Interesting Times...

Divergent strategies for Brown, Coakley

HOLYOKE - From the opening moments yesterday of their special election battle for US Senate, the contrasts between Republican Scott Brown and Democrat Martha Coakley were clear.

Brown, a state senator from Wrentham, signaled he would go after the attorney general with everything he had. She indicated she would do all she could to ignore him.

Her strategy is the winning one - remember, she's running for Ted Kennedy's seat (did I mention he's no longer my Senator?). Ted's the one who simply refused to debate or even acknowledge both his Republican opponent and the Libertarian candidate for his re-election campaign in 2000 (this was his first campaign after the bruising 1994 election where Mitt Romney got too close for comfort, so Kennedy put the Big Dig funding thumbscrews to Paul Cellucci to not support any GOP challenger. That's MA politics for ya...).

Put simply, Coakley knows that she has nothing to gain and everything to lose by debating Brown. If she ignores him, she basks in the media glow ("ZOMG! First female Senator for MA!!!!!1111") while he has to struggle and scramble to pay for every second of air time. If she debates him, she risks being exposed as the big nanny-statist she is. Remember, this is the woman who quipped that in MA, "We discourage self-help" and claimed she had foreign policy experience because her sister lives in Europe...

Coakley can ignore Brown all she wants - it's not like the Globe is going to call her on it.

That is all.