Will Obama Manage To Throw Away Another Massachusetts Senate Seat?

2 Iraq War supporters-- when do we get a new guard?

It appears likely that a member of the uppermost crust of the ruling elite, Senator John Kerry, will put his own ambitions to serve in the Cabinet-- either as Secretary of State or as Secretary of War-- ahead of the need of the Democratic Party to hold onto the Massachusetts Senate seat he would have to give up in order to take whichever Cabinet position he can guilt Obama into giving him as a career-capper. Wall Street spent over $2 million each on only 5 candidates this cycle, all slavish servants to their toxic, predatory agenda:

• House Majority Leader Eric Cantor- $2,044,500
• Banking Committee Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Security and International Trade and Finance Bob Corker- $2,499,065
• Presidential wanna-be and Wall Street shill Kirsten Gillibrand- $2,809,971
• Speaker John Boehner- $3,211,702
• half-term freshman Scott Brown- $4,500,026

Did Brown ever get the most-- and by a lot! He was Wall Street's #1-- and he lost. Would they bankroll him again if Kerry tosses the seat away like it was a used tissue? You bet they will! They're drooling at the prospect already. The Wall Street Journal is busily spinning its web: "The odds-on favorite in that race would be the just-defeated Republican Sen. Scott Brown-- who won his seat in a 2010 special election to replace the late Ted Kennedy."

Mr. Brown lost re-election this year to liberal Elizabeth Warren due to the president's coattails and concerns among moderate Democrats and independents that a Brown victory would give Republicans control of the Senate, a risk which Ms. Warren played up on the campaign trail and which voters consistently identified in polls as their reason for favoring her.

However, Mr. Brown never lost his popularity. A few days before the election Mr. Brown boasted a higher approval rating than both the president and Mr. Kerry, even as he trailed Ms. Warren by several points. A Democrat running in a special election couldn't flog the hobgoblin of a Republican Senate and wouldn't benefit from a high Democratic turnout for Mr. Obama.

Plus, the Democratic bench is weak. The state's liberal congressional baron, Ed Markey, would be the favorite, but he might have trouble winning over independents. Other Democrats that have been floated include Congressmen Michael Capuano and Stephen Lynch.

Mr. Brown in recent days has indicated he'd be interested in running again should a vacancy arise, and less prominent Republicans in the state have said they'd defer to him. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid certainly seems to fear Mr. Brown's candidacy. Yesterday he denounced the Republican to reporters as "one of the most partisan people that's ever served here."

Although it's certainly true that the immensely unpopular Romney hurt the whole Republican ticket-- possibly helping save John Tierney's House seat from Republican Richard Tisei, after virtually every Beltway pundit predicted he would win-- Elizabeth Warren proved herself a far better candidate than Scott Brown and beat him decisively and demonstrably in each and every debate. In the end she ousted the incumbent-- the only Senate incumbent in America to lose the general-- 1,678,408 (53.7%) to 1,449,180 (46.3%).

The two Democrats with the best chance to hold the seat, Governor Deval Patrick and retiring Congressman Barney Frank, have both taken themselves out of the running, leaving two popular progressives, Michael Capuano and Ed Markey, wretched reactionary DINO, Stephen Lynch and a bunch of state pols and business leaders (including, believe it or not, Stephen Pagliuca, a Bain managing partner, who has contributed to Romney and whose wife has given Republicans over $50,000 in 2012) as the best bets for a heated primary. If Brown decides he wants to run for governor in 2014 instead, both Tisei and former Governor Bill Weld seem ready to jump in.

Presumably Patrick wouldn't wrest a pledge out of whomever he appoints as the interim senator to not run in the special and, in fact, it's more likely that the Democrats will settle on their strongest choice and that Patrick will appoint him so he can run as a quasi-incumbent. This time, though, there could be a far more serious fly-in-the-ointment. If Obama uses the Grand Bargain to damage Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid-- which looks likely-- the Special Election will be the first opportunity for progressives to declare their independence from the Democratic Party and their disdain for Obama and other Wall Street shills in the party, especially if Senator Warren is among the progressives who oppose the Obama-Boehner deal.