Democrats hold breath over Massachusetts vote

The first-year record of President Barack Obama has come under a harsh spotlight as members of his own party faced up to the mortifying possibility that a special election in Massachusetts to fill the seat of the late Senator Ted Kennedy could end in a monumental upset win for the Republicans.

A comparison of the tally of promises made in 2008 and what the 44th President of the United States has actually managed to deliver since his inauguration helps to tell the tale.

Obama took a lot on his plate, but a year on, he hasn't managed to wrap up any of the main dossiers, whether that is closing down Guantanamo, completing healthcare reform or making measurable headway on immigration, gay rights or green energy.

His foreign agenda, for which the rest of the world had such high hopes, has been stop-start.

A deeply nervous White House knows that defeat for the Democrat candidate in Massachusetts would be seen as a searing repudiation of all that Obama has done - or failed to do - in the 12 months since his inauguration one year ago.

"The people of Massachusetts are angry, like they should be," said Michael Capuano, a Democrat congressman from Boston.

"They need to focus that anger in the right direction - at the people who put us in this position."

The Democratic flagbearer, state Attorney-General Martha Coakley, and her opponent, a conservative member of the state senate, Scott Brown, have hurtled back and forth across the northeastern state in search of vital last votes with polls suggesting they were neck-and-neck.

Given little chance of prevailing until a week ago, Brown has tapped the winds of frustration and anger with the perceived lack of progress in Washington and a widespread feeling of disappointment, itself fuelled by the stalling economic recovery and the rhetoric of conservative media commentators.

The Coakley campaign was due to release one final primetime television advertisement featuring Obama making a final appeal to voters to side with her and against Brown.

This came as a poll put the Republicans five points ahead, although within the poll's margin of error.

"If Brown wins this election, it will be the shot heard around the world," said Colleen Conley, president of the Rhode Island Tea Party.

"This will be a clear indictment of the Obama presidency and the Democratic Congress over-reaching."

Brown, who pitches himself as the underdog fighting the elitist Democrat forces, is benefiting from the support of the Tea Party Republicans - a loose but increasingly potent coalition of right-wing conservatives that is giving voice to popular anger with big taxation and big government.

Victory for Brown would give the Tea Party movement, formed after Obama came to office, new momentum to protest against expanded government and the healthcare reform effort in particular.

It is due to have its first national convention in Nashville, Tennessee, in two weeks, with Sarah Palin, the former Governor of Alaska, the keynote speaker.

The growing influence of the Tea Party coalition is unnerving Democrats and even some Republicans.

Fighting populism with populism, Obama and his Democrats have attacked Brown for opposing the President's proposed bank bailout tax.

"When the chips are down, when the tough votes come, on all the fights that matter to middle-class families ... who is going to be on your side?" Obama asked.

His answer: Democrats work for the little guys on Main Street while Republicans do the bidding of Wall Street.

If successful, Obama's us-against-them approach could serve as a roadmap for how the White House and the Democratic Party will defend seats in Congress and statehouses during the first mid-term elections of his presidency.

- INDEPENDENT, AP

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