GOP’s Brown ahead by 7%
It looks like the polls were right. With 63% of precincts counted, Scott Brown is leading 53% to 46%.
This is going to make it very hard for Obama to pass his healthcare legislation. His options are:
- Try and get it passed before Brown is sworn in. That may be seen as somewhat undemocratic.
- Renegotiate the package to get a liberal Republican in the Senate to support it, while not losing any Democrat votes.
- Use a Senate process called reconciliation to pass it with 51 votes – however this means parts of it will be dropped.
- Have the House pass the Senate version without amendment (avoiding the need for a new Senate vote)
- Accept failure
The Democrats started the fnger pointing before the polls closed. As with most situations, the blame is both local and national. Coakley ran a bad campaign and was a bad candidate. But the healthcare legislation was also an issue, and Obama no longer had the clout to rescue the campaign.
UPDATE: Coakley has conceded. All over.