A relatively unknown Republican state legislator won Edward Kennedy’s old seat in the US Senate in Massachusetts on Tuesday night in what “appeared to be a massive protest vote against the party that controls both chambers of Congress and the White House”, says James Bone in The Times. Scott Brown defeated Martha Coakley, who just a week ago had seemed set for an easy win – Massachusetts is one of the most liberal states in America.
It’s a “huge blow” to Obama that jeopardises his plans for healthcare reform by robbing the Democrats of their filibuster-proof 60-40 seat majority in the Senate, says the BBC. The GOP now has enough votes to “frustrate President Obama’s healthcare reform plan – and perhaps his entire agenda,” says Joseph Curl in The Washington Times. Brown has promised to be the deciding vote against the overhaul of healthcare and, says Congress, must start again. “Voters do not want the trillion-dollar healthcare bill” being forced on them, he says.
“Dubbed Senator Beefcake in the US media”, Brown is a lawyer and ex-model who posed nearly nude for Cosmopolitan in the 1980s while studying for his law degree, says the BBC. Depicting himself as a ‘regular guy’ who drives a pick-up truck, Brown defined the campaign with his mantra, “It’s not the Kennedys’ seat, it’s not the Democrats’ seat, it’s the people’s seat”. He predicted his victory would “send shockwaves across America” ahead of mid-term elections in November. “When there’s trouble in Massachusetts, there’s trouble everywhere – and now they know it.”