There's going to be a lot of bloviating around the country about the Massachusetts election.

[xiphias]

There will be people claiming that this shows that nobody wants health care. That Obama is finished. That the Democrats are in disarray.

There's some truth to that last one.

But let's set the record straight before talking heads get locked into their story which will push whatever agenda they have.

The Democrats lost the Senate seat because they ran a lousy candidate with a lousy campaign. Against a good candidate with a good campaign.

That's all. You'll have noticed that even the folks on my friends list who are hugely politically active mostly didn't lift very many fingers to help Coakley.

Because she just wasn't worth it. I mean, we didn't like Brown's positions very much, and, at the end, we voted for her by default. But the moderates on my friends list -- and a few of the progressives -- just couldn't get themselves to go to the polls. Or, if they did, submitted blank ballots. Or wrote in "NONE OF THE ABOVE." Which doesn't count for anything, of course, but it's definitely how a lot of progressives felt.

Coakley didn't give anyone any reason to vote for her other than, "Not Scott Brown." And, for a lot of Massachusetts, "Not Scott Brown" wasn't much of a selling point. And for another lot of Massachusetts, it WAS a selling point -- but not enough of one.

Massachusetts isn't as much of a "machine" state as it used to be. At this point, in order to win, you actually have to inspire your base to go out and, y'know, DO things. Like, for instance, talk to their friends.

I got robocalls from Democratic machers, which didn't even give any real reason to vote for her -- just "I'm Bill Clinton. So, um, vote for the Democrat, wouldja? Because Kennedy was a Democrat, and you liked him, didn't you?"

The premises are true. "Kennedy was a Democrat. Coakley is a Democrat. You liked Kennedy. QED, you like Coakley." All those premises are true. However, the syllogism is faulty, and the conclusion invalid.

I got ONE call from a real person, the kind of "ground troops" that got Obama elected. And his argument was, "I'm making phone calls for Coakley, because I think Brown is marginally worse." And he sounded embarrassed about it. And thanked me for not being nasty to him.

It's hard to win an election when you don't have any supporters.

Comments

[ron_newman]

But without supporters, how did she win the primary?

[ckd]

Name recognition, because Capuano started late and hadn't previously run statewide.

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

I got phone calls from Coakley supporters in person, as well as a few of her automated calls.

I got 56 calls from Brown's campaign. About 50 were robot calls the rest were from his Texas Prison Inmate Call Center that one of the 'Conservative Survey Companies' that worked for his Teabag supporters had ringing on our phone. After publicizing this on the net (as did a few hundred other people) the calls from Texas had vanished to be replaced by the bots.

I clocked 12 calls a day for 3 days straight from Brown's people.

We certainly voted for Coakley, in both elections. And we made great effort to convince our annoying other building owners to NOT put a Brown sign in our front yard for the final week.... (he works in the Health Care Industry and pretty much was worried about new regulation coming to pass as his reason for voting for Brown).

Coakley won our City Hands down, no prob.

Looking at the Map of the vote (Boston Globe has it) its easy to see that the Urban folks voted Coakley, the burbs voted Brown. This is the population shifts in the state coming into play. The old 'White Flight' folks of the busing era and their descendants and the old school Republican families were what voted Brown.

Same with the new 'bedroom' communities like Waltham, which used to be a Democratic stronghold, but which lost their old long term residents to development and short time residents and speculators during the real estate boom.

I suspect the census info from the upcoming census will also reflect some of these changes.... the state population isn't the same as it was, and many folks that would have voted have moved outward or been forced to move out of state. Of course, the details like this won't be available for public analysis until its all moot decades away.

[ellettra.livejournal.com]

i think this is a well-stated post.

[(Anonymous)]

/bemusedoutsider here/

I followed this closely, supporting Coakley. The Dems ran a lousy campaign because they didn't expect to need any campaign at all. Brown caught a wave of anti-Obamacare public sentiment and was a surprise to everyone.

Coakley herself was fine and popular through the primary while she was opposing the Kennedy candidate and critizicing the HC bill. She lost much support after the primary when the Obama/Kennedy faction co-opted her.

[goljerp]

Unfortunately, it looks like the democrats are heading down the same road in NY state. You see, we've got an appointee in Hillary's former seat who is extremely... uninspiring. But nearly everyone who thinks about running against her in the democratic primary next year is being chased off by the party bigwigs. (There is one guy who's talking about it now, but IMHO, the guy is even worse). I'm worried that the democrats will succeed in putting forward an eh candidate who will then lose to a Republican with lots of money and/or name recognition. Sigh.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the NY Democrats will learn from our experience?

Probably not.