Massachusetts voters head to the poll

As he battled brain cancer last year, the late Democratic senator Ted Kennedy "privately asked the governor and legislative leaders to change the succession law to guarantee that Massachusetts will not lack a Senate vote when his seat becomes vacant." The legislature and Gov. Deval Patrick (D) complied, changing the law so that Patrick could appoint an interim senator who would serve until a special election. On Aug. 20, 2009, Patrick named former Kennedy aide Paul Kirk, announcing that Kirk "will not seek the open seat in the special election coming up in January." Today, Massachusetts voters head to the polls to pick Kennedy's first elected successor. When Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley won the Democratic primary last December, Talking Points Memo's Eric Kleefeld declared that her victory was "close to a win in the general election itself" because of Massachusetts' Democratic tilt. But in the last few weeks, Coakley's Republican opponent, State Sen. Scott Brown, has turned the race into a heated contest and drawn ahead of Coakley in the latest pre-election polls. With Brown promising to become the 41st vote needed to sustain a Republican filibuster of health care reform if he wins, the down-to-the-wire race in Massachusetts has put the future of health care reform into serious question. THE DYNAMICS OF THE RACE: As the race has moved from an expected win for Coakley to a toss-up that leans toward Brown, pundits and politicians have offered various theories about why the race to succeed Kennedy has taken such a dramatic turn. Some Democrats are pointing fingers at Coakley for "running a sluggish campaign" that "effectively ceded to her opponent the day-to-day news coverage" until the final week of the campaign. Republicans are trying to paint the election as a referendum on President Obama's effort to reform the health care system. Though the race certainly has implications for health care, it is hard to say that the issue is the determining factor, considering Massachusetts' unique position as a state that has already overhauled its health care system in much the same way that Obama intends and the fact that some polls have found majority support in the state for Obama's plan. "Massachusetts is completely unique, because the health reform law passed a few years ago," White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer told the Washington Post. "It makes it an imperfect example and impossible to extrapolate." But the race is an indicator of the political environment a year into Obama's presidency. A Suffolk University poll released last week found that while 55 percent of Bay Staters have a favorable opinion of Obama, just 48 percent approve of the job he is doing. With unemployment topping 10 percent nationally and 8 percent in Massachusetts, there is a strong "'throw out the bums' mentality" in both the country and the Bay State. OPTIONS GOING FORWARD: Facing the prospect of a Brown win tonight, Democrats have begun putting together "a plan to salvage their hard-fought health care package." "Certainly the dynamic would change depending on what happens in Massachusetts," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told reporters yesterday. "[It's] just a question about how we would proceed. But it doesn't mean we won't have a health care bill." "The Congress will find a way to pass health care reform because they know they absolutely have to do that having gotten this far," said Center for American Progress President and CEO John Podesta on NBC's Meet The Press on Sunday. "There are a variety of different paths." If Brown wins, one option is for Democrats to rush to vote on a bill before he is sworn in, which Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) has called the "hurry-up-and-stall strategy." Both Podesta and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) have raised the possibility of using the reconciliation process in the Senate to avoid the need for amassing 60 votes to block a filibuster, which would put "health care's fortunes in the hands of the Senate parliamentarian, who could strike out key sections of bill because they aren't germane to the budget." According to the New York Times, however, White House and Democratic congressional leaders "have begun laying the groundwork to ask House Democrats to approve the Senate version of the bill and send it directly to President Obama for his signature." But that could be a difficult vote to put together in the House as "House Democrats have voiced a number of complaints with the Senate measure." THINGS CHANGE: National conservatives are hoping that a Brown victory would boost their efforts to obstruct the progressive agenda. "If this health care reform bill doesn't pass, it is the end of the Obama agenda," added House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) yesterday. On Sunday, Fox News' Brit Hume asked Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) if it would be "better for the Democrats and worse for the Republicans if the bill passes or if it fails." "What's important is it would be good for the country if it failed," replied McConnell. "I think the politics are toxic for the Democrats either way," McConnell told Hume. "Whether it passes or whether it fails, it will be a huge issue not just in 2010 but in 2012." But if health care reform does pass -- extending coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans while reducing the deficit -- the political dynamics would likely be very different than McConnell claims. As Podesta pointed out on Meet The Press, when Massachusetts passed its universal health care legislation "a majority of the people, having watched the sausage making, were against the bill by the time it finally passed," but "today, 80 percent don't want to see it repealed. So things change." From Think Progress