You may enjoy this blog.

http://afrocityblog.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/boston-callingkennedys-dont-die/

This is just one of the articles from the site. There are some right wingnuts on there (myself included occasionally), but she offers some interesting perspectives as a black American former Democrat turned conservative (not sure if she is an avowed Republican). Anyways, keep up the blogging – I will check by from time to time – good luck with upcoming school year. Always shocked with how hard my wife works as a professor – she opted to take the easy way out this year – she is having a baby. Ok, definitely wrong on that one – much harder.

Thanks for the comment…

It is really ironic. I want health care reform to pass – and I want it to pass badly. I just don’t want it to be done this way. From a pure tactical point of view is is just a bad move – a real waste of political capital. If that single vote were the one vote absolutely necessary to get it done – then I might be OK with this – but otherwise it is just a bad idea.

– hippieprof

Tracked to your blog from the American Missive. I am a resident of MA and my sincerest hope is that their is not a push to change the law, but it looks like it may happen now based on what I am hearing. I agree with your analysis above (I am a Libertarian mind you – registered as Republican as they almost reflect some of my ideals and I voted Ron Paul – but everything is muddied up in the middle right now). Anyways, I definitely expect political backlash to occur from this if the law is changed. But hey, it might be the first time the Democratic Governor and Democrats in State Legislature can get along – so a win for Deval.

What has basically happened is that we offered the people of Massachusetts a choice when the law was originally changed and said that noone would be seated unless democratically elected here in the state – now that is being thrown aside in favor of ensuring that a partisan vote is there for healthcare (and it will definitely not be of the “Conservative Blue Dog” variety). Now, we are seeing a group trying to make a partisan end run around a previously partisan end run of law already on the books. Doesn’t sound like a very effective legal system when one’s ability to accomplish things as Governor are based purely upon what party they belong to. The only saving grace in this whole fiasco would be that the person has to covenant that they will not run for the actual Senate seat, but that is minimal coverage for what is ultimately an appointment to vote on a single issue.

Maybe Washington can cool its jets and focus a little more on the legislation and wait for the vote (set to occur in December (primary)/January (general)).