Electioneering in MA
Coakley-Brown campaign overhyped in media
Issue date: 2/4/10 Section: Editorial/Opinion
The chaos that inevitably ensues with the arrival of winter break seems to have overshadowed the biggest political story since President Obama's election in November of 2008: the special election to fill the Massachusetts Senate seat vacated by the death of the "Liberal Lion" Ted Kennedy.
The campaign unfolded with Democratic candidate and Massachussets Attorney General Martha Coakley entering the campaign with a more than 10-point lead over Republican nominee, then state Senator Scott Brown. Coakley, even at the time, was widely considered to not be the strongest nominee the Democrats could have offered. Due in part to a perceived sense of entitlement on Coakley's part, a series of blatant political missteps, and an admittedly brilliant campaign strategy on Brown's part, Coakley proceeded to spend the next two months slowly but surely squandering away that sizeable lead in a state that hadn't elected a Republican to the Senate since 1972.
Scott Brown, a liberal Republican who is pro-choice and pro-civil union, won that pivotal seat by roughly a five-point margin, sending the blogosphere and television pundits into what seemed like a contest to see who could extrapolate the most from that one election. Some pundits called the election a rejection of the Democratic initiatives. Some people called it the Massachusetts' overthrow of the Democratic Party. And some of the most misled pundits called it a referendum on Barack Obama as a president.
Those two latter points need to be addressed. One needs to understand that Coakley entered the election with a 10-point advantage. Simply put: Martha Coakley the Democrat did not lose the election, Martha Coakley the candidate lost the election.
Massachusetts is still a blue state, and this was not a referendum on Barack Obama. It was a referendum on Martha Coakley. It was a referendum on the lax way in which she, and the Democratic Party, ran the election. Also, let us not discount the fact that Brown's liberalness very likely played into his appeal. A party-line Republican doesn't stand a chance of being elected in Massachusetts.
Still, others claimed that Brown's victory was symptomatic of the nation's (which is apparently made- up of only the state of Massachusetts) opinion of President Obama's plan for health care reform. While health care reform was certainly a mitigating factor, to say that it was the sole reason for the outcome is absurd. Even so, according to www.americahealthrankings.org, the state of Massachusetts had the third best health care system in the country in 2009, so a negative opinion of the reform efforts is less than surprising. A millionaire doesn't think we need to expand food stamps either.
With those factors aside, one must now look at the outlook for the 2010 elections. If you were to believe the Fox News pundits, Scott Brown is the new savior of the Republican Party (there are some rumblings of Brown being pushed to run for President), and we, as a country, will be seeing a Republican overthrow, the likes of which the country has never seen.
The truth is, however, that the growing prominence of the Tea Party activists has given the GOP a bloated sense of the "overthrow" that will be coming. A recent poll by Rasmussen polling, a right-leaning pollster, shows that in a December 2009 generic party ballot - meaning a poll where people are asked what party they are more likely to vote for with no candidates assigned to the party - the Democrats still led the poll with 36 percent of the total vote.
Make no mistake: the Democrats will lose seats in 2010. But then again, so has nearly every other controlling party in the midterm elections. The only variable is by how much the Democratic numbers will drop.
Scholarship says that Democrats will not lose any more than other controlling parties have in previous midterm elections. A respected political polling/predicting Web site, www.fivethirtyeight.com, predicts that the Democrats will lose exactly four votes, to come away from 2010 with 55 seats. A four-seat loss is nothing unheard of, and three of those seats (Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Harry Reid of Nevada) were seats considered somewhere between borderline winnable and a sure loss in the first place.
While losing the election in the incredibly liberal Massachusetts was a stunning body blow to the Democratic Party, some valuable lessons can be learned from it. Scott Brown's campaign will undoubtedly become the blueprint for Republican campaigns: distance yourself from the Republican party-liners (people are just as mad at the status quo Republicans as they are with the Democrats for the situation the country is in), preach populist ideals that have been brought to the forefront by the Tea Party movement and be a "man of the people," that is, reject the notion that you're an insider from Washington and position yourself as a fresh face that will stand up to the establishment of the Capitol. Scott Brown proved especially adept at the last point. Despite being a politician longer than Coakley, Brown's campaign managed to paint Coakley as a political insider who was bent on pursuing her own self interests.
On the Democratic side, Coakley's campaign can be used as a "what not to do" for liberal candidates. Fundraising levels for the Democratic Party are just where they have always been, so the Democrats need to use some of that money to put that "Party of No" persona around their opponents' necks. Furthermore, they need take a page from Brown's book and campaign on being "one of the guys." Voters are sick of politicians who think they know better than their constituents and, contrary to what Republicans would have you believe, the GOP's stances do not necessarily reflect the feelings of middle class America anymore, especially on social issues.
The point to take away, Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike, is to not buy into the hype the media is putting behind Brown's defeat of Coakley. Take it for what it is: a good candidate beating a bad candidate in a time where voters are sick of who they perceive as "political insiders." But more importantly, take away from it that the 2010 elections will hinge largely on who controls the campaign spin and which candidates can bottle the anti-establishment fervor sweeping the country, regardless of party. This election is still very much up in the air.
Miller, a junior political science and print journalism major, is a guest columnist for The Spectator.
The campaign unfolded with Democratic candidate and Massachussets Attorney General Martha Coakley entering the campaign with a more than 10-point lead over Republican nominee, then state Senator Scott Brown. Coakley, even at the time, was widely considered to not be the strongest nominee the Democrats could have offered. Due in part to a perceived sense of entitlement on Coakley's part, a series of blatant political missteps, and an admittedly brilliant campaign strategy on Brown's part, Coakley proceeded to spend the next two months slowly but surely squandering away that sizeable lead in a state that hadn't elected a Republican to the Senate since 1972.
Scott Brown, a liberal Republican who is pro-choice and pro-civil union, won that pivotal seat by roughly a five-point margin, sending the blogosphere and television pundits into what seemed like a contest to see who could extrapolate the most from that one election. Some pundits called the election a rejection of the Democratic initiatives. Some people called it the Massachusetts' overthrow of the Democratic Party. And some of the most misled pundits called it a referendum on Barack Obama as a president.
Those two latter points need to be addressed. One needs to understand that Coakley entered the election with a 10-point advantage. Simply put: Martha Coakley the Democrat did not lose the election, Martha Coakley the candidate lost the election.
Massachusetts is still a blue state, and this was not a referendum on Barack Obama. It was a referendum on Martha Coakley. It was a referendum on the lax way in which she, and the Democratic Party, ran the election. Also, let us not discount the fact that Brown's liberalness very likely played into his appeal. A party-line Republican doesn't stand a chance of being elected in Massachusetts.
Still, others claimed that Brown's victory was symptomatic of the nation's (which is apparently made- up of only the state of Massachusetts) opinion of President Obama's plan for health care reform. While health care reform was certainly a mitigating factor, to say that it was the sole reason for the outcome is absurd. Even so, according to www.americahealthrankings.org, the state of Massachusetts had the third best health care system in the country in 2009, so a negative opinion of the reform efforts is less than surprising. A millionaire doesn't think we need to expand food stamps either.
With those factors aside, one must now look at the outlook for the 2010 elections. If you were to believe the Fox News pundits, Scott Brown is the new savior of the Republican Party (there are some rumblings of Brown being pushed to run for President), and we, as a country, will be seeing a Republican overthrow, the likes of which the country has never seen.
The truth is, however, that the growing prominence of the Tea Party activists has given the GOP a bloated sense of the "overthrow" that will be coming. A recent poll by Rasmussen polling, a right-leaning pollster, shows that in a December 2009 generic party ballot - meaning a poll where people are asked what party they are more likely to vote for with no candidates assigned to the party - the Democrats still led the poll with 36 percent of the total vote.
Make no mistake: the Democrats will lose seats in 2010. But then again, so has nearly every other controlling party in the midterm elections. The only variable is by how much the Democratic numbers will drop.
Scholarship says that Democrats will not lose any more than other controlling parties have in previous midterm elections. A respected political polling/predicting Web site, www.fivethirtyeight.com, predicts that the Democrats will lose exactly four votes, to come away from 2010 with 55 seats. A four-seat loss is nothing unheard of, and three of those seats (Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Harry Reid of Nevada) were seats considered somewhere between borderline winnable and a sure loss in the first place.
While losing the election in the incredibly liberal Massachusetts was a stunning body blow to the Democratic Party, some valuable lessons can be learned from it. Scott Brown's campaign will undoubtedly become the blueprint for Republican campaigns: distance yourself from the Republican party-liners (people are just as mad at the status quo Republicans as they are with the Democrats for the situation the country is in), preach populist ideals that have been brought to the forefront by the Tea Party movement and be a "man of the people," that is, reject the notion that you're an insider from Washington and position yourself as a fresh face that will stand up to the establishment of the Capitol. Scott Brown proved especially adept at the last point. Despite being a politician longer than Coakley, Brown's campaign managed to paint Coakley as a political insider who was bent on pursuing her own self interests.
On the Democratic side, Coakley's campaign can be used as a "what not to do" for liberal candidates. Fundraising levels for the Democratic Party are just where they have always been, so the Democrats need to use some of that money to put that "Party of No" persona around their opponents' necks. Furthermore, they need take a page from Brown's book and campaign on being "one of the guys." Voters are sick of politicians who think they know better than their constituents and, contrary to what Republicans would have you believe, the GOP's stances do not necessarily reflect the feelings of middle class America anymore, especially on social issues.
The point to take away, Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike, is to not buy into the hype the media is putting behind Brown's defeat of Coakley. Take it for what it is: a good candidate beating a bad candidate in a time where voters are sick of who they perceive as "political insiders." But more importantly, take away from it that the 2010 elections will hinge largely on who controls the campaign spin and which candidates can bottle the anti-establishment fervor sweeping the country, regardless of party. This election is still very much up in the air.
Miller, a junior political science and print journalism major, is a guest columnist for The Spectator.
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