What really happened in Massachusetts tonight

[pscot]

This is the inside dish, from a diary just posted over at Dkos

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/1/19/827160/-My-Mom-is-a-Democratic-machine-operative-in-Bostonheres-her-explanation

My mom has been a Democratic machine operative in Boston since the 70's. She knows about Massachusetts politics, and she knows about this election. Here's what she says happened:

catlover72's diary :: ::
First of all, this is not a referendum on Obama or Washington.

This is about local infighting in the Massachusetts Democratic Party, plain and simple.

In this particular race, there has been a great deal of conflict between the Democratic insiders in Western Mass and the Democratic insiders in Boston.

During the primary, Western Mass backed Martha Coakley (who is from Western Mass) because her primary opponent, Mike Capuano, a current U.S. House Rep from Somerville, was from Somerville not Western Mass.

According to my mom, the Western Mass Democrats got a lot more momentum in the primary because no one in Boston believed that Capuano could lose. Western Mass turned out, Boston and vicinity did not.

Mom says Capuano would probably have won easily had he not lost the primary (he never has a serious challenge when he runs for his House seat).

Coakley, on the other hand, not only dropped the ball as everyone knows, but no politicians in Boston wanted their names associated with her after she won the primary. My mom isn't high enough up the chain to know why this is (or maybe she is holding out on me because she doesn't want anyone to read this and recognize her dishing the inside scoop - she is old school and thinks she shouldn't be talking publicly about this).

As the race went on, she (mom) asked around as to why she hadn't been called out to phone bank, check lists of registered voters, etc, for the campaign as usual. She was told "we're not backing anyone" by "someone on the committee" (she is not telling me what committee because this blogging thing is making her uneasy).

Menino never backed her publicly ("Don't name names!" says mom. "Everyone knows he's the mayor!" I say). He never backed her secretly either, the machine was not turned out for Coakley.

"Nobody likes her" says mom. What she means is, Coakley had no friends in politics. The Democrats in Massachusetts let this happen because - "I don't know" says mom.

Maybe they weren't about to let Western Mass manipulate them. Maybe it all comes down to nothing more than who is friends with whom.

All Scott Brown did was see an opportunity and turn it to his advantage.

There is no deeper national implication. This is not a death knell for the Democratic party or Obama. This is a story of a domestic spat between "parochial divisions" in Massachsetts.

The proverbial house divided among itself, fell

[Recursion]

1. Khazei was the answer

I voted for him because I knew the teabaggers wanted this one, and he had the grassroots support to stop it.

[HipChick]

2. of course the M$M will not spin it this way..

[suzie]

3. Politics really is all local.

Your mom is probably exactly on target, but that won't make a difference on anti-Democratic Underground.

[obliviously]

4. Don't you get sand in your ears and eyes when you do this?

[Scurrilous]

5. K & R

:thumbsup:

[iceman66]

6. Even if this is true, and it may well be,

that is not how the media will spin it.

[pscot]

10. The media will do what the media always do

What matters now is what the Democratic leaders do. We are about to find out just what the Democratic leadership is made of. Right now, the only one I would put any money on is Nancy Pelosi. I hope Obama steps up to this, but I don't know if he will.

[dkf]

7. This is too inside baseball for me.

I can't believe Millions of voters hinge on some petty intraparty fight.

[pscot]

13. What the hell did you imagine politics was all about?

It's all inside baseball. What have we been watching unfold for the last year. It's a tough game, and I'm not sure the President fully understands how it's played. As Tip Oneill once said, politics isn't beanbag.

[crispini]

14. It's not millions. She only lost by what, 100,000?

I have no doubt that everything else discussed here tonight had an impact. But this has very much a ring of truth to it.

[frazzled]

8. Having worked in Democratic politics in Massachusetts ...

that sounds about totally right to me.

And it's not the first time it's happened.

[leveymg]

9. BS. This is like saying that the reason we lost VA Gov race is that Craig Deeds was from Charlotte

BS. The reason Deeds lost is that he ran to the Right of the Party, proclaimed that if elected he would opt out of any HCR regime that included a Public Option. Yes, we Northern Virgina Dems turned out and voted. But, the Obama voters across the state -- minorities and young Dems - stayed home.

I say BS on this whole "all politics is local" meme. We're losing because the base and the disaffected Dems are turned off by Blue Dogs and the HCR debacle.

[crispini]

16. Spoken like someone who has never been involved with local politics.

It's not a meme, it's the very essence of politics.

[progressoid]

22. Yep. I think we've all seen this to some extent.

We hope that everyone will be team players but that doesn't always happen.

[leveymg]

36. It's a meme. I've been involved in Democratic Party campaigns since I went door-to-door for LBJ

and worked my first Congressional campaign in High School. I'm a member of my local Democratic Party Committee.

Don't assume anything, because you'll probably be wrong.

[crispini]

38. That's great, but I don't see how

anyone could be involved locally and NOT come to that conclusion. When I look at the various factions and machines in my town it makes it so easy to understand how things roll... Or how they don't roll.

[KT2000]

11. Apparently they did not feel

they had a dog in this fight. They have their health care so it was a throw away election.
This is just as sickening as the state of MA enthusiastically going for a centerfold teabagger.
It does not matter how the media spins this because it still comes down to the same character flaws IMHO.

[pscot]

20. The voters are stupid?

While that may be true, it's not an effective operating principle for a politician. These are the same voters that sent Teddy to the Senate for 40 years, and he campaigned just as hard for their votes in 2006 as he did in 1978. He never took them for granted. He never felt like he didn't have to ask them to vote for him. Mz. Coakley seemed reluctant to do that and she apparently paid for it.

[KT2000]

26. she was a terrible candidate

I remember her superior air when she was prosecuting in the "nanny case."
Not stupid voters but with HCR hanging in the balance that apparently was not important for the majority. I cannot figure out what they voted FOR though.

[pscot]

28. Brown campaigned hard

I read that he put 200,000 miles on that pickup truck, driving around, shaking hands and asking people to vote for him. That goes a long way. And he's a good looking guy; he has an attractive family, he seems fairly engaging. Plus, the Republicans dumped $6 millions into the state in 6 weeks, while the national Democrats sat on their behinds. There's no time to mope over this. Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you. We need to take whatever lesson we can from it and move on. Cutting one another up over it is pointless. I hope Obama keeps his cool. An I hope this stiffens his spine a little.

[crispini]

12. I've spent a lot of time involved in my local party politics.

This has the ring of authenticity to me. Right down to the "machine" -- we have them too, and if you don't have the machine you're going to have a rough time getting in.

I could add that this is the kind of thing that the national party might be able to nip in the bud, if and only if they had someone on the ground who could figure this out and ring some bells. Which is a longshot.

[Blue Texas Voter]

15. Republicans bought them a lap dog for $6million in Brown

I hope the Repubicans get their moneys worth out of the lap dog they just bought, I wonder if his official senatorial picture will be the one with the staple in his stomach. The repugs spent $6 million on his campaign for one reason and thats to stop health care reform, maybe the democrats will wake up and realize that you cant play nice with the repugs in washington and take a chapter out of their hedious book and cram legistlation on through and quit acknowledging the repugs.

I'm afraid this will make the Democrar up for election sell Obama out, if they do lets support a democrat thats not an incumbant, and pray that the Gov. of Texas Perry is ousted out on his ears once and for all, he is so arrogant it makes me sick.

[crispini]

18. Welcome to DU!

Please stop by the Texas state forum and say HI! There are loads of us here and we'd love to meet you!

[pscot]

30. That's a pretty good campaign theme

If Coakley had run against the Republican with the staple in his navel she might have got some traction.

[EugeneVictor]

35. Wrong animal, wrong picture

Caligula allegedly made his horse, Incitatus, a consul. So why shouldn't Massachusetts make a horse's ass its senator? How's that for an official senatorial picture? He'll fit right in with the rest of the D.C. stable. ...SPQR... I see the result as neither historic nor ominous. 60 minus one still equals the big fat zero the Dem majority has added up to so far.

It's been pointed out ad infinitum that GWB needed nowhere near that kind of majority to push through his dirtbag agenda. No fear that a single major episode of his imperial delirium would fail to garner enough "bipartisan" support from the always-loyal opposition. Patriot Act anyone? No mystery as to why an overwhelming Democratic majority is not enough to accomplish anything that oversteps the Washington Consensus. SPQR.

As for the $6 million spent to kill Healthcare Reform? Kind of like beating a disfigured carcass with a big bag of hammers. Money not well spent. The job already had been done for free.

SPQR

[BunkerHill24]

17. "All Scott Brown did was see an opportunity and turn it to his advantage."

...that says it all. So let us hope we learn from this and focus on what's about to come, in 2010.

Connecticut!
Nevada!
North Dakota!
..and Tim Johnson of South Dakota!


We have much more battles ahead of us...our focus should be directed keeping these seats.

[O is 44]

19. Maybe someone should share this

with the hyperventilating Webb and Bayh after their nervous nellie comments tonight.

[pscot]

21. The big ole war hero Webb

sure went all weak kneed in a hurry, didn't he? I thought he had more sand.

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

29. Gibber jabber what?

[nevergiveup]

24. Could you please post this every day for the next 120 days.

As Tip O'Neill once said "All politics is local". We can blame Obama, Rahm, liberals, centrists, health care reform, weak kneed Democrats, Reed, no public option, or whatever and spin it in a thousand different ways as it will be done here on DU but the reality is that we had a rather lackluster candidate in a state with little Democratic unity running against a fired up Republican Party with a candidate that connected with Independents and worked his butt off. I despise the guy but he whipped our un-unified collective asses.

[ChicagoSuz219]

25. ALL politics are local. n/t

[amborin]

27. doubtul; an article reports same discontent w/ Colorado voters: with HCR, banksters, etc. the Dem

gov candidate withdrew from the race

people aren't stupid

they may have disliked Coakley, and she may have run a bad campaign, but those are in addition to people's disgust with HCR, banksters, etc.......

[pscot]

32. That is undeniably true

but that is the sea we swim in right now. The fact is, we're being out spun by the Republicons. Democrats still don't understand, after all these years, how to control the message.

[amborin]

34. they ignored Lakoff, for starters

but at some point, it's more than controlling the message; that only goes so far; the underlying reality has to be acceptable when people look beneath the discourse

so, for example, Obama is chastising banks and saying something to the effect of, "we want the money back." But then reality seeps through and makes a mockery of that discourse. In the bank case, the reality that taxpayers funded something like $7 trillion in bailouts; the same banksters are in power; the banking reform is full of holes, etc.....

[Tom Rinaldo]

31. If all of that is true, and it well may be, and that was all there is to this

Coakley should have won by 5 to 7 points and the finger pointing now would be over how Democrats ever allowed that race to even get that close. You can't explain away a loss of this magnitude by insider politics.

[Ardent15]

33. Surpise!!!!! not....

Is it any surprise that the truth is much more mundane than "ZOMG MA GOP VICTORY=OBAMA"S DOWNFALL!!!" ?

[Name removed]

37. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[The Backlash Cometh]

39. I believe this answer.

Florida Dems come across so provincial that I can see the same thing happening in Mass. It's all about "taking care of your own," and who that is can be a Republican according to their rules of engagement.