Anyone suspect that the Democrats might be sabotaging their supermajority so that they don't have to take responsibility for actually solving any of this country's real problems. Spineless and shameless.

Count the goddamn votes! Why is that so goddamn difficult.

Ah, fuck it. Loser is as loser does.

Guess she didn't want it. Why else would she concede so early? She didn't want it.

Well, not surprised she'd get Kudos from John "can't concede fast enough" Kerry for breaking his record. 'Bout the only way anyone will ever break Coakley's record would be to concede the day before
Diebold holds a "virtual" election.

I don't how there is ever going to be significant public indignation about these alleged dubious election findings if the negatively affected candidates themselves are not indignant or concerned. During Ukraine's Orange Revolution, the candidate that felt cheated protested and inspired his supporters. In America, people like Gore, Kerry and Coakley are rather blase and throw in the towel easily. Nobody's going to get excited about alleged stolen elections if the affected candidates don't care.

On matters of substance, the pseudo-health reform bill, aka the health insurance cartel and pharmaceutical enrichment act, was such a piece of garbage that it needed to be stopped.

Maybe we can go back to the drawing board and simply push by majority vote the Kucinich amendment that will permit states to adopt single-payer if they so desire.

That's what I'm hoping, Ernest. I think that the silver lining in all of this darkness is that the swill that was the health reform bill will not pass (and I'm very sorry people, but lining the pockets of the insurance companies at taxpayer expense - even though it would cover 30 million more, poorly - is not any semblance of reform.)

Do the Democrats sack up at this point and tell Lieberman, Nelson, Landrieu to take a hike? Do they recognize that this election was lost (Diebold aside) because they were abandoned by the left "base" that can no longer stomach capitulation to corporations?

Democratic Party...time to wake up and get a clue. Your survival depends upon your support of GOOD POLICY, not the less-than-mediocre tripe that does middle class America little good. It is absolutely for the perfect to be the enemy of the fair-to-middling, and for us to accept nothing less. I think that's what is happening here. If I had been a MA voter, I wouldn't have gotten out of bed for this election. You don't deserve my vote, that's the message, loud and clear. Let the Republicans trash the next four years, how much worse could it be, then take another run at some House and Senate seats with some real progressive candidates.

And let's get over this "they aren't electable" nonsense that Democrats love to throw out as an excuse for not getting progressive candidates through primaries.

And on top of that, enough letting the Israel/Palestine situation rule the day. This is America, I want politicians who will do the right thing for America. The whole Waxman/Harman vs. Winograd battle shouldn't even be happening. That one issue should not be the defining issue on whether an AMERICAN candidate is good for US - and if it is, we are screwed beyond measure anyway.

Now THAT is a Headline!!! Brilliant.

SoulRebel @#1, yes, I've been thinking that, and it kind of dovetails with my assessment that there is only one political party anymore and the people at the top playing the game just push around the names (of the elected) to keep up the appearance of more than one party.

Ernest A. Canning @#5, I had come to the conclusion that a Coackly loss would be a good thing because it should kill the "health insurance cartel and pharmaceutical enrichment act" (as you accurately dub it) but I'm not so sure. It will be interesting to see what happens now. The Dems are talking about passing the Senate version (or something very close to it) of the health bill by reconciliation now. It's my understanding that reconciliation is used for a budget bill and thanks to the Byrd rule may not be applicable to the health bill without a vote to allow it. If that's the case the gridlock that exists now should exist to disallow reconciliation and the bill will die (as it should).

I think that the health bill is such a great deal for insurance companies that reconciliation may be allowed or a quick compromise entailing further concessions by the Dems may be forthcoming. That would confirm my worst fears about the state of the Republic being hijacked totally by corporate interests.

My "election gut" is rumbling something fierce.

Waa waa waa. Is that all you douchebag liberals do is whine and cry? You should be proud that you are more douchebag than most liberals. You should also change the site name to bradisadouchebagblog.com.

Now go whine and cry some more, douchebag. Waa waa waa, you just lost the most liberal state in the Union.

With corporate media --- including MSNBC/GE declaring the GOP victory in advance of the actual election, who needs voters or Diebold? It's not like voters are part of the process anymore except to keep the illusion of democracy alive. Exit polls showing election fraud are discounted while pre-election polls are treated as gospel. It doesn't have to make sense because the American consumer will buy whatever is "rammed down their throats" as conservative pundits and their followers like to repeat.

the Gov Times printed your article, Brad? GREAT! Let's get the right wingers as mad as we are about corporate run and decided elections! Guess they already are. Folks, we've got to care more for democracy than who wins, unless who wins determines whether we have democracy or not! (Huh?)
Anyway, as many here already know, D or R makes little difference when the people are asleep/

Tell us again how marginal and ineffective the Tea Party is again. That is the mistake YOU made.

YOU thought the American Tea Party is only made up of Republicans and Right Wing Wackos. WRONG.

We are Republicans, Democrats, left and right wing, Conservative and Liberal. What we have in common is the love of our country and personal liberty.

Republicans, don't feel so safe and smug in your current jobs, either. WE placed you in those seats, and WE can take those seats away.

YOU all are there to do OUR bidding. YOU were placed there by OUR votes. It is YOUR arrogance that caused OUR revenge with the vote.

And it isn't over. In November, more tears will be shed as those who oppose the will of the People of the United States, will be voted out of office.

Long Live The United States of America, the world's beacon.

... Soul Rebel said...

"... even though it would cover 30 million more, poorly..."

Actually it wouldn't cover anyone in anything except copious amounts of bovine excrement.

"Health Insurance" is not health care and under this bill "Health Insurance" does not guarantee health care.

And this bill is not even "Health Insurance Reform", the fallback position of the corporatists who desperately want this bill.

It is not reform and the loud trumpeting of the corporate evildoing this bill is supposed to stop rings awfully hollow when every regulation that might actually inconvenience the corporations is crippled by gigantic loopholes and glaring omissions... none of which found their way into the bill by accident.

And then the bill has no enforcement mechanism beyond the existing state regulators who have already been proven time and again to be vastly outgunned by the corporations... and are often bought off by the corporations to boot.

Hint: Have a pre-existing condition? They can and will still deny you and/or then jack your rates into the stratosphere... and they can do it all legally under this bill.

Croakley's loss buys a little time, but not much.

Appropriate name, #10. I remember this election a ways back in MN, where the GOP incumbant [Coleman] had apparently won the election (albeit closely). He then proceded to demand that Franken concede. When they actually counted the votes, though, they actually found that Franken had won. The machines, in fact, had counted WRONG, and came up with the WRONG WINNER. Then [Coleman] proceded to fight the actual results FOR MONTHS AFTER. Also, I think that we have every reason to be concerned with the results of ALL ELECTIONS that are done on these hackable machines. It is much more than sour grapes as you seem to suggest. Some of these elections are indeed being decided by the machines, rather than the voters. See above about [Coleman]/Franken.

[He meant Coleman. —99]

... Steve Thompson said on 1/19/2010 @ 8:53 pm PT...

"Tell us again how marginal and ineffective the Tea Party is again."

Hmmm... Would seem to be pretty marginal. This is the same Tea Party that Brown repeatedly denied knowing anything about after he had attended and spoken at several teabagger functions... is it not?

Chris Hooten - you mean Norm Coleman, I'm sure...

ZapKitty - no, you are right, I was pre-fending off arguments about potential merits of the 'health reform' bill (I did not mention either insurance or care...just some nebulous health implication potentiality). 30 million more people 'covered' in theory, assuring wild profits for insurance companies, and guaranteeing actual health care for none.

Coakley has consistently acted like she didn't want this and seemed completely devoid of emotion, not tired, not looking tough through the wearines, not chin up in face of adveristy....in her concession she spoke like some business person talking about pie chart sales figures....wtf?....is this always how she is or was some of fix in...

And what of absentee ballots, are the all in and counted.

So I have big issues with voting systems and was hoping Brown would barely lose so conservatives would get on evote issues...

but aside from that...when any establishment politician in Congress going to get the populist anger out there? It is freaking political gold but all they seem to do is whatever Wall Street tells them to do...Wall Street might buy adds but they don't vote...get a clue congress, both conservative and dems can get on populist bandwagon just as Ron Paul and Kuncinich can agree. Palin plies cultural conservativism and white red neck backlash, but unlike Bachman she does not talk bad about Fed...Tea Partiers like Bachman better...Some liberals are populists, telling their people to walk awy from loans, others vote for TARP....get populist, whether you a left or right, or get out of the way.

I knew something changed in this coutnry when ALL demographics, white/black, religioius/atheist, poor/upper middle class, working class/educated professionals, young/old ALL hated the bank bailout and called their congress people 100:1 against it...and both Pres candidates and cogress voted it in.

There is a major disconnect between our angry populism and our politicians...look how easy it was for Brown to get people riled up...political gold in those populist mines, and our corrupt DC establishment can't see it.

By the way, Brown will get cred being anti spending, but he will not be anti-Wall Street, his cahnge will be as fake as Obama's.

We must insist on left and right candidates to be real populists.

Perhaps the most interesting thing is the lightning speed with which statewide results were accumulated with so many reports of 100% of precincts reporting. It appeared that at least half the districts reported 100% complete before 1 hour had elapsed from 8PM (the technical close of polls).

Remember that whomever is in line at 8PM gets to vote, after which the voting systems have to be shut down, the results extracted in some form, checked by the election judges and signed off, and then communicated by a some reliable means to the designated election official who must then somehow communicate results to someone reporting results statewide.

Note that Boston took around 2 hours to get to 98% reporting, and Cambridge showed only 3% reporting at the time this hurried concession took place. (Cambridge appeared to be the district with the highest margin for Coakley at the 3% point).

It seems likely that besides Cambridge and perhaps Boston and a few other districts which had not reported yet at the time of concession, the tabulations travelled from the devices which actually saw the ballots to the statewide total without much if any assistance from human beings.

In Eagle County Colorado we wait for the memory cards to be physically brought across the county to the tally computer before a 100% reporting number is released. This invariably takes more than an hour. What does Massachusetts do instead?

We must insist on left and right candidates to be real populists.

But we do! We do! We will never be "listened" to by a system that does not value our voice (our votes) over corporate cash. That's why we don't get a real choice...ever. (Except in Cleveland, Vermont, and whichever Texas district Ron Paul comes from.)

Harvie,

Great point, Bev and others over at blackboxvoting.org have lots of information on hwo voting is done in MA, suggest posting your questions there, likely someone knows the answers...In MN we have similar machines and the local precincts also have to feed absentee ballots from their district thru the machines,
I watched them close down my precint after 2008 election, it was well after 8:45 when the sign envelopes and boxes and such were going out.

When the say precints reporting, it could be from reporters asking for initial tally from poll tape that is probably spit ou a 8:10 or so...not the officially deliver result, but the raw numbers from each precinct, I saw one such guy at my precinct eager awaiting numbers and calling them in long before precinct delivered ballot to county head...but again ask BBV people.

I know MA votes by cities, not counties.

Well, Brad, my gut feeling is that something is very, very wrong here. We have seen this sort of hasty retreat before, as you intimated.

Barney Frank issued a statement basically saying that dems now need to turn right, and work with the SUPER MINORITY (he didn't say super minority, but that's what they are now...a SUPER DUPER MINORITY).

Something is not right about this, not right at all.

It has the same odor as the McConnell murder (did I say murder? Oops, I meant, tragic death).

....in her concession she spoke like some business person talking about pie chart sales figures...wtf?

It WAS weird. One of the most "pat" concessions ever. I dunno, Karen. Bad actress? (The talent pool on both sides of the aisle has been slipping since the farming system was privatized. Non-closeted-gay, Unadultering, Mostly sober candidates don't grow on trees. I guess when you find one capable of memorizing a concession speech, no matter how tone-deaf and dry, you cast her anyway and let the blue-chips fall where they may.)

Why are the Tea-People breast beating, here? ... Did Malkin link to Brad again?

Tea-People: Most of us here don't give a flying, crapping rat about which candidate won - we'd just like to see the votes counted and the candidate with the most votes be installed. Most of us here would show just as much consternation and consideration if your guy had lost and conceded well before the votes had ever been counted.

Foxificators, I ask you to consider (against all odds and in defiance of your own track records): In an election where the votes are never counted, you independent thinkers, you:
You won = you got lucky.

Talk about brain farts. I really am a douch, lol. Yes, Norm Coleman. Yikes, what a dumb mistake, sorry all. Good point, bad execution on my part.

Usually when modern American election polling “tightens” at the last moment, as this one did, it’s attributed to evangelical values voters, Nascar dads, soccer and security moms, gun lovers, gay haters ect. who ran down to the polling station and turned an election.

You know the drill by now. I actually saw pundit Norah O’Donnell yesterday on Chris Matthews show actually say that she thought the last minute “tightening” was due to Reagan democrats.

Now I don’t know, but my step dad and mother were “Reagan democrats” in 1980 because they had been convinced that Jimmy Carter was ruining the economy, however, after they realized Reagan condemned us to ruin they quickly relented and never went back.

Here’s my question.

Don’t Reagan democrats at some damn point after 30 years just call themselves republicans?

These pundits (learned persons) have always seemed dishonest and even stupid to me for years now, but honestly, is it just me, or have we all gone crazy.

To put it another way, is Al Franken going to be the last Democrat to give a crap whether he wins or not!

Don't underestimate the fear of being branded a "sore loser". Take a look at the Aspen May 5 2009 election for an education in how much crap you can take for pursuing election quality questions after losing an election.

Candidates have a reason to rush to avoid being tea-bagged with blistering ridicule over failing to acknowledge their loss. They may even be ridiculed after they have actually acknowledged the loss when they start asking questions about election quality.

Politics has become the art of the negative campaign, or short of that, the artful use of the threat of using a negative campaign, or short of that, simple self censorship motivated by a justifiable fear that someone will smear you with a campaign of character assassination.

Few are in a position to and have the guts to fight back and act tough in the face of very powerful tools of deprecation in the hands of the many beastly individuals quite willing to use them.

Watch out for memes like these: "sore-loser", "perpetual campaign", "politicians cannot be trusted". All of these are corrosive to democracy. The urge to avoid these leads to a rush to concede a not yet counted race.

http://aspenelectionreview.blogspot.com

Jeannie Dean @ 23 said:

Why are the Tea-People breast beating, here? ... Did Malkin link to Brad again?

As a matter of fact, Malkin did link up yesterday, but it was to my story at Gouverneur Times on the hackable Diebold machines. But that piece, in turn, had a bunch of links back here so: Welcome Malkin readers! Great to see you!

Tea-People: Most of us here don't give a flying, crapping rat about which candidate won - we'd just like to see the votes counted and the candidate with the most votes be installed. Most of us here would show just as much consternation and consideration if your guy had lost and conceded well before the votes had ever been counted.

Thanks, JD. I've got nothing to add to the above, but felt it merited quoting in case anyone missed it the first time.

As I'm watching the late night MSNBC broadcasts with Olbermann, Maddow, and Matthews, no one has commented on the oddity of conceding a race even before any news agency has called it. It was mentioned that she did just that, but nobody said, "hey that's weird." And Matthews, that detached and deranged wagging tongue, kept saying how disappointed liberals were.

Are we? Who is he asking, and how is he defining liberal? Why are Maddow and Olbermann sharing airtime with this nitwit?

Yesterday, I listened to a couple intertubes pundits blathering about this race and they both were agog about how she didn't campaign, just skated. They thought maybe she had always been such a star she didn't feel she needed to. Add that to this rapid concession and one might get the distinct impression she didn't want to be a U.S. Senator, and who could blame her for that?

Hell, maybe she's a bodhisattva and wanted the HCR debacle deep-sixed.

I'm not saying conceding like this is fair to voters, to democracy, to the glaring need for election integrity, but she might have had concerns more important than even than these in this corrupt/broken government environment.

Besides:

We can gradually take the ulterior motives out of government by developing integrity. — Manly Palmer Hall

So maybe if we were a little less gradual about our own integrity this would speed up.

Back to Massachusetts, I think you have a right to know that Coakley won the hand counts there.

That's right.

According to preliminary media results by municipality, Democrat Martha Coakley won Massachusetts overall in its hand counted locations,* with 51.12% of the vote (32,247 hand counted votes) to Brown's 30,136, which garnered him 47.77% of hand counted votes. Margin: 3.35% lead for Coakley.

Massachusetts has 71 hand count locations, 91 ES&S locations, and 187 Diebold locations, with two I call the mystery municipalities (Northbridge and Milton) apparently using optical scanners, not sure what kind.

http://www.bbvforums.org...h.cgi?file=/8/80830.html

To me, that was the worst run campaign I ever saw (Coakley) and it bordered on looking like she was throwing the election. And then conceding in record time like that, not learning (on purpose?) a thing from Al Franken? Running for Ted Kennedy's seat, to me, that was shocking how lackluster she was. That's a point aside from the electronic voting machines.

Did it look like she was a real fighter? Fighting for something important? No.

Big Dan:

I was skeptical when Brad reported that Coakley had "[injured] several supporters in her race for the phone", but for crying out loud:

CROAKLEY concedes Ted Kennedy's seat at the speed of light!

You can't be serious!

Brad, you absolutely outdid yourself with your headline and subhead and sub-sub-head. Hilarious.

Oh by the way, Coakley won on hand counted ballots. Just posted an article with the details on that.

Oh and by the way: It took Diebold longer to count 800 votes than it took a hand count location to count 8,000 votes.

Larry: just doing my part on my jalopy blog that's on life support!

An alternate title could be:

"DEMS CALL IN RAPID RESPONSE TEAM TO CONCEDE TED KENNEDY'S SEAT OF 46 YEARS".

I admire Croakley for not conceding before the voting started. The New England Patriots are renaming their team to the New England Conceders. I'll be here all ze veek...

Makes you wonder why Democrats even bother to run, shouldn't they stop wasting all that time and money by campaigning and simply ask the media if they were chosen to win?

So on the paper ballots vs electronic count disparity....any stats on the demographics of the paper vs electronic? Since Mass does vote counting by city, if say Boston or Boston suburbs were one way (hand paper count vs electronic coutn) that could really tweak this. I know in NH the paper and electronic count precincts were well distributed, don't know about MA.

And the Coakley actions are really starting to seem odd...is it right she took a two week vacation over the holidays and didn't campaign? And that flat, uninterest concession speech and the timing. Besides the sting of the loss, you would think she would be very concerned about how the national Dems would turn on her craptastic campaign.

Is she always like this, clueless, disconnected, not interested enough to bother, lacking in any passion? and if she is, why pick her to run. Was that primary election close?

When I think about this, her fail is the perfect dagger into anything progessive and populist happening.

I may be proven wrong, but this was a great way to make the Tea Parties feel happy but actually hijack their populism because Brown is a moderate Repub (read, friend of Wall Streey) He will opposed HCR, social spending but he is likely to be same ole establishment Repub...its not like he is Ron Paul's son.

So this election fails populists from left and right.

And funny thing...the message to Congress won't be get more populist, it will be Repubs, keep up with the establisment partisan just say No stuff and Dems, go to the center (again where big business and Wall Street live)

Browns election over a Dem in Mass is the perfect way to keep things status quo, now no super majority, now no populist reforms just bickering.

Big Dan:

You can afford life support?!!

YOU BASTARD!!

Croak-ley should be given a lie detector test - were you paid to run and be defeated?

The party system is dead - Obama is a Wall Street Republican.

Bev Harris is saying this morning that Coakley won the hand counts, which, interestingly, were completed before the computer generated counts were ready. This and reports of pre-marked ballots make this victory highly questionable, in my view.

#43, yes read that also...watch the Democrats not fight for any kind of recount or audit.

Larry: Yeah, I'm on life support...but there's a huge co-pay, deductible, and co-insurance on it that I can't afford!

Just a thought:

I think this makes the most sense if Brown legitimately won: Massachusetts covers everyone with health care, I think they're the most progressive state. I know, because my son lives there. MAYBE...Mass. residents thought Obama's health care plan stunk so bad, they didn't want to send the deciding vote to the Senate to pass it and override THEIR progressive health care plan.

Make sense?

Does it make any sense that Mass. covers all their residents with health care, and then votes against Coakley? I'm trying to make any sense I can out of this.

This was NOT a mandate against health care, because Mass. COVERS everyone with health care, right? So, they're not a state against health care for all, obviously.

#26. Not just being branded "sore loser". Don Seigleman objected to election theft and look what happened to him.

I say she never wanted the job in the first place. Between her horrid campaigning and now this? No, she handed Scott "Naked" Brown that seat on a silver platter.

What on Earth is wrong with Americans? Can't they do anything without computers? Do they really use computerized mechanical nose pickers? Coun ting the vote is the cornerstone ofr democracy... duh! We want hand counts every time, not endless hand jobs like this!

So Mr. Brown is going to Washington! And the liberals are in a panic. They're not sure what the effect will be upon the health care legislation. But already you see some Democrats starting to back off on the present legislation.

Some congressmen are saying they won't be voting for the Senate bill (and here I thought Pelosi say she'd pass this at all cost) and others are wanting to take a second and third look at the present bill.

But meanwhile you have Obama standing firm that he WILL pass a health care bill no matter what it looks like. But he may end up being the captain on a sinking ship. His crew members could start bailing as they see their own dingies taking on water.

As much as we all thought that the health care bill was a sure thing, we might want to wait a bill and take a breath. It ain't over until Obama cries "Uncle."

MTR

Americans love to shoot themselves in the foot. This whole 'selection' was a farce, more dog and pony theatrics.
The elites got everyone hitting each other over the head, they win every time.
If people wanted 'change' and some sort of a beginning they would have voted for the independent of which 25,000 of us had the guts and sense to do.Americans are thoroughly brainwashed. Communism and fascism has succeeded and the American people let it happen by playing the game of the criminals. Good luck because by now that is all that is left.

Why were there no exit polls? Were they banned?

Sev.

THANK YOU FOR POSTING THIS! I really like your blog!!

[ed note: Welcome Steve, please note our commenting rules and also please consider changing your screen name to something else, maybe "common ¢" or add your last name, because we've already got a Steve who posts here. Thank you. —99]

I spent the primary election day on the phone, calling for Mike Capuano. The overwhelming majority of responders said they were voting for him. I suppose Bev has the hand count results of the primary over at black box, It will be interesting to see how the vote differed from that reported by the machines.

As to health care, the progressives in the House will not vote for the Senate bill, so if Pelosi and Reid do not improve it significantly, it will surely die.

Meanwhile, Gov. Rendall of PA said on Maddow's show that this "loss" could be a Godsend for the Dems, if they would just pass the reforms piece by piece and make the Rs stand up and actually filibuster. The nation would then see these right wing corporate shills denying health care in the name of profits, and would respond by sending them packing in November. Nice idea, if by some miracle Pelosi and Reid are not in the pockets of the corporations like they surely seem to be..

#43...The "hand count" in above comments, I
believe, refers to the small number of towns in
Mass that don't use machines. The vast majority
of the towns and cities in Mass do use machines.

If you go to www.boston.com you will find that
many towns/cities/county Brown did not win....

Bottom line, if no re-count is called for, the mystery of the true count will be unknown.

Thanks and Good Luck...