It’s been a while. First, I was busy with “real life”. Then I felt overwhelmed by the quantity of news that had piled up while I wasn’t paying attention. Then I had the horrible presentiment that if I wrote a single word about the Massachusetts special election, Scott Brown would be fatally jinxed.
The first two are still considerations, but the last is no longer a big worry, as by my rough calculation Marcia Murtha Monica Martha Coakley needs 115 percent of the remaining ballots in order to take the lead. Here, then, are the lessons that I gather from this more than astounding result:
Mrs. Coakley ran a pretty inept campaign, and the Official Progressive Line is already that her flaws are to blame for the outcome – nothing to do with Obamacare, the limp reaction to the undiebomber, cap-and-tax, the prospect of a KSM trial in New York et al. But that convenient spin leaves one big question unanswered: Why did Marcitha turn into a bumbler? She looked like a pretty smooth operator when she swept the Democratic primary. Did a GOP agent then slip stupidity pills into her white wine?
No, what undermined the Coakley campaign was the need to stand up as the proponent of an Administration that has sharply diverged from what it promised a year ago. As soon as voters – even Massachusetts voters who have been sending Kennedys to the Senate for over half a century – thought about the nationalization of health care and the treatment of enemy combatants as criminals entitled to Miranda warnings, what was there for a party line Democrat to do but flail? A different candidate would have flailed in different directions (presumably not picking quarrels with Curt Schilling or misspelling the commonwealth’s name), but it simply wasn’t possible to run a competent-looking race under such circumstances. Creigh Deeds, another hopeful who sailed through the primary, had the same insurmountable challenge.
The form that the flailing took was striking – and a bit disturbing. There were two elements: first, the personal invective (most shockingly evident in a flyer accusing Mr. Brown of wanting hospitals to turn away rape victims); second, the sharp left turn. In the final weekend, the Democrats, most notably the President himself, didn’t so much as try to present a case for their health care scheme. All their rhetoric was aimed at fat cat bankers and their evil bonuses. No effort to win over the center; just non-stop agitprop.
If that is how the President and his party intend to fight the next election, we’re in for a very long, exasperating year. The only consolation will be the size of the Republican majorities in the 112th Congress.
Tidbits: As of 10:27 p.m. EST, according to the Associated Press, the vote tally was complete throughout the state, except for Paxton’s one precinct and 32 of Cambridge’s 33. I guess those Harvard fellas have trouble counting.
Scott Brown carried 62 percent of the vote in Braintree. John Adams is standing up and cheering in his grave.
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