Thought I'd bring attention to a great post by Scott Morgan about the Senate Race. This issue being cannabis means, of course, that it is completely ignored by the media as an election issue. (The media is taking notice, however, of the growing support for medical cannabis. During the MA-Senate brouhaha, I wrote about the recent finding that 80% of Americans support medical marijuana. That's more consensus than most policy issues have.)
So what does marijuana have to do with the MA-Senate race? Over the flip..
Like a growing number of states, Massachusetts is throwing off the shackles of a wasteful and racist drug war. One initial step in that effort is to decriminalize marijuana-as MA did in 2008 with a ballot initiative (Question 2). [That ballot was funded by the progressive group MPP-Marijuana Policy Project]
Martha Coakley, being a progressive like us, of course threw her full support...uh, well...actually, she played the tried and untrue Tough on Crime(TM) card. All but THREE towns in the state supported marijuana decrim., but Coakley rode the wave of...genius?..and vociferously opposed Question 2.
But, you say, the MA-Senate race wasn't about marijuana policy. Well, Scott Morgan nails that one right on the head:
The point here isn't that Martha Coakley lost because her anti-marijuana advocacy from 2008 was fresh in everyone's mind as they entered the polls on Tuesday. This campaign wasn't about marijuana at all, and that's the problem.
You see, Coakley's victorious opponent Scott Brown had actually championed a sparsely-publicized effort to re-criminalize certain marijuana offenses in the aftermath of question 2. It went nowhere, of course, and could easily have been wielded against him on the campaign trial, had Brown's challenger for the vacant Senate seat not been a rabid prohibitionist herself. In a state where 65% of voters endorsed decriminalization, a pro-reform message could easily have given some heft to the Democrats failed campaign strategy.
This is advanced pot politics, to be sure, and I certainly wouldn't expect to see such strategies deployed deftly by the major parties in the short term. But as the issue continues to heat up, it's just a matter of time before someone figures out how to use it effectively.
For those who think that the pro-marijuana vote, which includes support from the youth vote, is a non-starter, think again. This policy issue, as Gallup and ABC News has shown, derives support from the left and right, and from all age groups except seniors. This is a winning issue for progressives. And if you doubt the importance of the youth vote, then you need to re-examine the factors behind the win in Oregon yesterday. It doesn't hurt that baby-boomers also support medical marijuana, and increasingly support legalization/regulation.
My position, which I've stated frequently, is that more ballot initiative per cannabis are needed to increase voter turnout. Only after a CA ballot initiative to legalize cannabis will we likely see a large-scale movement at the ballot box.
9 out of 10 MPP-sponsored ballot initiatives for progressive marijuana policy SUCCEEDED on November 4, 2008
http://www.mpp.org/...
As has been diaried before, washington, D.C. will begin its medical marijuana program, and New Jersey just signed into law theirs.