Brown Wins Massachusetts

Even the President going to MASS couldn't turn the tide. A stream of stories have already begun saturating the Internet about why Coakley blew a 30 point lead in all of three months. I've read several. Some argue that this was not a referendum on anything other than local politics which in MA, has been Kennedy Kennedy and more Kennedy for several decades.

Some have argued that Martha was a dreadful campaigner and her series of last minute gaffes cumulatively did too much damage. There is some truth to this second arguement. To recap:

This past week she scoffed at shaking hands at Fenway, allowed a supporter to rough up a reporter while she watched, suggested that Catholics not work in the ER in an interview, stated that the Taliban were not in Afghanistan on the day of a vicious attack by said not there terrorists during the debate, misspelled Massachusetts on a last minute ad, put the World Trade Center in a second ad as a symbol of greed, wildly distorted her opponents record such that even Time magazine said it was vile, and called Curt Schilling of the 2004 Red Soxs, a Yankees fan on sports radio.

In fairness to all who supported her, who stumped for her, there aren't many candidates who could have survived this sort of self sabotage. Coakley's political imitation of Bill Buckner alone would have made anyone else come across as normal.

I rather think Brown is indicative of multiple factors, the high handed approach of the House and the Senate galvinized the sluggish and demoralized GOP. Spending without ceasing with the health care bill poised for passage roused those who might otherwise have sat this one out; making it a national race helped Brown.
Also, I think 40 years of voting for someone who owned the seat probably made the people of Massachusetts desirous of anything but the same old same old and Brown was willing to stick his neck out. Americans like courage, even more than they like anything else. We are the nation that created superheroes, we love underdogs and victories that are improbable at best.

There are already memos from the DNC, the White House, the Coakely campaign, the local Democratic machine and staffers and emails pointing fingers at who is to blame for Brown's election. They should stop, because at least publically, such behavior smacks of poor sportsmanship. It insults the voters by presuming that people decided to vote for Brown not because they wanted Brown, but because the party apparatus didn't properly manipulate the public into wanting Coakely.

Besides, it wasn't any of the above entities that caused Brown to win. There's only one group to blame. The Voters. They voted for this guy, even though he drives a truck. Even though, he's just a state senator and that hardly qualifies him to become the State's senator or anything higher than that...hey wait.

As satisfying and truthful as it might be, blaming the voters won't help.
There will be people who blame Bush, Beck, Limbaugh and Palin for Massachussetts; but I wouldn't if you don't want another day like January 19, 2010 in any of the other 49 states.