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Senate results by congressional district
By adamg on Thu, 01/21/2010 - 2:07pm
Rob Sama pulls together the numbers, shows why even Barney Frank might have reason for concern.
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Comments
Republicans are cute
I like how they think this has more to do with Scott Brown's awesomeness or Democrat's flaggingly bad performance overall...and less to do with Coakley's craptastic campaigning and special election circumstances.
Barney Frank is not going to have any problems when he comes up for re-election.
Not just the GOP
The MSM too.
Republicans beat a democrat
Republicans beat a democrat to replace Ted Kennedy with a totally unknown guy who once posed in the nude for a centerfold spread. Bad as Martha was, you can't blame that all on her. There was a very clear division on the issues, with health care legislation constantly cited by both sides. It's called whistling past the graveyard.
self-congratulating schmucks
Sorry, but a Republican didn't 'replace' Ted Kennedy. Ted Kennedy is dead. There is no replacing a dead guy... stop patting yourself on the back with that one. What a proud moment for Republicans: blocking the average American citizen who has a pre-existing condition from getting affordable health care. You're real winners!
A Republican didn't replace Ted Kennedy
Ted Kennedy was the Senior Senator from Massachusetts. Ted Kennedy was replaced by John Kerry, who is now the Senior Senator from Massachusetts.
Scott Brown became the Junior Senator from Massachusetts, replacing John Kerry.
Scott Brown will never be the Senior Senator from Massachusetts, not even if he poisons John Kerry personally.
People bought a pig in a poke with Brown because they were pissed off. Once more people realize they've been suckered by this teabagging flim-flam man, 3 years won't be short enough.
Mad-Libs
If you replace the word Brown with Obama and take out teabagging, your missive would be identical to what some Republicans said about Obama after he was elected.
Like Obama, shouldn't we give him a chance first? Or are you more like the teabaggers you seem to despise?
The middle is in control
I don't agree with all of Brown's points (eg - gun positions) - but he seems like a pretty reasonable person. I know you hope he's a one hit wonder - but you may be surprised about his staying power as long as he realizes that we elected him to be an agent of compromise, not obstruction and he acts as such. His early comments seem to indicate that he gets that very clearly and that at the end of the day he was elected by the moderates of Mass, not the conservatives of Dixie.
It has surprised me to see the anger of the Dems around here - they sound exactly like some of the extreme rightwingers in my life when Obama got elected. The right and the left seem to live in a bubble oblivious to how far out of the mainstream they are and how unreasonable a lot of their positions are (usually fiscal positions on the left and social positions on the right).
Remember - the 20% of us in the middle control the outcome of these elections and we voted for Brown. Get over it and get used to it - because the next one up is Mr. Together We Couldn't.
The middle votes for the fringe?
I am perfectly happy to have the middle in control. We the middle elected a moderate Democrat to the presidency, a man whose perspectives and objectives fall squarely within the mainstream of the American political tradition, a band that includes both Democrats and Republicans, such as Clinton, Eisenhower, Nixon, and JFK. If Brown turns out to surprise us and fall within that mainstream, I will be happy to support him for a second term.
However, given his present associations and past record, he appears more likely to belong to the fringe of the right wing. There is an objective difference between an associate of birthers and speaker at teabagger rallies and a centrist like Obama or (the pre-Bush Years) McCain. The difference between a current right-wing fringe candidate and a past mainstream Republican like Ike is far greater than the difference between Ike and Obama. Even Barry Goldwater had more in common with Obama than with paranoid fabulators like Michelle Bachman.
If Obama hung out with 9/11 truthers and assorted conspiracy theorists, and gave speeches to left wing proto-militia groups (say, the Earth Liberation Front), making him the mirror equivalent of a Scott Brown, he would never have been elected.
Sorry, but a Republican
denial really isn't healthy, you know. You're like a kid who breaks a vase, and then stands among the pieces saying "I didn't do it!"
Barney Frank loses almost a
Barney Frank loses almost a quarter of voters even in years when he has no credible opponent. His district went (extremely narrowly) for Scott Brown over Martha Coakley. This does not mean that he's going to lose; but it does mean that he'll probably end up facing a more credible challenger.
His district is hardly a bastion of liberalism. It's more complicated than that. It's anchored in Newton and Brookline, where he can count on some 40,000 votes - perhaps more. But it also includes a large number of small and affluent suburbs, where he can count on losing to any credible challenger. It includes about half of Fall River, where he'll have to drive substantial turnout to benefit from the potential votes there. And it has the real battlegrounds - lower-middle-class suburbs where the voters are with the Democrats on policy issues, but not with Frank on cultural matters.
Frank doesn't want the distraction of an intense campaign over the next year. He'd far rather focus on financial reform and his chairmanship. So he's been doing his best over the past twenty-four hours to head off challenges - first sounding obsequious, assuring Brown voters that he'd heard their wrath and wouldn't press for health care reform; then, swamped by a wave of outrage from his Newton/Brookline base, backpedaling and announcing that he would indeed fight for some version of the bill. He's squeezed between a rock and a hard place. He'll win, but he's going to have to fight, and that'll pull him away from DC where he's desperately needed by the Democrats, and back onto the hustings.
This election really did change things in the state. Even if it doesn't alter the composition of the delegation, it's going to change the texture and tenor of political life.
8th Dist. Numbers look like they are off
There might be something wrong with Sama's numbers for the 8th District. It has far, far fewer votes than all the other districts and since all the congressional districts must have roughly the same number of people, that would imply a much, much lower turnout. I do not believe that was the case, although I suppose a large number of Capuano supporters could have stayed home in his district.
Turnout was lower in the
Turnout was lower in the city: Boston 43%, Cambridge 48%, Somerville and Brookline 54%, or close to those figures. The Globe ran a number on the front pages today, saying turnout was 58% in towns that favored Brown, and 49% in towns that favored Coakley.
Trying to draw a bead on Capuano supporters staying home, though. People did stay home in the two most retrograde wards in Somerville (One and Four), compared to the rest of town. I have some damning figures to post when I have a few minutes.
They do look low
Especially since 150,000 voted in Boston - which is a big part of his district - I didn't do the addition - but it looks like his columns total.