As I compose this blog on the first day of school, the polls are now open in Massachusetts for a special election for the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s vacant seat. Though Martha Coakley – the state’s Democratic Attorney General – has been widely foretasted to easily win the election, in recent weeks Republican Scott Brown has surged to the front of the race on the back of a well orchestrated campaign that played well into popular discontent with elevated unemployment, health-care reform and other entitlement programs that are a signature of the Democratic majority.
A Republican victory tonight would remove the 60-seat, bulletproof – or rather filibuster-proof – Democratic majority in the Senate and potentially put the Obama administration’s health care and social agenda in significant jeopardy. Let’s see what happens.
