Analysis of Scott Brown's Win as U.S. Senator from Massachusetts
by: Jay Shenk
There appears to be consensus on two things about Scott Brown’s victory—it is a game changing event in the governance of our country, and it was an absolutely amazing victory. It was game altering not just because the Democrats lost their ‘filibuster proof’ majority, but because it happened in Massachusetts, the most reliably democratic state in the Union, and because it was Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat, the most powerful proponent of universal health care our country’s ever seen. In terms of symbolism and sending a message, the stars lined up.
There are two other points that will find widespread consensus as well—if the Democrats don’t do something different, they’ll get smoked in the upcoming November elections, and the healthcare bill as it currently is written is less likely to become law. Beyond these points, there is much disagreement over why Brown won (or Coakley lost), and what lesson(s) should be learned from the election.
However, there has certainly been no shortage of opinions on the above—famous columnists and pundits, esteemed Ivy League professors, and high government officials have all weighed in, and it’s amazing how diametrically opposed their opinions are, which at least makes me feel better about writing this column—just playing the odds, somewhere out there in the country there is an Ivy League educated, successful, famous person who has published a column that agrees with me.
It’s certainly no coincidence that the opinions I’ve read since the election remarkably reflect the BSB (before Scott Brown) views of the authors of the articles. In other words, there is a lot of ‘spin’ out there, as people try to twist what happened to either fit what they personally believe or what they want others to believe, which are generally the same thing. A notable exception was, of all people, Barney Frank—I often don’t agree with him, but as this drama was unfolding he was being honest, articulate, and intelligent in assessing what it meant. I think he has since come to his senses and is back to spinning the news, but for awhile there I caught a glimpse of why his opinion is worthy of respect. We saw a lot of that around Westminster, too. Tempers flared sometimes over differences of opinion, but now that it’s over, we are all friends again, because we know that this is why we have a democracy --there are a lot of different but equally valid opinions out there, which lead to different voting preferences.
The easier question to resolve is why Scott Brown won. The finger pointing between Washington and the Coakley campaign is about whether Martha lost because she was a lousy candidate, or if national events caused the loss. To me it’s obvious—Martha Coakley ran an exceptionally poor campaign, and she had a lot of negatives, but she wasn’t by any stretch such a bad candidate that she would have lost Ted Kennedy’s (or the people’s) seat if it weren’t for the mood of discontent with what’s happening in Washington, so it’s both their faults—if she had run a better campaign (not gone on vacation when she should have been campaigning, watched the Red Sox so she at least had heard of Curt Schilling, and not gone so ridiculously negative at the end) she might have won, or if Scott Brown had not been such a good candidate she might have won, but she’d have won in a cakewalk if not for the national political situation. It takes a lot to get lifelong Democrats to vote for a Republican, but about 20% of them did.
The tougher question is what it means that a Republican won Teddy’s Senate seat, and what President Obama and Congress should do about it. In the interests of objectivity, I’ll note that I’m an Independent who generally votes Republican, but I tend towards Libertarianism, and I’m no social conservative by a long shot. I also thought the healthcare bill as being developed was a mess, but not for the usual reasons. I think we should have universal health care, and that there should be subsidies for families that cannot afford health insurance, but I also passionately believe that the entire healthcare industry is a monopoly propagated and propped up by laws passed by our government, and it’s foolhardy to address universal coverage without a radical overhaul of how healthcare is practiced and delivered. Without that overhaul it will cost a fortune and we’ll go broke or end up with long waits and poor care, with the very rich getting a different level of care at private hospitals and doctor’s offices. It’s no coincidence so many big players in the healthcare industry supported this law—it guaranteed their monopoly position and corresponding profits forever.
So, the election of Scott Brown sent a message to Washington, for sure, but what’s the message and how should President Obama react? To read multiple opinions on this, I’d suggest going to www.Politico.com, a slightly left leaning site, but one which generally tries to stay impartial (and does a good job of it). The “Arena” section of Politico in particularly is good. For our opinion, keep reading.
The election of Senator Brown clearly says that we are dissatisfied with the way the Democrats are governing, primarily with how they are dealing with healthcare and the economy. It does mean that unless there’s a radical change the Republicans are going to pick up a ton of seats in Congress in about six months, but it does not mean people are crazy about the Republicans. This election means people are sick of the way Washington is being run, so they want a new approach (“Change”, as Candidate Obama put it), which you get by electing new people. Martha Coakley symbolized the status quo, while Scott Brown ran as the outsider, which is probably true, and a big reason why he won. Scott’s not broke by any means, is in no danger of having his house (actually houses) repossessed, and very few of us are married to TV personalities and have kids on American Idol, but he still comes across as someone who really does have an old pickup truck and likes driving it. Martha is much easier to picture sitting in a fancy restaurant in Cambridge, dropping $60 on lunch and being rude to the ‘help’, while she discusses how government can help the underprivileged, then leaving a lousy tip.
My fear is that President Obama is going to take the wrong approach to what really should be regarded as a wake-up call rather than a stinging rebuke—he still is personally popular. The situation can be salvaged but it’s a very tricky situation. His true base, the left wing of the Democratic Party, is also a true minority—at tops 20% of the population, and they already are starting to express some real disappointment about how Obama is governing. The Republican right wing, emboldened by talk radio and the Tea Party movement, is growing, although they remain a minority as well (40% of Americans consider themselves conservative, but not necessarily extremely conservative).
The moderate center of both parties is where most Americans are found, so a bipartisan approach seems to make sense, but it requires a major readjustment of how President Obama works with Congress, plus if it isn’t successful, he will be a lame duck president with three years to go. He needs the cooperation of both parties to be bipartisan, which is what the American people want too, but I’m not sure he or Congress can pull it off. The hard left wing dominates the positions of power for the Democrats, and the Republicans have hardliners as well, plus they may see it in their interest to be less than helpful. It’s a tight spot for our President.
Nevertheless, it’s how I think Obama should go, it seems to be his inclination, and I’ll use healthcare to illustrate:
The basic problem with our healthcare system is that it costs too much. A few nights in the hospital can bring a bill for $50,000, depending on the problem. Ten years ago I had a brain tumor and spent 5 nights in the hospital. I thankfully recovered and had insurance, but the bill for my 5 day stay in a luxurious hospital room was about $120,000 (which insurance paid, at a reduced rate and we paid just a $75 emergency room co-pay). With prices like that, it’s no wonder health insurance costs a lot. If a family health insurance plan was $400 a month instead of $2,400 a month, I wouldn’t be writing this article right now because health insurance wouldn’t be a problem.
So why’s it cost so much? Well, we can start with the medical profession—some doctors make a bunch of money, which is fine when deserved, particularly considering that stock speculators for some big banks make 100X as much for at best doing nothing worthwhile in society. However, if we allowed more medical schools, we’d have more doctors, and if we got rid of the restrictions against advertising, we’d have more doctors charging less money per visit. And why should I have to go to a doctor’s appointment for a nasal infection or a bad cough? By the time I get through all the defensive medicine and pay the regular fee, it will cost a good $150-$200. In Canada you can just buy codeine cough syrup over the counter for $5, and it works the best of any cough medicines, and in Mexico you can just go buy antibiotics. Maybe there should be a test so you can prove you know the difference between a viral and bacterial infection, but I really don’t think so much associated with health care needs to involve an expensive trip to a medical professional.
If we adjusted some of the patent laws that allow hospital equipment manufacturers and suppliers to charge a fortune for their products, costs would fall dramatically. If we allowed re-importation of drugs from overseas (where US drug companies sell the same drugs less expensively), speeded up the approval process for new drugs, and again adjusted our patent laws, drugs would be a lot cheaper. If we didn’t allow trial lawyers to sue doctors whenever something went wrong, doctors wouldn’t have to pay $100,000+ a year for insurance, and doctor visits would cost a lot less. Every one of the changes above would dramatically cut costs, but there are federal and state laws in place to protect the special interests that benefit from the government-enforced monopolies.
Now the Democrats tend to be more inclined towards universal healthcare, while the Republicans are more interested in cutting costs, although it depends which costs were talking about—Republicans tend to want to curb malpractice rates, but don’t seem to mind protecting drug companies quite as much, for instance, and I noticed that in the current healthcare law, union members are exempt from taxes everyone else has to pay. No matter what, in the mix there is room for compromise and true bipartisan reform (i.e. we’ll allow re-importation of drugs from CN, if you curb lawsuits for malpractice), and that’s what I think the American people want.
I personally am sick of seeing special interests getting laws passed that make everything so expensive people can’t afford it (such as healthcare), and then seeing the government try to address the problem by taxing everyone to pay for the services or products for which the government drove up the price in the first place. As I said earlier, why do you think so many special interests involved in health care supported the congressional bill? Answer: Because it baked in the status quo, which is generating lots of profits by overcharging for medical care. Both parties share the blame for this cycle, so in today’s climate whoever is in power is going to be the culprit until the cycle is broken.
Perhaps Obama can break this cycle of laws being written for special interests by working with the bipartisan middle, and if he does, he will be a great President.
My fear is that President Obama is going to try to be something he isn’t—a ‘populist’, and try to act like he’s going after banks and their big bonus structure, or working for ‘main street’, and that sort of stuff, or even blame George Bush. Obama isn’t a rabble rouser by nature, and he looks silly trying to be one. Besides, saying things like, “let’s punish the ones who got us in this mess by putting a big fee on banks” doesn’t even make sense. Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs might be symbols of the economic meltdown, but they are also just corporations. They are not people. The people who made all the money by speculating, before crashing the system, are probably not even working there anymore. They took their huge bonuses and moved on or retired.
The people still there are the branch managers, tellers, and that sort of folk, so when a big tax or fee is placed on the bank, who pays it? The tellers get a salary freeze, and the banks customers get a few more fees placed on their checking accounts, or maybe their credit card interest is a little higher. The “bank” doesn’t feel remorse for what it did—it’s not a person, and the people responsible already got their money and in most cases are long gone.
The message from Scott Brown’s victory is that we want true reform of “the machine”, and we want the politicians to treat us like adults and tell us the truth. What we don’t want is the backroom deals that border on corruption, secret negotiations, bills 2,600 pages long--so long they cannot be read, and partisan bickering and fighting for position. That's why we had 60% turnout in Westminster, and went 68% for Scott Brown. We still want 'change'.