Polls close in an hour. And I'm rather depressed about it.

[xiphias]

Even if Martha Coakley wins the election tonight, Republicans have a lot to crow about; Democrats, basically nothing. Teddy Kennedy, almost certainly the most powerful liberal voice in Congress dies; in the election to replace him, the Republican is running neck-and-neck with the Democrat. In the most liberal state in the Union.

Even if the Democrat wins, we'll still have to do a post-mortem to figure out what went wrong. And if the Republican wins? Pretty embarrassing for ALL of us liberals and progressives. This was so clearly the Democrat's seat to lose -- and, even if she doesn't, she's come damn close.

What DID go wrong, then?

1. Complacency.

This is the most obvious We all assumed that the primary was the election that mattered. We figured, whoever won the Democratic primary would get the seat. I think we all totally forgot about the fact that there's another major party -- and a minor party, as well -- who could field a candidate. I know I did.

That was pretty careless of us.

2. Martha Coakley kinda sucks as a potential Senator.

Look. All the good candidates got knocked out in the primary. It's really hard to get excited about a Senator who, as a prosecutor, oversaw a number of true miscarriages of justice. Her stated positions are more in line with mine than Scott Brown's are, so I voted for her, but I just don't LIKE her. I don't think she really has spent her career working in the cause of justice -- not all the time, at least. She has done some good things, and if you weigh the total damage she's done against the total good, the result might well be positive. Maybe.

But I really wouldn't have been able to muster myself to actually work on her behalf.

3. Martha Coakley really sucks as a Senatorial candidate.

That's rather related to the previous issue, but it's separate. Yes, being a lousy potential Senator does give your opponent lots of ammunition, and also means you don't have a fired-up ground team.

But, besides that, she's rather lacking in charisma. Which Scott Brown DOES have.

So.

Yeah.

The fact is, I'm not going to be thrilled no matter WHO wins this one. I'll be even LESS thrilled if Brown wins -- I think his misunderstandings of what "rights" are are even deeper than Coakley's -- but everybody who was GOOD got knocked out in the primary.

Coakley wins in a squeaker, Coakley wins in a landslide, Brown wins in a squeaker, Brown wins in a landslide. NONE of those are results that make me overly happy. (The "landslide" options are pretty unlikely, I think.) But, for me, the "Coakely wins" results are enough less bad to make me root for her.

Unenthusiastically.

Comments

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

Somehow the political process manages to select terrible candidates. I would say I don't get it, but I do.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

It's not the most liberal state in the Union, just the loudest about it. There are a lot of independents in Massachussetts, and they don't lean nearly as far left as the independents in, say, Vermont.

[navrins]

And no small number of conservatives either, especially outside 128.

[quietann.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I live in Andover, my horse lives in Dracut, and these are both rather conservative places. (Jim Ogonowski of Dracut, who ran for Congress on a conservative Republican/populist platform against Nikki Tsongas, sells hay to my horse's barn owner.) Sometimes my "inner suburb"-Camberville-Boston friends forget that the rest of MA is not necessarily just like them.

The voter roster at the polls lists party affiliation and when they check me off I always peek at the sheet to see what affiliations our neighbors have. Ben and I are both lifelong Democrats, but most of our neighbors are "Unaffiliated" and that's where Brown cleaned up. There are a few Republicans, perhaps a few more of them than Democrats.

[kiya]

This. Massachusetts politics are conducted on different rules than outsiders expect - and the fact that I say "outsiders" there is part of that. I didn't grow up here, but I come from a Massachusetts Insider Family on one side. (Apparently my grandfather and his brothers used to run around with JFK and built his podiums for rallies and stuff like that.) As my mother says, you know your kin have made it in Massachusetts politics when someone in your family has been indicted for it. (That would be my great-uncle, for the record.)

Coakley got the nomination, I believe, because she had the 'Democratic insider' track. Brown ran an outsider campaign - just like Romney, unsurprisingly because he had Romney's crew doing it - and it was a timeframe in which the insider/outsider balance in Massachusetts was willing to tip. That tip was assisted by catastrophic campaign ineptitude on the part of the Democrats, but the insider/outsider tension is a core Massachusetts dynamic as I understand it.

("I know who to talk to to get what you need" vs. "Those assholes on Beacon Hill need some shaking up".)

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

My stepmother is from a Boston Insider family, and I agree with you.

[kiya]

Glad it makes sense outside my head.

I'd be willing to lay a twenty that none of the talking heads or big-name bloggers will come within spitting distance of noticing this while they're trying to figure out how things happened the way they did.

While I'm sitting here going, "Yeah, the national politics and Patrick's popularity totally don't predispose people to responding to 'Those assholes on the Hill need some shaking up' messages at all..."

[sethg]

I took the day off from work to canvass for Coakley, and I agree with you. The party really kicked the ball between its own goal posts here.

[andrian6.livejournal.com]

The Democrats are going to Creigh Deeds themselves. They will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory as always.

[delerium69.livejournal.com]

Well, it does look like Brown is the winner by 52% of the vote. I'm fairly glad I haven't been living in Massachusetts, which makes me sad. But a poisonous campaign with less than inspiring candidates, and health care reform being used as a lightening rod doesn't sound like it was much fun. (Not that the reform bill is anything crow about.)

And I imagine President Obama isn't too thrilled, either.

[delerium69.livejournal.com]

And now I'm curious - what exactly happened with Mike Capuano running for the seat? Why did he lose the primary? I thought he had a lot of support.

[sethg]

I don’t think he had as much statewide name recognition as Coakley, and the primary campaign season was too short for him to build up recognition and momentum. By comparison, Coakley had the state Democratic machine behind her.

[delerium69.livejournal.com]

Mm, for all the good it did for her...

[sethg]

Well, yeah, it got her past the primary, because who the hell votes in a primary for a special election? And then she faced a statewide election involving a charismatic and well-financed Republican opponent and voters who, as liliaren above says in different words, think that the Democratic machine is part of the problem. And she got pasted. It’s like a replay of how Mitt Romney got elected governor.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

The Democratic machine is good at controlling Democrats.

Not so good at controlling the electorate in general. We've got more registered Unenrolled (including me, for what it's worth) than Democrats or Republicans. . .

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

He had a lot of support on your friends list. People who live in Somerville and in towns around it know who he is. People who hang out a lot with people who live in this part of Massachusetts know who he is. Liberals who know who he is like him.

We're not 100% representative of Massachusetts as a whole. . .

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

Capuano couldn't have won. He was too far to the left, and had a voting record that would have left him even further behind.

The problem in part is his biggest supporters didn't do the logical thing and vote for the person who won, they switched sides and voted for the Tea Bag money guy or stayed home.

Personally, I didn't like Capuano before he entered state politics.

The demographics have changed in the state. This was mostly an Urban vs Burb election in the end if you look at the numbers the Globe has mapped out online.

Add in the fact that there were Independents who felt obligated to vote against the candidate who was illegally endorsed by the Acting Senator (who by stat LAW was supposed to not endorse ANYONE) and the painful result occurred.