"Healthcare overhaul may depend on Massachusetts Senate race

President Obama and other Democrats are in a fight for Ted Kennedy's seat and his cause, campaigning for Martha Coakley over Republican Scott Brown, who could vote down the bill if seated in time.

Former President Clinton visits the Capitol to urge Democrats to help get out the vote in Massachusetts. (Tim Sloan / AFP/Getty Images / January 15, 2010)

Reporting from Washington - President Obama on Friday threw himself into the Massachusetts Senate race where a surging Republican candidacy imperils his signature healthcare plan.

A Republican win Tuesday in the race to replace the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) would strip Democrats of their 60-vote supermajority in the Senate and allow the GOP to block legislation with filibusters. Healthcare legislation has passed both chambers on party-line votes, but a reconciled final version must still be written and approved by both houses.

After negotiating with Democratic congressional leaders on the bill until nearly 1 a.m. Friday, Obama decided to travel to Massachusetts on Sunday to campaign for the Democratic candidate, state Atty. Gen. Martha Coakley, whose once-wide lead over Republican state Sen. Scott Brown has evaporated in recent polls.

Obama also recorded an automated robocall to urge Massachusetts voters to support the Democrat, and he cut a Web video with the same message.

The president's actions were a clear sign of the alarm spreading among Democrats over their prospects in the race despite a 3-to-1 advantage in registered voters. "If Scott Brown wins, it'll kill the health bill," Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) bluntly told reporters before heading to his home state to campaign for Coakley.

Money from labor unions and business interests flooded into Massachusetts, and activists on both sides heard appeals to volunteer for the campaigns. "Every able-bodied Democrat who can be out there in wintertime is up there campaigning," said Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.).

Speculation swirled in Democratic circles about what would happen to the health legislation if Brown won. Brown has vowed to vote against the bill if he gets a chance. Congress could rush to pass the bill before the results were certified and he was sworn in, a process that could take two weeks. Or after Brown was seated, the bill could reach Obama's desk if the House agreed to pass, unchanged, the version of the bill already approved by the Senate.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Friday dismissed reports that leaders were speeding the health negotiations in case the Democrats lose the Massachusetts seat. But the irony that they might lose the healthcare fight because of the seat formerly held by Kennedy, a key champion of healthcare reform, was not lost on Democrats.

On Friday, former President Clinton addressed a meeting of House Democrats and tried to buck up the lawmakers. Clinton, who saw his own healthcare campaign collapse in 1994 just before Democrats lost control of Congress, exhorted the lawmakers to help get out the vote Tuesday.

The sense of political peril grew when a Suffolk University poll released late Thursday found Brown ahead of Coakley, 50% to 46%, with independent Joe Kennedy (no relation) at 3%. The poll's margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points.

The poll showed Brown, who has never run for statewide office, seemly capitalizing on doubts about the cost of the healthcare plan and disquiet over the economy, with 90% of respondents saying the recession was not over in the state. The poll showed Coakley failing to ignite voter enthusiasm, and she was judged the loser in a recent debate with Brown.

The special election in Massachusetts is the opening act of a yearlong political drama leading to the 2010 midterm elections.

More . . .

"=====================================

If all this results in the WH wising up about what the people will/will not take, the process of democracy has served good.

-- Edited by Sanders on Saturday 16th of January 2010 12:42:48 PM