Coakley's loss and absolute disaster as a candidate IS the Massachusetts Story

[zulchzulu]

I frankly think everyone is jumping the shark on the Massachusetts loss and with Brown winning as a signal that Teabaggers and Republicans are gaining popularity.

It's sloppy journalism combined with Beltway Sheepdom and Punditry Puppet Theater.

First of all, the Republican brand is in the shitter. Recent polls have the GOP as an identity in the 20% range. Recent polls matching Obama to the usual suspects now have him beating them by a dozen points or more.

Face it. If Coakley had actually been a reasonable candidate who didn't blow a 30+ point lead and perhaps didn't take a vacation in between her gaffe-laden campaign, the spin would be that the Teabaggers, Republicans and the Religious Right were going to further implode. She was awful. Period.

The fact that Brown was a better candidate just by showing up and not being a gaffe-laden twit made for the victory to be all but inevitable.

It's like someone in a sailing race taking down their sails and going to sleep in the bunk and letting the other sailor whiz by if only because their sails were still attached to the mast.

Coakley did just about everything wrong one could do in a campaign. Brown showed up.

So to use this race as some sort of template about how the Democrats are this or that is utter nonsense.

Yes, things are not all solved a year after the eight years of Bush policies put the US in one hell of a spot. Yes, as Civics-educated people would know, government legislation takes time and is not a goddamn video game.

Of course, there is work to be done and we all need to pressure the Obama administration with what is needed as well as be ready to hit the streets to elect Democrats in 2010 and beyond.

But to think the Massachusetts race outcome is some kind of harbinger of doom for Democrats is merely Fox News yakking points. It's like saying the Confederates winning the Dinwiddie Court House Battle in the Civil War meant that the Union was soon going to be defeated.

Add that Brown is on the record essentially supporting state (government)-run mandated healthcare, for abortion rights with Roe v. Wade and considering same-sex marriage approved law that he supports.

Are Republicans for such issues? Not a goddamn chance...

[babylonsister]

1. "Coakley did just about everything wrong one could do in a campaign. Brown showed up."

Wise words.

[tango-tee]

23. That sums it up beautifully.

N/T

[Andy823]

2. I agree

Coakley did a terrible job of running for senator. You can't go on vacation while the other person is running a race against you, and that's what she did.

Now granted something like 18% of democrats voted for Brown to send a message, but like you I don't think the message was that they wanted "republicans" to run things, it was that they wanted the WH to do more, not less with health care, and they voted for change, and they want to see more change and see the president take on the issues he ran on. They want the president to get tougher, not take a break, or slack off his agenda.

I am behind president Obama, but I too want to see more action so we don't lose in November. Getting tougher with Wall street, bankers, and republicans and getting things done will go a long way to bring back those who are upset right now. I really don't think any democrat wants to see the republicans take charge again. They are unhappy now, but the president can bring them back. He will need to kick some but with the democrats in congress, but that's what needs to be done!

[auburnblu]

13. Not take a vacation?

Heck next, you'll say she shouldn't have gone to Washington to meet with lobbyists. What should she have done, stood outside of Fenway, in the cold? shaking hands? Not Marcia, no way.

[PATRICK]

3. It's not just the message boards

that make a case beyond Coakley being a loser. The democratic leadership was invested in a very easy victory, had chances to avoid it all the way and make it tied all by themselves to the ruinous HCR process. Those who make Baucus or Lieberman arbiters, timekeepers and judges and legislators of the entire fate of HCR are not the bloggers. The more than unbelieveable Olympia Snowe gambit derives from the game rules the party set and left implied to this weak race, not Coakley who was ineptly dragged into it at less than zero benefit to her campaign.

the local politics issue itself, all by itself is more than adequate to explain defeat. It is the quaking Dem majority in DC that concretely affirms the directed corporate media spin. If a party-wide failure wasn't real, it is as far as our leadership is really concerned- even if some of them publicly make the same protests. Self-fulfilling in an incompetent politics sort of way. But hooray, the GOP are really bad and incompetent too! In a two way race to the bottom we will all surely get there. I think this is true bipartisanship in action.

[frazzled]

4. The campaign, from primary to election day, lasted only 6 weeks

And the holidays came in the middle of that. Coakley might have been able to recover had this been a normal 9 or 10 month primary-to-election campaign. By the time she said something stupid, it was simply too late to do anything about it.

I was just sent a survey from OFA, because I did some phone banking to Mass. the day before the election. Although they were organized and helpful, I told them it was "too little too late." They should have sent us all out the day after the primary. To be fair, usually you don't involve out-of-staters in a state election. But given the importance of this seat, nothing should have been taken for granted.

That said, she ran an awful campaign, and should herself have sent out the alerts earlier.

I also blame the Democrats in MA who selfishly changed the law to prevent the (then Republican) governor from appointing a senator, and it came back to bite them. And the primary voters in MA, who just didn't show up.

[CoffinEd]

7. You're right

"I also blame the Democrats in MA who selfishly changed the law to prevent the (then Republican) governor from appointing a senator, and it came back to bite them."

The law change has been largely overlooked in the Brown victory. If it had not been changed, Scott Brown would still be a little known Republican state representative from a town named Wrentham.

[GoCubsGo]

46. They are to blame in one more regard....

They didn't get on Coakley's ass when she decided to coast through the election. People are trying to blame the President and the national party for not forcing her to get her act in gear. It should not have had to get that far. Isn't it the job of the state party to make sure their candidates are out campaigning, instead of going on vacation? It's ridiculous that Pres. Obama had to come and try to rescue her ass after she blew a 30 point lead, when he has more pressing matters with which to contend. If I was a Democrat in MA, I'd be running my state party's leadership out of town on a rail.

[quiller4]

55. Actually, the Coakley campaign did get calls from other elected

Ds in the state trying to light a fire and the campaign blew off their concerns. That didn't keep them from trying to bail her out when she finally agreed she needed help.

[Nedsdag]

5. This is why he may be tough to beat in 2012:

Add that Brown is on the record essentially supporting state (government)-run mandated healthcare, for abortion rights with Roe v. Wade and considering same-sex marriage approved law that he supports.

He could be an Olympia Snowe/Susan Collins/Jodi Rell type who'll never be voted out as long as he totes the moderate line.

[Arkana]

10. No.

He denies global warming and believes that marriage is between a man and a woman--and he will vote to kill any kind of government healthcare overhaul. In addition, he's against market regulation because of that old Republican canard "Free markets mean free people".

He's not a moderate. He will not "surprise" anyone. He's a scumbag and the Senate will out him as such.

[smalll]

6. You are 100% correct. I've been saying this here and there on these boards too.

I'm not from Mass., but I read a lot about this campaign in the last week or two. The large number of dreadful mistakes Coakley and her campaign made, mostly in the last week of the campaign was part of it. So was Coakley's hopelessness as a campaigner, and her off-putting personality. She talked like an uptight Canadian robot, for just one thing.

And she was a hack - and it turns out these days there's no hackery like Massachussets hackery. But because of her personality, even her fellow hacks didn't like her. Mayor Mumbles Menino of Boston didn't lift a finger to help her - Boston turnout was anemic -- sure, she won about 70 to 30 percent in Boston, but the turnout numbers just weren't there.

Plus there's her prosecutorial history -- Louise Woodward, the Souzas, the Amiraults, and lately, Keith Winfield. Hell, her office just recently went after GARDEN CLUBS for red-tape reasons -- and these aren't lahdidah big-hat garden party clubs -- these are volunteers who maintain landscaping in public places!

People need to read up on this campaign. I'm sure, eventually, someone will write the post-mortem article that will lay out in a wholistic manner the world-class failery of Coakley and her campaign. There's just so much material, I'm not going to try to set it all out here in an OP. And just wait until her campaign staff starts spilling the beans...

What's amazing is that despite it all, she only lost by 5 points!

Take a K, and an R -- nice to see someone else who sees what actually went on here.

[Kaleva]

14. Coakley got a rep for coasting in the primary.

She came in 2nd in the Boston area with low voter turnout. As you said, she easily won Boston in the special election, 70%-30%, but the turnout again just wasn't there.

[depakid]

8. Rationalize away

And lose again and again and again.

Some people never learn- and people and parties who don't learn not only lose- but deserve to lose. Again and again.

Thankfully, it looks as though some in the administration seem to be getting it- which is more than can be said of the "let's pretend there's nothing wrong here- no message sent" types on the one side- and the "doe in the headlights" types on the other.

[Arkana]

11. You honestly think there's more to this than Coakley running

the shittiest campaign in the history of campaigning?

Then you have little to no understanding of just how bad it was here.

[depakid]

12. Anyone who thinks that there isn't is both tone deaf and has failed to look at the voter feedback

particularly among Democrats. That's not to say crappy campaign helped matters- but simply blaming much broader trends and tendencies on that (repeatedly- as we saw that in VA and NJ) is precisely how parties (and candidates) lose elections down the line.

Better listen- and listen well to the feedback this time. It's a wake up call- and quite frankly, a fortuitous one, coming when it has.

[Arkana]

27. If Martha Coakley had campaigned like she meant it from day one,

we wouldn't be having this conversation, because she'd be the Senator-elect.

The fact is that the voters agreed with her on the issues, so it was not an issue of Massachusetts swinging further to the right. It was a matter of her not even acting like she wanted people's votes. It was a matter of her not selling herself to voters. It was a matter of her sitting on a 30 point lead while her opponent actually campaigned.

You obviously don't live in Massachusetts or you'd get just how bad she was at this campaigning thing. This wasn't Obama's or the DNC's fault. The blame lies squarely on the shoulders of her lawyer-turned-campaign-manager friends who told her it was perfectly OK to go on vacation for three weeks in a race with no daily tracking polls.

[CoffinEd]

28. Seems we're on the same team

But a lot of folks on DU want to attribute Coakley's humiliating and stunning (to some people) defeat to something else. I will agree that had Democrats not altered the law to allow governors to appoint US Senate replacements, we would not be having this conversation because Brownie would still be a little known and powerless Republican representative among a handful of little known and powerless Republicans in MA state government.

But as I've said numerous times since the election, Coakley ran a bad campaign and had she engaged with MA voters a tad more than what she did, she would have won. After all, you would have thought that a candidate who barely campaigned would have lost by a greater margin.

[zulchzulu]

54. The Coakley race would have been considered a yawner had she won...

..but she ran such a horrible campaign that she essentially offered herself as a sacrificial lamb for whoever would pick up the carcass.

[zulchzulu]

16. Why would the Democratic Party expend resources on a race where she was ahead by 30%?

She. Had. It. In. The. Fucking. Bag.

...and she lost...

That's what happened. Blaming Obama or the Democratic Party in general for someone who couldn't campaign her way out of a paper bag is not their fault.

[Kaleva]

20. Dean thought he had the 2004 nomination in the bag.

He led in the polls but there were many undecideds who broke for Kerry and to a lesser extent, Edwards.

[CTLawGuy]

25. what's hilarious is

if Dean had won the nomination, Kerry would not have. If Kerry does not win the nomination, there is no chance of him becoming president. Without a chance of him becoming president and Gov. Mittens appointing an R to replace him, the MA dems do not pass the law stating that when a seat is vacant, you have to have a special election. Then when Ted Kennedy dies, governor Patrick replaces him with a D, there is no special election and the Dems do not lose their 60th seat.

[karynnj]

30. His lead was steadily eroding in Iowa

starting in the end of 2003, as Kerry's (and Edwards') were improving. The Des Moines Register tracking polls in the last weeks showed Kerry tying then pulling ahead. He was already tied before the last weekend, which was when he had the reunion with Rassman. There has been no more candidate defining campaign moment that I have ever seen, nor one more positive for a candidate.

I assume that Dean's people did take those polls and their internal polls seriously. They likely were hoping that 2004, with the internet etc, would be different. We all do that seeing disappointing polls - I wanted to believe that all the MA polls were wrong. I suspect his internal polls were showing the same thing.

Kerry beat Dean by 20 points - this was not just the undecideds breaking for Kerry. While the national media did not see this coming, I assume all the candidates did - the size of it was likely the only surprise.

[Kaleva]

35. From what I remember, Dean stayed pretty much steady.

But his lead eroded as the undecideds mostly went to Kerry and Edwards.

[karynnj]

39. Dean ended up with 18%

His numbers in the tracking poll did erode. I found the poll fascinating. It was a 3 or 4 day smoothed average. As the numbers were changing from day to day, I was trying to approximately decompose it. Dean's numbers did indeed decrease.

Now, if Dean were never above 18%, he shouldn't have been seen as the huge favorite he was. There were 5 candidates and one was Lieberman, who had very little support. If you gave Lieberman 5% and said 15% were undecided (a large undecided at that point), that leaves 80% - spread evenly, that is 20% each. If you assume 23% undecided, it would be tied at 18%. To make Dean, even 1 point higher than the others, means assuming 27% undecided.


I think the reason most did not see it, is that the national media didn't believe it and said polling when it is a caucus is not accurate and they assumed that Dean would have the energy and momentum.

[Kaleva]

40. Some polling info from Dec. 2003:

"Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean has pulled away from the field in the Democratic Presidential nomination race: his support among Democratic primary voters nationwide has risen in the past month, and held steady after the news of Saddam Hussein's capture. But the race remains open: more than half of Democratic voters still have no opinion of Dean, most have not made up their minds for sure, and large numbers remain undecided. "

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/17/opinion/polls/main589167.shtml

[karynnj]

48. That was NATIONAL

I suspect we were speaking of two different things - I was speaking of Iowa, you nationally. But, even nationally, Dean was very quickly below 25% in 2004 nationwide as well.

I was specifically speaking of IOWA. Dean and Gephardt did lead there in the second half of 2003. Both of their support eroded - probably because of the negative campaigns each ran against each other.

What your link shows is why the national numbers changed so fast after Kerry won. The first burst of real coverage Kerry got was the Rassman reunion the weekend before the caucus and the caucus. That may be the first time that people reading the MSM, but not watching the debates, really saw Kerry. Dean was on the cover of three news magazines in the same week in August. Clark had tremendous press pushing him as a knight in shining armor. Lieberman was high because of name recognition as the last VP.

[Kaleva]

53. Early Iowa polls

Pew Research Center for the People & the Press survey
Mid-date: 12/2/2003
Iowa

Howard Dean 26%
Dick Gephardt 22%
John Kerry 9%
John Edwards 5%
Wesley Clark 4%
Dennis Kucinich 2%
Joe Lieberman 2%
Carol Moseley Braun 1%
Unsure 28%


Iowa State University poll
Mid-date: 11/18/2003
Iowa

Howard Dean 29%
Dick Gephardt 21%
John Kerry 15%
John Edwards 8%
Wesley Clark 3%
Dennis Kucinich 2%
Unsure 23%

Final results for Iowa:

John Kerry received 38% of the votes, John Edwards received 32%, Howard Dean received 18%, and Richard Gephardt received 11%.

If the number of Iowans who preferred Dean remained the same but if the undecideds went to Kerry or Edwards, Dean's final percentage would be about what he ended up with.

[CTLawGuy]

24. does this make sense to you?

-I'm mad that Obama is not liberal enough, so I am going to vote for the conservative.

-I want Obama to get stuff done, so I am going to make it harder for him by voting for an obstructionist senator, which I know full well will give the Rs filibuster power and force Obama to pick off at least one of them to pass anything non-budget related.

You also need to keep in mind that Mass is a one party state, the Rs are normally uncompetitive. That means that even very conservative people (who in most other states would be Rs) will register as Democrats because the Democratic primary is often times the real election (not in this case of course). So a lot of those "Democrats" who voted for Brown probably fit the bill as ideologically Republican.

[treestar]

31. this is the post of the year about this election!

thank you for summing it up!

[CTLawGuy]

42. yw

NT

[karynnj]

32. I disagree with the last paragraph

The unenrolled CAN vote in either primary as they are open. 50% of MA voters are unenrolled in either party.

[CTLawGuy]

43. oh

I was under the impression that Mass had a closed primary. Maybe that changed from 2004.

[karynnj]

49. I know it was the case in 2008 - because we in the JK group were

of course following that race very closely. In my case, worrying far more than was reasonable - enough that I remotely phonebanked - finding that among Democrats, "John" as they called him (I tend to think his first name is Senator), had their vote. It quickly became clear, as the DU JK MA people had told me, the reason for the calls were because not doing them would look arrogant and to remind people there was an opponent and get them to vote.

[BeFree]

9. The numbers

2008:
1,104,284 McCain
1,891,083 Obama
_________

786,799 difference


2010:
1,168,107 Brown + 64,000 more than McCain
1,058,682 Coakley - 830,000 less than Obama
_________

109,425 vote difference

Brown got 64,000 more votes than McCain
and Coakley a decrease of almost 40%.

Now, that's some shift. The numbers seem incredible.

[old mark]

15. Take some comfort in the fact that she probably would have been a

lousy senator anyway.

We really don't need another jerk in the Democratic Party, whereas they won't notice another one in the GOP.

mark

[akel21]

17. stop

blaming her

[old mark]

22. She SHOULD have won, and would have had she not been so arrogant.

She is a lousy Attorney General, and evidently quite stupid.

STOP DEFENDING HER just because she is female - you can be both female and a jerk and she proves my point.

mark

[inna]

34. why? don't tell people what to do. your post is ridiculous.

[GoCubsGo]

47. WTF???

She was the candidate, not anyone else. She blew a THIRTY POINT lead by going on vacation during the middle of her campaign. That's someone else's fault? You're kidding, right?

[ibegurpard]

18. No it's not a harbinger of republican appeal

But Democrats would be fools not to look at it as a partial repudiation of what the public has seen from them so far.

[zulchzulu]

36. Democrats running in races need to have a picture of Coakley on their office wall

May it be a reminder that no race is given to you without at least trying and not being a gaffe machine for your opposition.

[RememberWellstone]

19. Who is Kurt Shilling for $100 Alex

She was a horrible candidate that was tuely out of touch...I am glad Obama went there to distinguish himself from her. You cannot remove lipstick from a pig however.:eyes:

[auburnblu]

33. He's a horrible Yankee fan

And thank goodness Marcia knew that.

[dkf]

21. Well then we need to pass the senate hcr bill and go on exactly the way we were

Because there was no message anyone who voted meant to send to congress nor Obama.

[TankLV]

26. ann Brown is HAAAAAWWWWWWTTT as a NAKID BOY!!!

[treestar]

29. You're right.

Rec'd.

The pressure needs to be applied to Brown, Snowe and the Blue Dogs, too, not Obama.

That's where the hang up lies. Lieberman, too.

[Cha]

37. " LESSONS LEARNED" 5 TOP Lessons..on Coakley..

" LESSONS LEARNED" 5 TOP Lessons!

.... Given that the results in Massachusetts were not quite what the political world was expecting as of, say, two weeks ago, there will be plenty of "what just happened?" questions over the next several days. We're already hearing ample talk about what lessons Democrats should have learned from this painful defeat.

I think it's probably a mistake to overstate the larger significance of a special election 10 months before the midterms, but it'd be foolish to pretend Scott Brown's victory was some random fluke, never to be repeated again.

With that in mind, here are my Top 5 lessons to be learned from the Mess in Massachusetts.

1. Successful candidates hit the campaign trail. Candidates seeking office should probably campaign while voters are making up their minds. It's old-fashioned thinking, I know, but winning a primary and then dropping out of sight -- while your opponent is working hard to reach out to voters -- tends to be a bad idea.

For much of the post-primary period, the campaign calendar on the Coakley website was blank. Dave Weigel noted yesterday, "From the primary through last Sunday, Scott Brown held 66 events of varying size. Coakley held 19." Part of this is because Brown had to introduce himself to voters who had no idea who he was, while Coakley was already well known. But 19 events in 40 days is evidence of a Senate candidate who was taking victory for granted -- and in the process, throwing victory away.

2. Voters like likeable candidates. Some voters care more about policy and substance than which candidate they most want to have a beer with, but these voters tend to be outnumbered. We've all seen races in which the thoughtful, hard-working, experienced candidate who emphasizes substantive issues loses out to the fun, likable opponent (see 2000, presidential election of).

The Massachusetts race fits this model nicely. Chris Good noted this week, "hile Coakley focused on the issues in this race, Brown can credit his lead in multiple polls to his own personality and personal image, which he crafted with a series of successful ads portraying him as an average, likable guy." It's tempting to think voters in a mature democracy, especially in a state like Massachusetts, would prioritize policy over personality, and appreciate the candidate who "focused on the issues." But yesterday was the latest in a series of reminders that personal qualities often trump everything else.

3. Saying dumb things will undermine public support. When the pressure was on, Coakley insulted Red Sox fans -- twice. She kinda sorta said there are "no terrorists in Afghanistan," and that "devout Catholics" may not want to work in emergency rooms. When the Democratic campaign realized it was in deep trouble, and readied an effort to turn things around, it had trouble overcoming the distractions caused by the candidate's public remarks.

Maybe, if the campaign had been in gear throughout the post-primary process, Coakley would have been sharper on the stump, had more message discipline, and been less likely to make these costly, distracting errors.

4. Learn something about your opponent. Because the Democratic campaign assumed it would win, it didn't invest much energy in understanding its opponent (who, incidentally, won). They didn't identify Brown's weak points, and seemed to know practically nothing about his background. When the race grew competitive, nearly all of the damaging stories about the Republican candidate came from well-researched blog posts, not the campaign's opposition research team. "Get to know your opponent" is one of those lessons taught on the first day of Campaign 101, and campaigns that forget it are going to struggle.

5. Enthusiasm matters. No matter how confused and uninformed Brown's supporters seemed, they were also motivated. Dems liked Coakley, but they weren't, to borrow a phrase, fired up and ready to go.

Looking ahead, chances are pretty good that organized right-wing voters will be mobilized and itching to vote in November. They certainly were yesterday. Democrats can't expect to do well with an unmotivated, listless party base.

—Steve Benen 6:30 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (51)

<scroll way down to
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com /

And, now Mass has a interim Senator who "believes in torture".

I see the regressives in denial are unrec this.

[bvar22]

38. Message from Massachusetts to the Centrist Democratic Party Leadership:

"When given the choice between a Republican, and a Democrat who acts like a Republican, the voters will choose the Republican every time." ---Harry Truman

QED

Mandates + NO Public Option +Trillion Dollar Corporate Welfare + Taxes on the Working Class =
Republican Health Care Plan


Who coulda guessed that letting Joe Lieberman write the Health Care Reform Bill would PISS OFF so many Democrats? :shrug:

[Kaleva]

41. Why didn't the left support either ot the two more liberal candidates...

that ran against Caokley in the primary? Turn out for the primary was very low.

[CTLawGuy]

45. then why don't we see any Republicans

voting for their own health care plan?

[Hansel]

50. Message received: They voted for the Republican. We better move further right. nt

[cali]

44. No. wrong. It's one part of the story. It's a big part. It is not THE story.

[wisteria]

51. They won the battle,but not the war. When we win in November the big story will be our come

back. That is provided, the press does't constantly push the idea that we are not reaching the people and it is politics as usual in Washington.
The Massachusetts race has not really been analyzed enough, and everything being reported about it fits the prepackaged idea being pushed by the media. First it was NJ and Va, and now Massachusetts. But, in all three races there was more at play than just dissatisfied electorate-the candidates were large factors, as well as local politics.

There is one thing that does need attention now though, unemployment. I fully understand that jobs are the last thing to return after a recession, but the administration has not been vocal enough about how concerned they are about this and how they sympathize with a public nervous about the jobs they have, and the jobs they don't have-confidence is lacking on this front. As one of those unemployed, I am willing to wait and see, and I recognize that President Obama has done things to try and easy the pain of being unemployed. But, others I know who are unemployed talk about how they can't afford the Cobra health care costs and how they do not see things getting better except for the financial institutions and Wall Street. It is bad for our party to be so closely aligned with both of these entities.

[Strelnikov_]

52. How can they say Reichpublicans are gaining when he ran as an independent

for all practical purposes.

If anything, it was a win for the male pickup driving, middle-age former jock party.

If there is any take away, it would be to drop party labels in 2010 campaigns.

[cleveramerican]

56. I agree

she never really showed up at all for the general election.

her comment and I'm paraphrasing here " what do you want me to do, stand outside Fenway and shake hands with every voter?"

That hurt her, because the answer is yes! thats exactly what voters want
The great Tip O'Neil said people like to be asked(for their vote)

its as true today as ever.