My First Election 2014 Prediction

Scott Brown appears to be ready to jump into the race for US Senate from New Hampshire.

If he does, he will probably win the Republican primary, but he'll get whipped like a red-headed stepchild in November by incumbent Democrat Jeanne Shaheen.

Here's why:

• Brown couldn't hold on to a Senate seat from Massachusetts, so he's shopping for one from New Hampshire. Nobody likes sloppy seconds. Especially "independents."
  
• He won't get the GOP base out. After his first debacle of a partial term, his picture appears next to "RINO" in the acronym dictionary. The only Republicans who are really excited about Brown are the navel-gazing psycho wonks who thought John McCain and Mitt Romney were surefire winners. He can probably win the primary on name recognition and low turnout, but the general is a whole different story.
  
• And he won't play well with Democrats because well, they've already got one holding down that seat.

If Brown runs, New Hampshire is a D-hold in November.

Coakley concedes

The Boston Globe reports that Democrat Martha Coakley has called her Republican opponent, Scott Brown, and congratulated him on his victory.

If the reported returns so far are accurate, it looks like Brown about 52%, Coakley about 47%. If that's true, then it's a pretty sad commentary on Massachusetts. Whodathunk that in the birthplace of the American Revolution, only 1 in 100 voters would support the only candidate who in any way stands for that Revolution's values?

Update on the oddsmaker angle: Tuesday morning, I swagged the outcome as Brown 49%, Coakley 46%, Kennedy 5%. The actual outcome seems to have been Brown 52.2%, Coakley 46.8%, Kennedy 1%.

Recent polls had Kennedy at the 5% I predicted. I should have guessed that "wasted vote syndrome" would bring that way down, but I was unduly optimistic in this case -- the "major party" candidates were just so godawful that I thought Kennedy's vote would stick because it had no other even nominally worthwhile candidate to go to.

I'd be interested to know where that 4% did go to. Rasmussen had Coakley as the second choice of Kennedy supporters by a 2-1 margin. If that is how the fallaway from Kennedy broke, then Brown was doing better, and Coakley worse, than I thought before they picked up their respective last-minute-poltroon votes.

Liberty for Massachusetts? Unlikely, but worth pursuing anyway

I'm taking a break -- just finished another 100 name/phone number matches for the Massachusetts Libertarian "Get Out The Vote" phone banks -- and I'd like to take a minute to formally endorse Joe Kennedy.

He's not one of "those" Kennedys, as he's gone out of his way to make clear (Democrat Martha Coakley's campaign has also been vocal in driving home that point, for obvious reasons).

This Kennedy is the pro-freedom candidate -- the only pro-freedom candidate -- in today's election to fill the US Senate seat vacated by Ted Kennedy's death.

Just to elaborate a bit on that point: If you're a Massachusetts voter and you vote for anyone but Joe Kennedy today, you're voting against freedom, baseball, apple pie, Mom and America.

Whether or not you're a Massachusettsian, if you're voting or working for or donating to or talking up any candidate except Joe Kennedy today, you're pissing on the graves of the Lexington and Concord Minutemen. You're spiking the cannon that Knox dragged down from Ticonderoga. You're making a mockery of the Boston Tea Party and you're dancing in the blood of Samuel Gray, James Caldwell, Crispus Attucks, Samuel Maverick and Patrick Carr.

Yes, it really is that simple.

Can Kennedy win? Well, yes -- if a plurality of Massachusetts voters decide to support him.

Is that likely to happen? Of course not. Libertarians haven't yet persuaded a plurality of Massachusetts voters that we represent their highest aspirations while the Republicans and Democrats represent nothing worthy of support.

Does it matter whether or not Kennedy wins? Yes, it does. Because he will not win, the Senate will remain 100% anti-freedom instead of becoming even a paltry 1% pro-freedom. Over the course of Ted Kennedy's unexpired term, it's likely that that one pro-freedom vote would have made a difference in any number of bills -- passing them, defeating them, or amending them to make them better.

Since he won't win, does it matter which of the two anti-freedom candidates wins? Not really.

There are differences between Brown and Coakley, and between their parties, but not differences substantial enough to merit supporting either one. Do you really care that much whether the creatures gnawing the flesh off your bones are coyotes or happen to be hyenas?

Voting for or otherwise supporting Joe Kennedy means never having to say you're sorry. It means knowing that you did the best you could do for Massachusetts and for America. That's something worth knowing about yourself even if 95% of the people around you couldn't, wouldn't, or didn't put down the Demopublican crack pipe.

Game Day in Taxachusetts

It's about 4am in Massachusetts right now. The polls open at 7am and close at 8pm (unless the rules have changed since November).

Prediction #1

Photo from fOTOGLIF

Scott Brown wins the election by 4-7%. Maybe more, but I think that's a reasonable projection.

All three candidates will be working their Get Out The Vote operations to the very last minute, but Brown and Kennedy have the advantage.

It's winter weather with snow and rain in the forecast. Democratic voters are already demoralized. Maybe they'll brave the cold and wind and sludge to vote, maybe they'll stay inside where it's nice and warm.

Brown voters are energized -- not for any particularly good reason, but hey, people in India get killed in senseless religious stampedes all the time, don't they?

Most Kennedy voters are ideological voters. They never expected their candidate to win. Although they're doing their best to make that happen, they'll vote come hell or high water to have their dissenting voices heard, to send their message, to register their preference in the face of the knowledge that that preference will not be realized ... this time.

Scientific Wild Ass Guess: Brown 49%, Coakley 46%, Kennedy 5%.

But I could be very wrong.

Prediction #2

There will be controversy.

Debunking a Scott Brown myth

"Scott Brown is the only person who can stop ObamaCare by being the 41st vote against cloture."

That, or some variant of it, is the latest excuse I'm hearing from the usual suspects who come up with a MOST IMPORTANT REASON EVAH! to vote for "the lesser evil" just this one time ... every time.

There are three kinds of lies right now: Lies, damn lies, and reasons to vote for Scott Brown in next week's special election to fill the US Senate vacancy created by Ted Kennedy's death. This whole "he can stop ObamaCare" schtick fits into all three categories. Here's why:

The sad, sad fate of the Tea Party movement, Exhibit A

Q: What's the difference between Scott Brown and Dede Scozzafava?

A: Just having an "R" next to his name is enough for the Tea Party "leaders" who told us Scozzafava was the AntiChrist (here, for example, is a typical St. Louis Tea Party GOP sellout whine for Brown).

Somewhere in America, there may be a candidate whose very bones scream "Establishment Squish!" more loudly and shrilly than Scott Brown's ... but I wouldn't bet on it.

Here's a summary of Brown's big-government record from Small Government News (hat tip -- Aaron Biterman).

And just for giggles, here's his latest faux-populist on the one hand, "please, please, please mistake me for Mitt Romney" on the other, ad (hat tip: The Other McCain, who has apparently fallen for the Brown schtick):



Scott Brown is the measure of how far the Tea Party movement's standards have fallen -- or how much tighter the GOP's stranglehold on it has become -- in just a few short months.

The measure of whether a particular Tea Party group is still viable and honest is a simple one: Have they told sad sack GOP hack Brown to go pound sand and thrown every iota of their support to Joe Kennedy? If so, they may be legit. If not, they're nothing but fraudulent GOP astroturf.