Shock Brown win puts Obama reforms in doubt

REPUBLICANS are rejoicing and Democrats reeling in the wake of Scott Brown’s stunning victory over Martha Coakley in a special Massachusetts Senate election that Brown insists was not simply a referendum on President Barack Obama.

Still, Obama grimly faced a need to both regroup and recoup losses yesterday, the anniversary of his inauguration, in a White House shaken by the realisation of what a difference a year made. The most likely starting place was finding a way to save the much-criticised healthcare overhaul he’s been trying to push through Congress.

In one of the country’s most traditionally liberal states, Brown rode a wave of voter anger to defeat Coakley, the attorney general who had been considered a surefire winner until just days ago. Her loss signalled big political problems for Obama and the Democratic Party this November when House, Senate and gubernatorial candidates are on the ballot nationwide. Brown, however, maintained yesterday that claiming the election was a referendum on Obama would be oversimplifying what had happened there. Nor, he said, was it merely a matter of voters rejecting Coakley. Asked if the election was a referendum on Obama, he replied: “No, it is bigger than that.

“I just focused on... the issues – terror, taxes and the healthcare plan.” He called the Obama-backed healthcare system “not good for our state”, and said he didn’t think the voters would stand for any effort by Democrats to delay seating him in the Senate. Brown said Democrats would pay at the polls in November for any “political chicanery”. He also said he believes he offered voters the vision of a public servant who would vote in Washington for whatever is best, “whether it is a good Democratic idea or a Republican idea”.

Brown will become the 41st Republican in the 100-member Senate, which could allow the GOP to block the healthcare bill. Democrats needed Coakley to win for a 60th vote to thwart Republican filibusters. Brown became the first Republican elected to the US Senate from supposedly true-blue Democratic Massachusetts since 1972.

“I have no interest in sugarcoating what happened in Massachusetts,” said Senator Robert Menendez, the head of the Senate Democrats’ campaign committee.

“There is a lot of anxiety in the country... Americans are understandably impatient.” Brown will finish Kennedy’s unexpired term, facing re-election in 2012.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pledged to seat Brown immediately, a hasty retreat from pre-election Democratic threats to delay his inauguration until after the health bill passed. Brown led by 52% to 47% with 100% of precincts counted.

The local election played out against a national backdrop of animosity and resentment from voters over persistently high unemployment, Wall Street bailouts, exploding federal budget deficits and partisan wrangling over health care.

Yesterday, Republican Party chairman Michael Steele said Americans were breathing “a sigh of relief” over the potential derailing of the healthcare bill.

But David Plouffe, who directed Obama’s presidential campaign, rejected calls to scrap the bill. “We need to pass that [healthcare bill]. We have to lead.” Brown even won in the Cape Cod community where Kennedy, the longtime liberal icon, died of brain cancer last August. “While the honour is mine, this Senate seat belongs to no one person, no one political party,” Brown told his supporters. “This is the people’s seat,” he added to chants of “People’s seat.”

For weeks considered a long shot, Brown seized on voter discontent to overtake Coakley in the campaign’s final stretch. His candidacy energised Republicans, including backers of the “tea party” movement against big government and Obama, while attracting disappointed Democrats and independents uneasy with where they felt the nation was heading.