It’s one of these annoying conceits that at key moments people write editorials and posts on ‘what the president should say’, ‘what the president should do’. But with the recognition that it’s an annoying tradition, let me take a stab at it. Not because there’s any reason he should listen to me but because it’s a convenient way to explain what I believe is a sensible way forward.

In the spirit of bipartisanship the president admires, let’s go back to President Bush in 2006 and 2007. The Republicans and the president were hit with a staggering defeat in November 2006 in an election fought overwhelmingly on public dissatisfaction with the Iraq War. The president said that he’d heard the people’s message and proceeded to dramatically expand the US troop commitment in Iraq. Read More

In discussing Barack Obama as a big winner in the lottery a few moments ago, Howard Fineman just said: “Obama took all his winnings and turned them over to Max Baucus.”

It definitely looks like it’s all down to the House. So our Brian Beutler talked to House Dems tonight before their caucus meeting (which must have been fun, right?) and it seems like quite a few of them are ready to toss health care reform and the Democratic majority on the bonfire and just watch them burn. Read Brian’s report.

It’s definitely small print. But it would be wrong to end the evening without noting that the polls were pretty close to the mark. We maintained trended averages of the two way and three ways polls of this race.

In the three way polls, the trended average was Brown 50.8%, Coakley 45.3%. Pretty close, with a touch more undecided breaking to Coakley. In the two ways, it was Brown 52%, Coakley 42.5%. That nailed Brown’s result. And, interestingly, the undecided broke for Coakley.

Multiple reports that Coakley has called to concede the race to Scott Brown.

9:27 PM: That’s it. AP and CNN calling it for Brown.

9:37 PM: DSCC’s Menendez: “I have no interest in sugar coating what happened in Massachusetts.”

9:45 PM: Sen. Webb says no votes on Health Care in the senate until Brown is seated.

The thing to watch tonight are Dems from the left and the right (but I suspect overwhelmingly from the right) putting out statements that the Massachusetts verdict means Dems need to pull the plug on health care reform. Here’s Sen. Bayh kicking things off in the run for the exits. Anthony Weiner was just on MSNBC seemingly sticking to his comment from this morning that a Coakley loss probably meant the end of health care reform.

People don’t like politicians who are weak and don’t know what they believe. If the bill was worth passing yesterday, it’s just as worth passing tomorrow. All the meta-politics about being for something before you were against it, knowing what you believe or not knowing, being able to get something done. It all comes down to stuff like this.

Late Update: Here’s an unnamed “presidential advisor” quoted in Politico who should get a promotion: “The response will not be to do incremental things and try to salvage a few seats in the fall,” a presidential adviser said. “The best political route also happens to be the boldest rhetorical route, which is to go out and fight and let the chips fall where they may. We can say, ‘At least we fought for these things, and the Republicans said no.”

I cannot say this enough. The policy front speaks for itself. But the meta-politics is real. It’s a big. But it’s something Democrats have great difficulty with. For a whole variety of reasons voters clearly have a lot of hesitation about this reform. I think the polls make clear that the public is not against it. But the reticence is real. If Dems decide to run from the whole project in the face of a single reverse, what are voters supposed to draw from that? What conclusion would you draw about an individual in an analogous situation in your own life? Think about it.

Message of the day to all Dems, Coakley, Rahm, Celinda Lake, national Dem committees, Axelrod, whoever, whatever: Shut the *$%& Up! I don’t know how else to say it. I’m watching MSNBC and hearing all the key players dumping on each other. As I’ve said, the Coakley campaign seems to have been run just terribly. And that’s just the beginning of it. But really, with all that’s at stake, the White House political office left this to Coakley, unsupervised? Really? I just have very little patience hearing all the people who are by definition all to blame have an argument about who’s most to blame.

What I’m seeing — and this isn’t just based on public comments but our reporting behind the scenes — is that there’s a lot more energy going into dodging blame for this unforced error of galactic proportions than there is going into the real issue: closing the loop on the health care bill. Which is the only issue in policy terms and political terms. That’s it. Everything else is water under the bridge.

And the key is this: this nonsense arguing is very reminiscent of 6 months of chatter and wasted negotiations that prevented this from getting done in the early summer instead of letting it get to this point. Which was n-e-e-d-l-e-s-s.

Jon Chait has this right. The Dems need to relax, get to work, pass the bill and move on.

We’ve got live results from Massachusetts in our election scoreboard right down there beneath the feature section.

Watching MSNBC at a quarter to eight on the east coast they’re treating it as a given that Coakley lost, seemingly based on reports about turnout in key districts. I have nothing to dispute that, though the reports I’ve heard on turnout are a bit different. (We’ll know soon enough.) But, yeah, no question this was a terribly run campaign. Not just that, an irresponsibly run campaign. Yes, it’s the national climate. It’s a lot of stuff that’s going on today. But I don’t have much question that another Democratic nominee would have come out with a much better result. I really believe that. But, frankly, who cares? It’s done. The Dems need to pass the bill and wrap this up. Period. Plenty of criticism to go around. But who cares? Just finish it.

Back on January 5th I wrote a short post with the headline “Reform at Stake in Massachusetts“.