Last December, when I blogged about the primaries for today’s special election to fill the US Senate seat laid void by Ted Kennedy, I made it sound like Democratic candidate Martha Coakley would be a shoo-in. Because this is Massachusetts, where the only good Republican is a Democrat in a business suit.
But oh, boy, Martha. You blew it. Scott Brown, a Republican — a real one — is sitting in Ted Kennedy’s seat.
Holy shit, how did that happen? I’m not sure. Nobody really is, although the local pundits will talk themselves to death trying to rationalize this stunning upset. While I find some explanation in this month’s Harper’s Index, which revealed that only 6 percent of Americans think that women make better politicians than men, the truth is, Martha Coakley ran a miserable campaign.
I mean, Massachusetts elected Obama with a clear majority, and yet Massachusetts did not elect an integral person whom he needs in order to put forth his agenda. Is it health care? Is it taxes? Is it the millions of dollars Coakley’s supporters spent on dirty campaign ads that attacked Brown (a tactic that may work in the rest of the country, but that Massachusetts find degrading and undignified)?
Or is it that Coakley revealed herself as baseball ignorant when she flubbed a quip about Curt Shilling being a Yankees fan?
For the record, I voted for Coakley despite her inability to Wow me. I can only imagine that, after she won the primary, she thought herself to be such a sure thing and then panicked when Brown gained momentum. I am sad and a little outraged, but the people have clearly spoken, and they wanted Scott Brown, the Republican Senator from Massachusetts. (How weird does that sound?)
