A DAY OF RECKONING IN THE BAY STATE

Finally. After all the hype (and all the TV ads...thank goodness those will be gone tomorrow), the special election for U.S. Senate is happening today in Massachusetts. Respected pollster Stu Rothenberg has switched the contest from Toss-Up to Lean Takeover, meaning he has Brown winning. His prediction, and that of other analysts, is based on the recent polling data which shows an unmistakable upward trend for Brown over the last few weeks which has put him in the lead. If Brown wins it will be a powerful message to all the Democrats in Congress, not just those that represent conservative districts. After all, Massachusetts is one of the most reliably Democratic states in the country. But, and here's the rub, party identification and loyalty continues to deteriorate everywhere in the U.S., meaning that more and more people now identify themselves as Independents, and do not have any ties of loyalty to a political party, nor do they feel any sense of gratitude to a party for giving them something. Once upon a time in America, political parties held power because so many individuals owed them their loyalty, because they got jobs, or perks, something...anything tangible that they could connect directly to local party leaders. This translated into votes on election day. With the exception of government workers, some union members, and some ethnic groups, this no longer is the case. Most people vote based on the feelings of the moment, and right now, in Massachusetts and everywhere else, the feeling is one of disappointment and fear, most of it directed at the party in power, which just happens to be the Democratic Party.

One Leftist blogger goes out on a limb and predicts a Coakley win. He makes the same mistake so many ideologues make, which is that they assume other people think the same way they do. Not so (and this is coming from another ideologue...me). Most people are not ideologues. When parties held power in the past, as I mentioned above, they got votes the old-fashioned way, they bought them, either through direct bribes like patronage jobs, or through indirect benefits like laws and programs to help one group or another. This still goes on, of course, but it is less pervasive and less effective today. That means we have an ever larger pool of voters who, while they never voted on ideological grounds, now do not vote based on party loyalty, but on the passions of the moment. This, of course, infuriates the ideologues, who always voted based on their political philosophy. For example, my late grandfather was a working-class man, a house painter who, during the 1930s, did odd jobs to survive until he finally landed a good job at a shipyard. A Roosevelt voter, right? Wrong. A rock-ribbed Republican, he hated Roosevelt and everything he stood for. He was an ideological voter (although he would not have characterized himself as such). Certain things, to him, were right, and other things were wrong. Roosevelt's programs, whether they benefited him personally or not, were wrong.

The President tried to swoop into Massachusetts yesterday to save Martha Coakley's campaign, but some folks, including Charles Hurt, think the President's outsider act is failing.

Only time will tell who is right. Tonight, we will know when the votes are counted.