No matter what happens in the special election to fill the Senate seat left vacant by the late Senator Edward Kennedy in Massachusetts Tuesday, the Obama administration has taken a major hit.

Of course, should Republican Scott Brown win, it could derail the Democratic Party’s (and President Obama’s) health reform legislation by denying the Democrats the 60 votes needed in the Senate. They would have to resort to either trying to push the House to accept the Senate plan as is so there would be a a quick vote, or else, they’d have to use parliamentary tricks to try and push the legislation through. Either way, not a pretty thing!

Should Democrat Martha Coakley come from behind (where polls show her to be as of this writing) and win the vacated seat, while that would mean almost sure passage of the President’s health reform measures…a sure win for him…the fact that this even became a close race ,in and of itself ,has politically damaged the President and the Democratic Party.

The White House bungled this one badly.  The administration clearly confident initially that a Democrat would, of course, win in a state often referred to as a “Democratic state.”

But, as news reports have pointed out, this is only part of the story. Sure, the state legislature is controlled by Democrats, but Massachusetts voters, more and more considering themselves Independents, elected a Republican governor not all that long ago…so a Republican senator would not really be such a big leap.

Also, Massachusetts already enjoys a unique state run health care system providing universal coverage at a reasonable cost…so why would voters there want to risk losing that in favor of an untested federal version?

No matter what, the months forward will be interesting,indeed.

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