20th January, 2010 —

Last August, the state of Massachusetts mourned the passing of Senator Edward Kennedy. A political figurehead in the state for over four decades, Kennedy was called the “Lion of the Senate” due to his strong stances on the issues and his wide influence.

Yesterday, the people of Massachusetts collectively bowed their heads and, eyes tear-moistened, honored the passing of this beloved leader by destroying everything he stood for.

As most will be aware, the US Government has been working on the passage of a bill to reform the health care system. This reform chiefly entails requiring that everyone carry a policy, requiring that insurance policies cannot refuse to cover people due to pre-existing medical conditions, giving credits to small businesses to help them cover the expenses of offering care to employees, and closing loopholes that allowed insurance companies to take advantage of people in various ways. President Obama’s original concept, and the House version of the bill, call for the ability of every American to buy into the same health plan government employees already have; however, this part of the bill was struck down by public demand after conservatives scared the public into seeing this as a government takeover of the health care system that would bankrupt the insurance companies, in spite of the fact that no one would have been forced to change the health care plan they already have if they did not wish to.

Sen. Kennedy called the issue of health care reform the “cause of his life”. Now his former constituents have paid homage to him by electing Scott Brown to replace him, a Republican who has made no secret of his opposition to health care reform. Previously, the Democratic Party controlled sixty of the one hundred Senate seats, just enough so that the Republicans can’t enact a filibuster to prevent passage of the bill. The election of Brown to the seat removes that advantage, and makes it possible for the Republicans to kill the bill completely, thus destroying what Kennedy set out to achieve over so many years of his career in the Senate.

The irony would be delicious to me, if the reality were not so grim.

Now, one may not entirely believe the media’s declaration that this vote was all about the electorate wanting to issue a rebuke to Barack Obama and his policies. Scott Brown’s advertising, which as a New Hampshire resident I was party to in my television viewing, was quite well sculpted…and so too is the man himself, a former underwear model who looks like he hatched out of a Just For Men box. He worked the local media like a champ, and repeated shallow, but resonating, promises to bring “sense” back to Washington. On the other hand, Martha Coakley, his Democratic rival for the Senate seat, appears to be some manner of android programmed to make voters feel icky. She comes off as cold and wooden, and did not acquit herself particularly well in debates. Could it be that in Brown’s case, Massachusetts voted for the man, and not for the issues?

Let’s see. First, if Democratic voters were turned off by Coakley, then where were they during the primary in which she was nominated, during which the voter turnout was reported to be a staggeringly low fifteen percent? The apathy of voters during the primary compared to the much higher turnout for the general election is telling.

Second, while a Senate election is supposed to be purely about choosing a representative to fill one of a state’s two seats, in this situation it is irresponsible to divorce the vote they are casting from its potential impact on a major national initiative. Brown was not shy about his intention to help torpedo the health care initiative, either. And he ludicrously suggested that national health care reform is not in the best interests of Massachusetts because they already have their own universal coverage system (which Republicans of course opposed), and incredibly, this too seemed to catch on with the voters there.

The current health care system in the United States, in purely technical terms, sucks a mule’s vas deferens. Millions of Americans are uncovered, while everyone else is paying a lot more for the coverage they get than do people in other countries for equivalent levels of care. Yet many Americans are angry about the reform plan, including people who voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election. Huh?

I quite honestly cannot figure it out. As I’ve written before, this health care reform bill was President Obama’s intention all along. If a voter was paying attention to the things Obama said during the campaign, and said voter then checked Obama’s name inside the ballot booth, does that not imply that the voter was in favor of his plans for health care reform? That being the case, how does it make sense that Obama won a majority in the election, while a year later the majority of Americans are (if polls and media outlets are to be wholly trusted, which is by no means a given) against the health care reform bill?

What has changed in the ensuing voyage around the sun, to bring about this pendulum swing in the public attitude? Most of us got poorer. Patrick Swayze got deader. But relevant to health care, we are in the same position we were one year ago. Nothing about the dreadfulness of obtaining affordable medical coverage is less dreadful.

Come to it, what is different about Barack Obama from a year ago to bring about his decline in popularity? He’s still a brilliant speaker, he’s still trying to reform health care, and he is still taking steps to right the economy which likely, if they work, will not show tangible results for another year or two yet to come, just as he honestly predicted during the election season. An economy is an aircraft carrier, not a Mini Cooper, and it turns slowly and with a sustained push, so anyone who might have expected Obama to have already made a substantial impact on the economy doesn’t understand how these things work. I’ve my own bones to pick with Obama in regard to failing to stand up to lobbyists and the Chinese government, but those aren’t what most Americans seem angry about. They are angered by the things he said all along would happen if he were president.

I understand the attitude of conservatives. They were always going to skewer Obama no matter what he did, purely by virtue of his being a Democrat: Republicans, after all, issue forth a continually iterating stream of propaganda, gratefully amplified by charismatic television and radio personalities, denouncing the Democratic Party and slandering its agenda.

I do not, however, understand the shift in opinions of those who saw a year ago what Obama was about, approved, and now disapprove. Is it possible that, again, voters cast their ballot for the man, and not his policies?

Anyone who can explain this to me logically and without fanboy-speech gets a free doctor visit.

Oh, wait…