Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley was a lousy candidate who ran a lousy campaign and lost her bid for Ted Kennedy's Senate seat as a result. Instead of preserving 60 filibuster-proof votes for Democrats, she handed the Massachusetts senatorial seat to Republican Scott Brown on a silver platter. And, as they are entitled to, Republicans are celebrating, dubbing the extremely conservative Mr. Brown as "41" and suggesting that his election signals a Republican resurgence.
Too many will see this as the waning of President Obama's influence, but that's not necessarily the case. Martha Coakley ran a lousy campaign. While Scott Brown was retail politics, she was wholesale. While he was "the people's candidate", out shaking hands and exuding personality, she was uptight and uncommunicative. It probably ought not matter, but in sports-obsessed Boston she described a Red Socks pitcher as a Yankee fan, exhibiting not only ignorance of sports, but also of her base. She disdained hand shaking and was good for a series of bloopers, which she later described as "jokes". She is so out of touch that in a post-election interview, she said she would not have done anything differently!
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