From Bay State to Red State?

Can health care reform survive a Republican Senate win in Massachusetts?

Will there be joy in Beantown if Mighty Coakley strikes out? Or, having been born on third base (thanks to the Kennedy clan), will she be able to steal home?

We’re talking about Martha Coakley, the attorney general of Massachusetts and one-time shoo-in to inherit Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat and, most assumed, to seal the deal on President Obama’s health care reform bill. After all, in bluer-than-blue Massachusetts, what threat was any Republican challenger, much less a lowly state senator known primarily for an old Cosmo centerfold and a daughter who was deemed “pretty good” by Simon Cowell [read more...]

By Tobin Harshaw | opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com |  Published: 15 January 2010