Tag Archives: Massachusetts

New State, Same Old Phony

The barn jacket and the pick-up truck have lost their magic.  Poor Scott Brown just wants to be in the Senate, people.  But having been kicked out by the people of Massachusetts in favor of Elizabeth Warren, his slither across the border to New Hampshire isn’t panning out.  He’s trailing another woman, incumbent Dem Jeanne Shaheen, by 12 points — 52 to 40.

And his favorables/unfavorables are upside down at 31 and 40.  Hers are right side up at 57-29.

A beat-up Scott may have to toss his carpetbag in that beat-up truck and head back home.

Hey, We’re All Part of Red Sox Nation

“Sen. Shaheen is not from here, but apparently it’s a problem with me.”

Republican Scott Brown, former Massachusetts senator now trying to become a New Hampshire senator

Jeanne Shaheen, former New Hampshire governor and incumbent senator, has lived in the state for more than 40 years.  Scott Brown registered to vote in the Granite State three months ago.

 

Nate Speaks

Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com says the GOP has a 60% chance of taking the Senate.

But he’s not bullish on our favorite empty barn jacket, former Massachusetts senator Scott Brown, who is now running in New Hampshire against Jeanne Shaheen.  Silver gives Shaheen a 75% chance of keeping her seat, leaving Brown to hop in his pickup truck and perhaps look for love (he is, after all, a former Cosmopolitan centerfold) in yet a third state.

Not So Bad

I know Sean (“Death Spiral”) Hannity won’t see it this way, but the demographics of Obamacare so far aren’t that bad.  They had hoped about 40% of those signing up would be 18-34.  So far, it looks more like 24%, so the insurance pool is older and sicker than they’d like.

But, there’s three more months of open enrollment, and it was always expected that the old and sick would sign up first, since they need coverage more desperately, and the young and healthy would be stragglers.  That’s how it played out in Massachusetts when Romneycare first took effect.

Also, the Kaiser Family Foundation says that even with this pool, the insurance market should be stable, with premiums rising maybe a percent or two.  If the risk pool improves as expected, that will help keep premiums down.

Looking a lot better for the Prez (and Dems running in 2014) than it did three months ago.

Crazy Challenges Conservative

If you were writing a parody of a right-wing nut job announcing for the Senate, you couldn’t do a better job than Congressman Steve Stockman’s actual announcement that he’s primarying John Cornyn in Texas.

Claim the Fed is unconstitutional?  Check.  Claim the U. N. is going to take away your guns?  Check.

Claim John Cornyn is a liberal?  Check.  WTF?  The National Journal named Cornyn the second most conservative member of the Senate.  John Cornyn is as much a liberal as I am a nuclear physicist.

But Stockman claims Cornyn puts “a Republican bayonet in your back…every day.”  He says Cornyn “wakes up every morning and works to make the Senate a more liberal place.”  He suggests Cornyn should become a senator from Massachusetts — yeah, he and Elizabeth Warren, two peas in a pod.

His announcement is funny and delusional and sad and scary.   When is the fever going to break?

The Empty Barn Jacket Is Back

Former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, who briefly replaced Teddy Kennedy (because it was too damn cold for Martha Coakley to shake hands outside Fenway Park or something) and then lost his bid for a full term to Elizabeth Warren in 2012, has set up a political action committee in New Hampshire, The People’s Seat PAC.

It looks as if Brown is preparing to run against Dem NH Senator Jean Shaheen in 2014.  Brown has long owned a vacation house in Rye, NH.

McConnell Joins “No” Column

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), terrified of his junior senator Rand Paul and the Tea Party challenge to his re-election in 2014, just came out against Obama’s Syria resolution.  He’s making Speaker of the House John Boehner look even more like a Maytag repairman — very lonely.

And Ed “Profile in Courage” Markey (D-Massachusetts) has switched his vote from Present to No.

Rove Should Know Better

Karl Rove today called people from New Hampshire “New Hampshirians.”

You’d think he’d know that the people who hold the first presidential primary are New Hampsherites.

This came up in a discussion about Scott (“Empty Barn Jacket”) Brown’s possible run for Senate from there in 2014.  Brown lost his Massachusetts seat to Elizabeth Warren in 2012.

Brown “summers” in New Hampshire.