. He's got this.