[Peace-discuss] A warning to the Democrat party.

[C. G. Estabrook]

[I lived in Boston for a long time, and I could see myself making this argument. 
--CGE]

"So Massachusetts has delivered a warning to the Democrat Party.  Do not take 
the peace vote or the jobless vote for granted.  We want peace and we want jobs 
and we want decent affordable health care.  If you do not deliver, we will go 
elsewhere.  We will not vote for you.  We will vote the other Party in protest. 
  Or we will stay home..."

	January 20, 2010
	Why I Voted for the Republican in Massachusetts
	By JOHN V. WALSH

"Get off your butts,” implored Boston Democrat Mayor “Mumbles” Menino.  Thus 
spake the inarticulate mayor at the desperate rally featuring Barack Obama last 
Sunday before the special Senate election in Massachusetts.  Mumbles was savvy 
enough to recognize that the Democratic base in Massachusetts, the only state to 
vote for George McGovern, was deeply disappointed in Obama and the Democrats.

Why did I vote for Republican Scott Brown?  It took some persuasion.  In the end 
it was my Democratic Party friends and activists who convinced me.  Let me 
explain.  It was clear that the special Senate election in Massachusetts was a 
referendum on Obama and the Democrats who control the entire federal government 
– Congress and the Presidency.

I must admit that my first instinct was to vote for a third Party candidate, a 
Libertarian.  (There was no Green or other independent in this race.)  After 
all, the Libertarian, a guy named Kennedy, agreed with me on opposition to wars 
and empire and in support of civil liberties.  In contrast I knew damned well 
that when push came to shove the Republicrat candidates would be on the other 
side on all these issues – no matter what they said now in the heat of the 
campaign and desperate for votes.  And of course all three candidates were 
against single-payer health care, a passion of this writer for twenty some 
years.  So my first instinct was to vote for the Libertarian and get someone who 
agreed with me 70 per cent of the time versus 0 per cent
.
Would I not risk the failure of the Obama health care bill if the Democrat did 
not win?  But I do not want the Obama health care bill to succeed.  It is little 
other than a formula for permanently handing our entire health care system over 
to the sector of finance capital known as the insurance industry, for taxing 
decent health care plans and for putting off to the indefinite future 
comprehensive, egalitarian, universal health care.  Dr. Marcia Angel, former 
editor of the New England Journal of Medicine and long-time crusader for 
single-payer, has taken the position that it would be far better to have no new 
law than the Obamanation known as the Democrat Party “health care reform.”  I 
agree with her on that, and so do many of my colleagues in Physicians for a 
National Health Program, although that is not our official position.  So on the 
issue of health care, it made little difference which candidate I would vote for.

But why then not stick with the Libertarian?  Why vote Republican?  This is 
where my Democrat Party friends came in.  Whenever I went to vote for Nader or a 
Green, they would explain that I was wasting my vote on a third Party candidate. 
  Was I not doing the same here by voting Libertarian?  Suddenly I realized that 
the Democrats were right.  If I wanted to protest the lies of the Obmacrats and 
“send a message” to the Democrat Party elite, I should not waste my vote on the 
Libertarian.  And so they convinced me to vote Republican.  And so Scott Brown, 
the Republican, won in Massachusetts with my vote and that of many others pissed 
off at the betrayal of the Democrats.

Of course the Democratic operatives are now blaming the disconsolate and 
bewildered loser, Democrat Attorney General Martha Coakley, for running a “poor 
campaign.”  But in what did the poverty of her effort consist?  She merely 
assumed that the Democratic voters and the independents here in Mass who are by 
and large a pretty progressive lot had nowhere else to go.  They had to vote for 
her, and so she did not need to campaign very hard after the primary.  The 
Democrats were mightily surprised on this score.  She is not to blame, but the 
Democrat Party assumption that they can take progressives for granted is very 
much to blame for this humiliating defeat.

I began to understand that something was afoot in this campaign when I noticed 
many folks out in the traffic circles and on street corners in Central 
Massachusetts, in and about Worcester, holding signs for Brown, even in the snow 
and sleet.   There was no such enthusiasm for Coakley – not a single sign holder 
did I see.  Now let me explain the demographics a bit.  Central Mass is blue 
collar country, suffering deeply from the unemployment of the current recession. 
  It is not clueless about bailouts for the banksters but no job creation for 
the hoy polloi  the policy of Bush/Obama.  And it was Central Mass that 
delivered a very big margin for Republican Brown who posed as a populist and 
captured their vote.

I vote not in central Massachusetts but in overwhelmingly and conventionally 
liberal Cambridge, but even there little enthusiasm for Democrat Coakley was 
evident.   She had only taken a position against the Obama wars in Afghanistan 
and Pakistan when forced to do so by a primary opponent.  There were no signs 
for Coakley at my polling place very close to Harvard Square.  The peace 
constituency of Cambridge, in the words of the venerable “Mumbles” Menino, was 
voting with its butt which remained quite inert.

After voting Republican with some satisfaction at having not wasted my protest 
vote, I told a young student coming out of the polling place with me that I was 
so angry with the Democrats and Obama that I had voted Republican, remaining a 
bit unsure whether I should have gone the Libertarian route.  He said that he 
felt the same way but voted Democrat anyway. He confessed that he was now having 
voter’s remorse.

So Massachusetts has delivered a warning to the Democrat Party.  Do not take the 
peace vote or the jobless vote for granted.  We want peace and we want jobs and 
we want decent affordable health care.  If you do not deliver, we will go 
elsewhere.  We will not vote for you.  We will vote the other Party in protest. 
  Or we will stay home and vote with our butts.

John V. Walsh can be reached at john.endwar at gmail.com

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