Do the Democrats want to lose the Massachusetts Senate race?

Pyrrhus, Call Your Office

Do the Democrats want to lose the Massachusetts Senate race?

JAMES TARANTO

(Best of the Tube Tonight: We're scheduled to appear with Nina Easton and Doug Schoen as part of the "Great American Panel" on "Hannity." Fox News Channel, 9-10 p.m. ET, with a repeat showing at midnight ET.)

Remember Barack Obama's promises of transparency? Neither do we. Behind closed doors, Obama's administration is cutting deals with special interests in the hope of saving the increasingly unpopular ObamaCare legislation, reports the Associated Press:

The White House reached a tentative agreement with union leaders early Thursday to tax high-cost insurance plans, officials said, removing one of the major stumbling blocks in the way of a final compromise on comprehensive health care legislation sought by President Barack Obama.

Complete details of the tentative deal were not immediately available, although the White House was expected to present it to senior lawmakers later in the day. Union leaders also were returning to the White House.

Fox News quotes House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer as saying this morning that lawmakers are "very close" to a deal.

Meanwhile in Massachusetts, the Boston Herald reports that a new Suffolk University poll finds Republican Scott Brown leading Democrat Martha Coakley, 50% to 46%. If Brown wins, ObamaCare dies. He would be the 41st vote to prevent any compromise legislation from coming to the floor of the Senate.

Even in Massachusetts, according to the Herald poll, 51% of voters oppose ObamaCare and 61% say "they believe the government cannot afford to pay for it." You would think, then, that the Democrats might want to wait a few days before announcing that an ObamaCare agreement is imminent. Making such claims now only encourages Bay State voters to get out and back Brown.

Could it be that a Brown victory is just what some Dems want? Politico reports that President Obama told House Democrats yesterday that he's confident the people will fall into line once this monstrosity has been imposed upon them:

"Believe me, I know how big a lift this has been," Obama said. "I see the polls. . . . I catch the occasional blog poster, cable clip that breathlessly declares what something means for a political party, without really talking about what it means for a country.

"But I also know what happens once we get this done, once we sign this . . . bill into law: The American people will suddenly learn that this bill does things they like and doesn't do things people have been trying to say it does. The worst fears will prove groundless."

Obama's term runs for another three years. If you're a Democratic representative, or a senator whose term is up this November, do you want to vote for this thing and bet your re-election on the president's assurance that "the American people will suddenly learn" how wonderful it is? Let's let such a man answer that question. From the same Politico report:

In an emotional talk with other Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee this week, North Dakota Rep. Earl Pomeroy said the protracted debate is hurting him so badly back home that he might as well retire if it drags on much longer.

A Democrat who attended the Ways and Means session said Pomeroy was "very angry" as he spoke about the delay. "Other folks were upset, but he was the maddest by far."

"I believe Congress needs to resolve fairly quickly this protracted health care debate," Pomeroy told POLITICO on Thursday. "We have a number of other issues that haven't been able to get enough attention, because health care is taking up all the floor time, all of the attention. We need to move on."

Pomeroy has already decided to forgo a race for the Senate seat currently held by Democrat Byron Dorgan, who announced his retirement in the face of the ObamaCare storm just last week. What better outcome could there be for him than if Brown were to win, allowing ObamaCare to die without any Democrat having to suffer the embarrassment of flip-flopping or defying the party bosses?

Things still look difficult for the Dems come November, but they'll have a much easier time of it if ObamaCare is a mistake they averted rather than one the American people will have to live with for years.

'Maybe a Little Blow When You Could Afford It'
"White House Offers Drug Deal"--headline, NationalJournal.com, Jan. 14

Scapegoating the Candidate
Martha Coakley hasn't even lost yet--in fact, the smart money on Intrade still rates her roughly a 3-to-2 favorite--but Democrats are already seeking scapegoats for her defeat or near-defeat. The leading candidate, as the Boston Herald reports, is the candidate:

Coakley's six-day break from the campaign trail may go down in history as the most poorly timed respite by any candidate in recent memory--and a vacation that will live in infamy as far as political strategists are concerned.

"To be silent in terms of your own personal and public appearances and then dark on television is just breathtakingly ignorant," one Democratic campaign strategist told the Herald yesterday. "Republicans are going to claim that the fact that Coakley is having a problem winning in Massachusetts is related to people's concerns about Obamacare--when the reality is Coakley's struggle should be blamed on her and an incompetent campaign strategy."

The strategist is among a chorus of party operatives who are red-hot mad that Coakley's campaign has drained Democratic resources in the Bay State and beyond--a misfortune that traces back to Dec. 23, when Coakley began her six-day streak off the campaign trail.

There is some truth to this. Coakley was complacent. She's also a lousy candidate, with all the charm of John Kerry. But wait. Kerry, despite being haughty and French-looking, and having by the way served in Vietnam, managed to get elected in Massachusetts five times, and that's not counting his presidential bid in 2004, when he was up against the hated George W. Bush.

(As an aside, we'd like to wish Kerry a happy National Hat Day.)

Maybe it's true that Coakley would win easily if she weren't so awful. But without the damage Obama and ObamaCare have done to the Democratic Party, she'd win easily despite being so awful.

If You Don't Need Insurance, He's Got a Deal on Aluminum Siding
At the Web site of The American Spectator, think-tanker Paul Chesser takes note of a report by John Stossel on Fox Business Network "about a small window company called Serious Materials" that has big pull in Washington:

The company claims to produce the most energy efficient windows in the world, which other larger companies dispute--but that's not the point. Watch the Stossel segment [at either link above] and you'll see how Serious got some high profile endorsements from President Obama and Vice President Biden, which is suspicious because the company's vice president for policy is married to the overseer of President Obama's weatherization program, Cathy Zoi. Amazingly, Serious Materials was the only "green" window company to receive some recent tax credits from the federal government.

Stossel reports that after the segment ran, a Serious Materials flack "called to say that my story is 'full of lies.' But she wouldn't say what those lies are." The Freedom Foundation of Minnesota has the public documents on which Stossel's report was based.

Timothy Carney at the Washington Examiner reports on another eyebrow-raising apparent conflict of interest:

Mark Ernst, in December 2007, was chief executive officer of H&R Block, the nation's largest tax-preparation company. Thirteen months later, once President Obama took office, Ernst was named a deputy commissioner at the Internal Revenue Service, where he would spend his first year drafting new regulations for tax preparers--regulations that H&R Block welcomes and market analysts say will benefit the company.

With Ernst in mind, recall Barack Obama's campaign pledge: "No political appointees in an Obama administration will be permitted to work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years."

Carney quotes an IRS spokesman's email saying the rules don't apply to Ernst because he "is a civil servant at the IRS; he is not a political appointee." As Carney notes, it's passing strange for an ex-CEO to pursue a second career as a civil servant. He adds: "Now we can see that the ethics rules, like much of Obama's good-government talk, is more style than substance."

Even Obama Didn't 'Inherit' This
This week's horrible earthquake in Haiti seems to have provided an opportunity for President Obama to move away from his increasingly ridiculous carping about his predecessor. As the Associated Press reports:

Obama has asked former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton to help with U.S. relief efforts in Haiti.

Enlisting ex-presidents' help in responding to a natural disaster is just what Bush did in 2004 after a tsunami ripped across Asia. Back then, it was Clinton and the President George H.W. Bush who assisted in relief efforts.

An Obama administration official says Obama has reached out to Clinton and George W. Bush, and that details of their efforts will be announced in the coming days.

But someone is blaming George W. Bush. Commentary's Abe Greenwald calls our attention to a Mother Jones piece, published within hours of the quake, titled "How Bush-Cheney Policy Screwed Haiti." We suppose it's weirdly comforting that some things are impervious to disaster.

A Last Resort
"North Korea will allow more U.S. tourists to visit this year, apparently seeking alternative sources of hard currency as economic sanctions bite deeper," the Financial Times reports:

The Pyongyang government permits American groups to visit only for the Arirang mass games, when tens of thousands of impeccably choreographed gymnasts and performers create colorful mosaics and slogans with painted cards. This year, the shows are scheduled to begin in August.

However, Pyongyang will now allow visits throughout the year, according to Beijing-based Koryo Tours, which says it escorts about 80 percent of U.S. travelers to the North.

Before you book a tour, be warned: What happens in North Korea, stays in North Korea.