Scott Brown (R) won the Massachusetts Senate seat vacated with the death of Ted Kennedy by five points (52 / 47). This is a nearly unbelievable event. Massachusetts hasn’t sent a Republican to the Senate since the 1970′s. Massachusetts was the only state in the Union to go for George McGovern. Democrats enjoy a 3 to 1 registration advantage, and only 12% of Massachusetts voters are registered Republicans.

Scott Brown ran explicitly as the 41st vote against Obamacare, and that legislation is now in serious jeapordy if not dead already. The options available to the Democrats range from unappealing to appauling.

They could try to delay Brown’s seating and push through a compromise with Paul Kirk’s vote. However, this scenario is fraught with political risk. In a focus group by Luntz on Fox News, with the group split evenly between Coakley and Brown voters, even the Coakley voters opposed delaying Brown’s seating. Jim Webb, a Democratic Senator from Virginia, has already expressed that he believes health care votes should be suspended until he is seated. This is simply not a viable option.

Reconciliation, where tax/spending measures related to the budget are passed through a special process without the filibuster rule in effect (only 51 votes necessary) isn’t a particularly good option either, as many aspects of the current legislation could not be included in a reconciliation bill by rule (for example, the health insurance mandate could not be included). Reconcilation isn’t intended for normal legislation, and a Democratic attempt to shoehorn their health care plan through it would meet considerable resistance and probably wouldn’t work anyway.

The last and most likely scenario is still pretty unlikely. The House could ‘pingpong’ the Senate version of health care, which would allow the Senate version to go to the president without further action in the Senate. But this bill is already fairly unpalatable to the House Democrats. Blue Dogs don’t like the fact that Stupak’s abortion language was left out. And Labor Democrats hate the tax on cadilac insurance plans. Barney Frank, a safe liberal Democrat in the leadership, has already signaled that the House will not pingpong the Senate bill.

The compromise with labor secured by Obama could not be included in the current Senate bill without another vote (and hence subject to Brown’s filibuster)…they could follow up the current bill with a second bill that modifies it…but there is no guarantee it would pass and would likely be just as controversial as the current bill.

Combine all that with the strong majory of the American public opposed to Obamacare…and I’m ready to predict it: Obamacare is dead. D.GOOCH