I'm in an awkward position here. I'm about to defend someone I don't particularly care for. I'd like to address the current idea floating around the 'net that Martha Coakley ran a particularly bad campaign against Scott Brown (who, I would like to mention, is now the [Republican] Junior Senator-elect from MA). Now, the simple fact that she lost Ted Kennedy's Senate seat to a relative unknown Republicans lends a good deal of credence to this idea, but there's more to it that meets the eye.
Taken out of context, Coakley *did* run a horrible campaign. After securing the nomination, in an abbreviated campaign season, she inexplicably took a vacation. She ignored her opponent - to her eventual detriment - in the beginning, and responded with far too much negativity in the eleventh hour hoping to undo some of the damage that had already been done by her inattention. She brought in everybody but Ted's corpse to pull for her, and in the end lost by 5% and well over a hundred thousand votes. In MA. To a Republican.
This is huge. No Republican has won a national office in Massachusetts since 1994 - nearly a generation. The MA House of Representatives has 144 Democrats and 16 Republicans. All higher offices are currently held by Democrats. But this lopsidedness is why I posit that Coakley should not be blamed too harshly for last Tuesday's historic loss.
Coakley's campaign, when viewed against other Senate races, looks terrible. Unless those other Senate races are in MA, that is... Ted Kennedy faced no credible opposition in 2006 or 2000, winning with 69% and 73% of the popular vote respectively. John Kerry ran unopposed in 2002 and won with 66% of the vote in 2008. Quite simply, there was no reason to suspect that she'd have to run a campaign at all - in her mind, the race was over when she secured the Democratic nomination.
Now, certainly, a less-myopic candidate would have put their all into the run, figuring that there's no such thing as a sure thing, especially in politics. A less tone-deaf candidate would have seen their opponent doing things like showing up at key sporting events and made an effort to attend these events as well, rather than scoff at the idea of being out in the cold. A candidate more in touch with the current political climate would see their opponent running commercials touting their opposition to certain pending legislation and drafted something other than "And ZOMG my opponent is against certain pending legislation!"
But then again, no Democratic candidate for national office in Massachusetts has had to to more than simply show up for the past 16 years, so what possible reason would Coakley have to suspect that she had to actually, you know, campaign?
That is all.
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Yeah, I suppose this does need to be said, though it comes under the heading of a left-handed compliment. I know we'd all like to think we'd have done better in a similar situation, but still ... a Republican win in Massachusetts?!? YGBSM. Giggle test FAIL in three seconds flat.
But a combination of a political perfect storm and an unbelievably good Republican candidate just wiped Coakley out.
She's still dumb as a rock, though.
Coakley was a toad.
She thought that the only campaign that she had to run was in the primary. As a result, she spent almost all of her money during that phase and was broke when the campaign for the general election started.
When she suddenly found herself in a race, she responded by running to DC for money and direction. At that point she lost control of the campaign and the negative ads started.
That, and her uninspiring performance during the debate cost her enough votes to lose the election.
Plus, she's in the same party as an increasingly unpopular President and Congressional majority.
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