In the snows of Massachusetts, usually good terrain for Democrats, Mr Obama’s candidate for the Senate suffered a resounding defeat.
The losing candidate and the winning Republican Senator agreed about the cause. The expensive and contentious Obama health plans were the Democrats undoing. This was allied to Obama’s “two wars”, in the words of the Democratic candidate.
The defeat and the Republican revival were entirely predictable. Too many professional politicians think it makes them popular to spend more of other people’s money, and put their electors more and more into collective debt. Yesterday voters showed the tide is turning.
If Obama were astute he would change course before damaging mid term elections. I fear he will grind on with more of the same. His failure even to close Guantanamo as promised will become a symbol of his more general failures. Bill Clinton dumped Hilary’s expensive health care plan when he ran into political trouble with it. I suspect Mr Obama with Hilary as his assistant will think differently. Expect nasty politics as they try to deliver the plan.
January 20, 2010
Glad to see the USA still has strong conservative roots, it's only taken them a year to deliver a verdict on the health plans and the socialist direction their country is heading in. Instead of a massive centralised state beauracracy controlling health care the American people seem to want to keep the universal system that they currently have that is, by and large, managed by private companies.
By contrast, here in the UK we seem to be addicted to spending money on the NHS. The last 12 years have seen truly huge increases – in both relative and absolute terms – on health care and health spending has been ringfenced by Mr Cameron as untouchable.
Given the state of our finances I would have thought that health spending would be gone over with a fine tooth comb for savings but apparently we're getting value for money despite a report out today in Scotland (where I live) showing that although we have more doctors, nurses and spending compared to a comparable English region we receive worse health care.
January 20, 2010
Will Cameron learn any lessons from this?
January 20, 2010
Twelve months ago, losing the blue state of Massachusetts held by the Democrats since 1953 would have been unthinkable. Ted Kennedy must be turning in his grave. The losing candidate blamed the loss on Barack Obama’s policies and his officials blamed the loss on the candidate’s ineffective campaign strategy.
Apparently the Republican win deprives the President of the 60-40 majority he needs to steer his controversial health care bill through the Senate as Republicans can now block the legislation. Seems like the wheels are coming off the “change” bandwagon .