What's the Matter With Massachusetts?

After the 2004 election a book was published called What's the Matter With Kansas? It was later turned into a movie. It's premise is that the Democrats actually represent the best interests of the people of Kansas but the Republicans kept exploiting wedge issues that didn't actually matter to most people to win elections. This was very comforting to Democrats since its message was that there was nothing wrong with their basic values. They just needed to package them better. Barack Obama was a big believer in this book.

Now the same sort of reasoning is being applied to Massachusetts. The vote wasn't really a rejection of health care so Democrats don't need to adjust their plans. An example of this reasoning is How Romneycare killed Obamacare by Timothy Noah in Slate.

First, a little background - Massachusetts already has a form of universal health care. It served as a model for the legislation being considered nationally. So, the fact that the people of Massachusetts have personal experience with the system and elected someone who promised to stop it on a national level should be proof that it is a bad idea, right? Not to Noah.

Noah quotes some exit polls which show that health care was the most important issue to voters. 56% placed it as their top concern, well ahead of the 25% who put the economy first. Noah then quotes a different poll that puts the number of voters who are against Obamacare at 52%. Not an overwhelming majority, but a percentage that matches Brown's share of the vote.

So far, so good. A majority of Massachusetts don't like universal health care.

Noah doesn't stop there (he can't or he wouldn't have a point). He goes on to quote some statistics on Romneycare. 60% supported it when it passed. This grew to 69% in 2008. These polls are meaningless to the current debate. Noah just threw them in to make Romneycare seem more popular than it currently is. He eventually admits that support has been declining. It was down to 59% in September, 2009 and 54% last week. That's quite a drop - 15% in less than two years. Noah attributes this drop to the economy and concern about rising premium costs. I am less charitable and I think that the drop is because the longer they live with it, the less the people of Massachusetts like it.

Noah also tells us what percentage of doctors like Romneycare which is irrelevant to the election. He just wants us to know how great the program is.

The rest of the article is Noah's attempt to reconcile support for Romneycare with rejection of Obamacare. His conclusion is to think the worst of the people of Massachusetts, that they are selfish.

In the absence of any other logical explanation, I conclude that Massachusetts voters cast their vote for Scott Brown in the parochial spirit that Miller describes. Bay Staters saw no reason to vote for health care reform because they already had health care reform. Without Romney, that calculation wouldn't have been possible.

Actually, there is nothing to reconcile. Noah throws out poll data as if they all came from the same source and covered the same people. They do not. Consider - 54% of the total population of Massachusetts still favor Romneycare but 52% of the people who voted are against Obamacare. Keep in mind that the actual voter turnout was a subset of the total population. No one asked the actual voters if they approved of Romneycare and a significant percentage of Brown's voters (48%) based their vote solely on health care.

I think that Noah has it all wrong. 48% of the people of Massachusetts dislike Romneycare. Elections are not decided by an even distribution of the electorate. They are decided by the people who are motivated to turn out and vote. The people who are happy with Romneycare or feel that Obamacare would not affect them were less likely to turn out. The people who want Romneycare eliminated saw this election as their chance to show their discontent with their system and keep it from spreading.

That's a much more charitable view of the people of Massachusetts. Noah might have had a case if support for Romneycare was still high but with it running nearly even, voter motivation was more likely to be the deciding factor.

Of course this isn't very comforting to the Democrats. They can't shake their heads at the selfish people of Massachusetts who are unwilling to share their great health care system with the rest of the world. Instead they have to recognize that a majority of the people who actually turn out to vote in a very liberal state would rather vote for a Republican than see Obamacare passed.