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WSJ.com's Political Diary - How Scott Brown Changed Massachusetts

Two Party State

Massachusetts Democrats who thought the victory of Scott Brown in January was a fluke and represented no sign of a revived Republican Party in their state might want to think again.

This week saw a special election for the state senate seat that Mr. Brown gave up when he became a U.S. Senator. The suburban Boston district has been competitive, with Mr. Brown first winning it in a 2003 special election with only 51%.

This time it wasn't even close. GOP State Representative Richard Ross defeated Democrat Peter Smulowitz, an emergency-room physician, with 62% of the vote. Mr. Ross even won Needham, a liberal bastion in the district, by over 200 votes. "The Democratic machine is striking out in Massachusetts," claimed Jennifer Nassour, the state's GOP chairwoman.

Not quite. The highly competitive race for governor has seen Democratic Governor Deval Patrick rebound somewhat from his recent dismal poll numbers. He now leads Republican Charlie Baker, a protégé of former GOP Governor Bill Weld, and state Treasurer Tim Cahill, who left the Democratic Party to run as an independent last year. In a new Rasmussen poll, Mr. Patrick scores 45% support against 31% for his GOP opponent Mr. Baker.

But Mr. Patrick's improvement appears to be based largely on the faltering of Mr. Cahill, who has lately been the subject of GOP attack ads. Mr. Baker, a former health-care executive, is still having trouble putting together the coalition of economic and social conservatives that Mr. Brown assembled. Much of Mr. Cahill's 15% support in polls represents social conservatives who remain put off by Mr. Baker's failure to make overtures to them.

-- John Fund

WSJ.com's Political Diary - FAIR Tax vs OBAMACare

Show of Horrors

In the two special elections for the House being held next week, Democrats appear to have thrown in the towel in a Hawaii race where the presence of two Democrats on the ballot looks like it may hand the seat to a Republican.

But in the Pennsylvania coal-mining district once held by the late Jack Murtha, former Murtha aide Mark Critz appears to have made a comeback with a flurry of TV commercials accusing GOP businessman Tim Burns of wanting to raise taxes. A Democratic campaign committee ad accuses Mr. Burns of supporting "a 23% national sales tax" and "corporate tax loopholes for companies that ship jobs overseas." The latest public poll shows Mr. Critz with a 45% to 40% lead.

Mr. Burns says his record has been distorted. He denies he wants to outsource jobs overseas. He also claims any quotes supporting a so-called FAIR tax reform were "taken out of context" and notes that Mr. Critz hasn't pointed out that advocates of a national sales tax want to completely replace the current federal income tax.

That may be, but Mr. Burns's plight shows just how tricky tax reform can be to raise in a hardscrabble blue-collar district where voters are deeply suspicious of change. Republicans have made progress in the race by calling for repeal of ObamaCare, which is viewed with hostility by many of the district's seniors. But the ads blasting Mr. Burns on a national sales tax have erased many of those gains.

Next week we will find out which set of attacks had the most resonance with voters and just how much the Obama health care bill will be a drag on Democratic prospects this fall.

-- John Fund

WSJ.com's Political Diary - Our Men in Baghdad

Our Men in Baghdad

When Barack Obama named Christopher Hill to be his ambassador to Iraq, he praised the diplomat for having "the pragmatism and skill that we need right now." Republican Sen. Sam Brownback strongly disagreed.

In a March 2009 letter to the President, the Kansas Republican slammed Mr. Hill for engaging in "evasive and unprofessional activities" as the U.S. representative to the Six Party Talks over North Korea. Mr. Brownback also noted that Mr. Hill spoke no Arabic and had never served in a diplomatic post in the Middle East. This was not, he wrote, "the time to appoint an ambassador who may need the equivalent of a crash course in Iraqi affairs."

Now the administration seems to have come around to Sen. Brownback's view. Word is that Mr. Hill will be leaving Baghdad after barely a year to become dean of the University of Denver's foreign service school. Supposedly, Mr. Hill took the job intent on spending only a year in Baghdad, but several sources tell me he had a particularly strained relationship with U.S. military commanders, including Gen. Ray Odierno. His lack of Arabic would also have made him poorly suited to play the role his predecessor Ryan Crocker did in easing tensions between Iraq's dueling political factions.

The good news is that Mr. Hill is to be replaced with Jim Jeffrey, currently the U.S. ambassador to Turkey. Mr. Jeffrey, a Vietnam vet, has already done one tour of duty in the Baghdad embassy as former ambassador John Negroponte's deputy. He was also George W. Bush's deputy national security adviser. The ambassador gets good reviews from his erstwhile White House colleagues, who think the New Englander's easy manner, Middle East expertise and military background will serve him well. His nomination is another reminder that, when it comes to Iraq policy, Barack Obama's presidency is little more than an extension of his predecessor's.

-- Bret Stephens