Until last night, I had been less sanguine about Scott Brown’s chances in the Massachusetts Senate election next Tuesday than were other conservative bloggers. But, after watching him describe the office to which he aspires as “the people’s seat,” I began to wonder if all the elements were falling into place for a Republican upset in John Kerry’s home state.
While the Republican was raising $1.3 million dollars from ordinary Americans online, his Democratic opponent is collecting cash from well-healed lobbyists in Washington. While he’s praising a late member of the opposing party, whom his fellow partisans delight in excoriating, operatives for his opponent are decrying Sarah Palin’s silence. National Democrats are pouring over $1 million into a state which hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since the president was in elementary school. The Democratic candidate rhetorically removed all terrorists from Afghanistan much as Gerald Ford so removed Soviet domination from Eastern Europe in 1976. And in a TV ad, her campaign misspelled the name of the state she seeks to represent.
Oh, and that ad was the first negative one in the race. The challenger has remained on the high ground, praising his opponent as a person while criticizing her policies. And his grassroots activists are energized.
Meanwhile Bay State voters are chewing on the shenanigans of state Democrats seeking to keep the Senate seat in their column, with state legislators revising a law they passed just five years to prevent a Republican Governor from appointing a successor to a Democratic Senator. Back then, it was okay to keep that seat vacant for a spell if the occupant might have been a Republican, but last fall, they couldn’t risk its vacancy when national Democrats needed an extra vote. Now, Democrats talk of delaying certification of the winner to allow their fellow partisans to vote on a burdensome and unpopular piece of legislation.
Things do seem to be breaking Scott Brown’s way. Polls show the race a dead heat.
Still, Brown has an uphill climb, with Democratic special interests now aware that they’ll have to fight to keep this seat and ready to activate their Get-Out-the-Vote machines. But, consider this: in most races where one side repeatedly makes errors* while the other runs a good campaign, the error-prone side loses.
And it hasn’t been Scott Brown making the mistakes.
*and/or winning mocking headlines for bone-headed campaign moves.
FROM THE COMMENTS: Darkeyedresolve offers:
It would be rather ironic that Democrats changed the law to keep a Republican from getting the seat, only to have a Republican elected by what they did….Good times.
Ironic indeed!
If Brown wins is there any limit to what the Democrat State Leg can do to not have him seated? People are talking about if Coakly loses, the Dems would wait to certify until the existing Senator Kirk (D) can vote FOR Obamacare. I just wonder, can they not seat a new senator Brown for months and months? The Democrat Party at times can be like the Soviet Politboro. Whatever it takes.
It would be rather ironic that Democrats changed the law to keep a Republican from getting the seat, only to have a Republican elected by what they did….Good times.
This makes for some rather great political theater, that’s for sure. The over confidence of Democrats in keeping the seat have given them a crappy candidate, same thing began to happen to Republicans. Even if he wins the seat, it will be short lived. He will hold it for the rest of the term, voting ways that piss off the Democrats and they will rouse their voters to kick him out. Unless he turns out to be more like Snowe and Collins, a more moderate Republican that is quite popular…but then that would make him disliked by Conservatives..
Whilst I agree that if Brown wins it could be a short term seat, I think that the people of Massachusetts have finally realized that they can make a difference. If this is the case then they might decide to keep Brown as their Senator.
The groundswell is coming from moderate Democrats. I do not think that the Coakley team are considering the possibility that people are disenchanted for a good reason.
They do not want Crapcare. They do not want crap and tax. They do not want the high taxes and the high spending.
On top of that Coakley made another mistake involving a letter sent out to garden clubs requesting that they send in financial reports. Really? This kind of club should be given an exemption from such legislative requirements. The old ladies are pissed off.
Back in 2001 the Mass. Gov’s Advisory Board unanimously to release Gerald Amirault but then D.A. Martha Coakley was more interested in preserving the infallibility of her office and did her damnedest to wage a public relations campaign to keep him in prison for the next 3 years.
In 2004 Amirault was finally paroled, but without any proviso of registering as a sex offender. Now if Coakley was so sure of his guilt, why didn’t she conduct the hearings necessary to ensure he would be identified as one? What kind of disregard for the public at large does that signify?Rumor has it, she didn’t wanna hold the damned hearingin fear of the embarrassment her office would face for keeping an innocent man in prison for 20 years. And this is the kind of representation Democrats want to send to Washington DC? Go figure.
please excuse the typo in the 1st line….should say, “voted unanimously to release”
“Still, Brown has an uphill climb, with Democratic special interests”
Don’t forget BIG LABOR SEIU. Michelle Malkin has a great article about how this “union” using it’s members hard earn dues to help Martha Coakley.
One factor that has not been mentioned, at least to my knowledge, is Deval Patrick. He is the current governor and a product of David Axelrod. He is also very unpopular. Could it be that the people of Massachusetts might not be happy with the schmucks that the Dems have been foisting on them of late?
Not to throw cold water, but: I’ll believe MA elected a Republican Senator when I see it. When the certification comes through. *After* the Democrat-manipulated recounts.
I have been watching your politics from Canada for some time and think that the current political environment in Massachusetts is very similar to 1980. It’s going to be very close but the Repubs can pull it off. In that year huge numbers of nominal Dems voted for the Repubs because of the economic situation.
1. Why did Massachusetts elect Mitt Romney, and are there any similarities here?
2. I remember reading something long ago that suggests a surprising number of women vote based on looks.
3. Union heads are currently threatening Obama over taxing Cadillac health care. I wonder if they are threatening him over this race and if they will make good on it? or if Obama will change his position on those taxes in the near future? (I doubt it, but it is interesting)
4. If Brown wins, Democrats will immediately begin organizing to destroy him. But Brown strikes me as just the type of personable candidate who stands teh best chance of weathering it.
5. Brown may have to moderate his positions in order to keep his job, but I suspect he would moderate them much less than most would expect, and conservatives may very well bitch about it, but they would be wrong to do so. Conservatives need to support the most conservative candidates who can get elected, not the most conservatives candidates who cant. And then we need to support those candidates in their efforts to LEAD their constituents in a more conservative direction. Taxachusetts will not turn into Texas overnight.
And some (unconfirmed) acceptance from democrats for Coakley.
Dan, not to quibble, but I think your statement “National Democrats are pouring over $1 million into a state which hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since the president was in elementary school.”, should have read “…a state which hasn’t elected a REPUBLICAN to the Senate”; they have been unfailingly sending democrats for nearly 4-decades.
I do think even in deep blue states, the people get tired of being embarassed and get tired of not being able to compete.
NY elected Pataki. MA elected Romney. NJ dumped Cornin. MI probably will elect a Republican as well. Even liberal public school educated Dems eventually realize when the ship has run aground. It does take them a long long time.but eventually they get there. That’s why eventually they will turn on the incompetent Obama. I passed a guy with 3 Obama stickers on his suv the other day. I rolled down my window, and laughing I said…”how’s that hope n change working out for ya”?
They guy laughed as well and with his hand signaled so-so. I was struck that the guy didn’t flip me off, but even he, laughed. Nobody likes to look like a fool for very long.
For years, here in Mass. we were stuck with the Kennedy mystique and the fact that the Republicans could/would not run a decent candidate against him. Keenedy could have pee’d on the pope and won this state by 30 points against any opponent.
Problem for the Dems is that Coakley isn’t Kennedy. They just assumed it was a Democrats seat and they could run anyone. As Brown reminded them it is “the people’s seat”. I think the people of Massachusetts finally are free of the Kennedy shackles and see a choice in this race. The choice appears to be Scott Brown.