Having my strongest family ties in Massachusetts, I felt particularly keenly the Democratic loss of Ted Kennedy's Senate seat last night. . I myself think that it's possible that at some level it was because Whatsisname was a muscular, strong, friendly-looking Cosmo centerpiece and because Coakley was at best uninspiring in the campaign. One person (Whatsisname) had a bit of charisma, Coakley clearly had none. And ran a lazy campaign, to say the least.
STILL, it bespeaks the ignorance and the unimaginitiveness and the self-centeredness of at least SOME people in the US.
ANYWAY, R. Grabman had some of his witty commentary on the situation on Mex Files, and he put it in a broader, western-hemispheric kind of context (and provided the actual pin-up of the new Senator plus a pin-up of a Bolivian candidate who is considerably more sultry).
Below are some snippets on the election from the column that appeared in El Universal, the Mexican daily, on the Mass. senate race (my translation).
Democrats Lose Massachusetts.
by J. Jaime Hernández
The defeat of Coakley, a prestigous lawyer who was unable to measure up as a politician and campaign director, has been interpreeted by th majority of analysts as an open rejection against the political establishment in Washington which has been incapable of responding to the urgent necessities of the citizens in terms of the economy and the labor situation.
But, in addition, the defeat of the Democrats in one of their most important bastions has been seen as a direct consequence of the tense debate over health reform which has disappointed a broad part of the democratic base who believe that President Barack Obama has given into pressure by Republicans and insurance companies to negotiate a deal which has betrayed the most important aspects of its identity, among them, the public option which Ted Kennedy defended during much of his career.
Threat for Obama
The humilliating defeat of Martha Oakley [sic] coinciding with Barack Obama's first year in the White House, has been taken advantage of by the Republican Party to propagate the theses that it is a "referendum" against all the President's policies. This extreme was rejected by analysts and experts who consider that the election in Massachusetts is very far from being a plebiscite for or against Barack Omaba.
Scott Brown, an ex-model in the magazine Cosmopolitan has already promised that he will vote against health care reform.
I would like to add that the people of the State of Massachusetts already have universal health care coverage for themselves and are more satisfied than not with it. So those who voted for Brown were willing to deprive other Americans of the same chance for health insurance they have just to, what, vote with their lizard brains? They have nothing to lose if their new senator votes against healthcare reform. The whole thing pisses me off, though on the other hand I can understand ignorant people's hostility to the establishment. One problem, I think, is that the Democrats have seemed too much like rich Republicans. And another is that some Americans are stuck in cocoons of ignorance.
EXCEPT the Democrats are not helping themselves or the country very much these days.