Some reasons for the Mass. Dem Debacle...

Are:
1. A lousy candidate. I'm sure Martha Coakley is a good A.G. but...
2. Democratic party laxity. Were the Dems thinking this was Animal House? "They have to take me - I'm a legacy!"
3. No youth vote. The kids won't come out for bland middle-aged white ladies.
4. No Kennedys. The Dynasty looks to have run its course, leaving a political vacuum.
5. Mass. already has a great health care system. Why should they pay for others?
6. Mass. voters not as progressive as thought. Remember the "Southies" stoning buses of black students during the forced integration of Boston schools?
7. Mass. is a "donor" state, giving more tax revenue to the federal government than they get back. Why add health care?
8. Shay's Rebellion in a tea bag.
9. Photogenic former Cosmo male nude fold-out w/photogenic wife, "available" daughters.
10. [Enter your reason here_______________________________________].
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Some have been commenting on the way the U.S. Senate does its business with the automatic "filibuster" of 41 against any legislation. A rule that takes 67/100 votes to change, painting the Senate into its own corner. The only other option is to go "constitutional" (read: "nuclear")if Joe Biden were bidden to do so. As it is now, 41 beats 59. The Constitution allows the Senate to make its own rules, but called for super-majorities only for certain high-level appointments and treaties. I would like to believe that if some senator, or the Democratic Party brought suit, it would not survive a SCOTUS ruling. But after the Taney Court-like decision that opens the corporate $$ floodgates, Plutocracy now trumps democracy. American expatriates have good reason to feel vindicated and guiltless for giving up on the republic.

And another response...

To an Anchorage Daily News letter went like this:

Honestly. Why do people like Lori Bond (Letters, Jan. 2) insist on calling the all-too timid attempt at health reform moving through Congress “Obamacare? ” Bring in Sen. Begich if you want to, but this half-a-loaf legislation is clearly a creature of Congress, and only Congress. Progressives like me just wish President Obama had taken more ownership of health care reform – perhaps then we’d get at least a public option, if not a single payer system.
Decriers of “Obamacare” such as Bond and others sound so much like the Birthers and Tea-baggers who scream, “Keep your government hands off my Medicare,” and insist on the debunked notion that ACORN stole 7 ½ million votes for Obama in 2008. They will say anything in the attempt to harm this presidency. It is further proof that far too many conservatives are more interested in seeing the president fail, than seeing the country succeed in offering what every other advanced nation already has: health care for all.
True...?