http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6994679.ece
Republicans scored an historic victory overnight that put President Barack Obama’s agenda in jeopardy exactly a year after he took power – and could kill health-care reform.
A little-known Republican state legislator came from a 30-percentage point deficit to win Edward Kennedy’s old seat in the US Senate in Massachusetts in what appeared to be a massive protest vote against the party that controls both chambers of Congress and the White House.
“This is a huge wake-up call for the Democrats, for the Obama Administration and the country. America is fed up of the arrogance coming from Washington,” said Andy Card, White House chief of staff in the George W. Bush Administration.
Democrats were reeling from the by-election defeat, which deprived them of the 60-seat “super-majority” that allows them to overcome Republican filibusters in the 100-member US Senate.
Scott Brown, a lawyer, military officer and former male model, has promised to use his Senate vote to defeat the Democrats’ health-care reform, which was on the brink of passage after decades of trying.
Democrats pledged to try to ram through health-care reform despite the loss, but they risk a popular backlash if they do so.
Yesterday’s vote was seen as a referendum on Mr Obama’s presidency and his signature initiative, health-care reform.
The Democrat’s defeat was particularly ironic because health-care reform was Senator Kennedy’s life-long passion until his death from brain cancer in August.
Swing voters deserted the Democrats in what party elders had considered the safest of safe seats, and many disillusioned Democrats stayed at home.
With 84 per cent of the precincts counted, Mr Brown had a decisive 52-47 percent lead. Results showed he had performed strongly among independent voters in the Boston suburbs.
“Obama is a smart guy. I don’t have a problem with his foreign policy, but it’s his approach to the economy that worries me. I am a businessman and a free-market guy and I don’t think Obama see it like me,” said Rocco Gianni, a salesman. “I think we need health care reform but I’m concerned about the form the current bill is in.”
The Democrats had held the Massachusetts seat since 1952 with Edward Kennedy succeeding his brother John Fitzgerald Kennedy when he became president.
The state – often considered the most liberal in America with legal gay marriage and its own universal health-care plan – had not elected a Republican to its other US Senate seat since 1972.
The Democratic blame-game began even before the polls closed with party leaders pointing fingers at a lacklustre campaign by Democratic candidate Martha Coakley, the Massachusetts attorney-general.
Ms Coakley, who made her name as a prosecutor pursuing British nanny Louise Woodward in a notorious 1997 Boston baby-shaking case, seemed to assume she would win until late polls showed a surge by her opponent.
Mr Obama and former president Bill Clinton dashed to the state to campaign for Ms Coakley but their efforts failed to turn the rising Republican tide.
The Democrats’ previously formidable get-out-the-vote machine in Massachusetts let them down despite unions manning phone banks to call tens of thousands of voters.
Mr Brown rode around the state in a green pick-up truck with 200,000 miles on the clock to emphasise his populist appeal, portraying the contest as “Me against the machine.”
He defined the race in a TV debate by declaring: “It’s not the Kennedys’ seat, it’s not the Democrats’ seat, it’s the people’s seat.”
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losing teddys seat so soon after his death is a huge slap in the face for obama and what he stands for..its a rejection of obama and his health plan..no matter what they say or spin they put on it..this is democrat country..now its given itself to the “enemy”..the new hero of the GOP has been found..
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