Coakley defeated by local politics, not by health care or Obama
By John A. Tures
Associate Professor of Political Science
LaGrange College
January 19, 2010 — Democrats in Massachusetts went down in flames, blowing one of the biggest electoral leads in history. Pundits are quick to point to national trends. But this one is all about an old Massachusetts politician's admonition that "All politics is local." As I switched on the morning TV, I saw ABC's George Stephanopoulos tell me that Democratic Party Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley would lose to Republican State Senator Scott Brown in the special election to replace Ted Kennedy. He blamed health care and Obama. Amazingly, he also showed ABC polls that demonstrated the public opinion on health care was virtually unchanged from last August. Obama's numbers also haven't moved much during the last two months. How is it possible that a Democrat could lose a 30 point lead based on two factors that were unchanged since late last year? It's no wonder the former Clintonite Stephanopoulos couldn't cut in the campaign world or as an adviser, with a "brilliant" deduction like that. To investigate what really happened in the Massachusetts special election of the U.S. Senate, I'll take a closer look at the polls and at local politics. When Ted Kennedy passed away in August of 2009, a vacancy opened up in the U.S. Senate. Attorney General Martha Coakley emerged as the front-runner, due to her name recognition and victory in a statewide election. She turned away challenges from several Democrats, including Mike Capuano, a liberal U.S. Congressman. In September she had a 30 point lead in a Suffolk poll over Scott Brown. She maintained that lead in October (26 points) and November (31 Points), cruising to a December victory over Capuano and two others (47%-28%-25% combined for the other two). Then, several things happened. Confident with her 20 point win and her 30 point lead in the polls, she borrowed a page from the 1948 playbook of Republican Presidential nominee Thomas Dewey and stopped campaigning. When polls showed her lead had completely evaporated, she finally started running hard, making her look more desperate than aggressive. Second, while Republicans had a live candidate with National Guard service, Democrats ran a dead guy. While every political email I received from the GOP focused on Brown, every Democrat email focused on Ted Kennedy. That's not going to fire up people about Martha Coakley. Locally, Coakley was the victim of Democrat problems in the state of Massachusetts. First, there's the weak approval ratings from Governor Deval Patrick, featured prominent in a pro-Brown ad by the Tea Party Express that I saw on Fox News. Second, there's the indictment of former House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, a Democrat, on federal corruption charges. Finally, Coakley, a hard core Clinton supporter in 2008, may be the victim of Democrat in-fighting. Brown would have to stand for reelection in 2012. Capuano and the rest of the Democrat delegation in Massachusetts perhaps would rather lose the Senate filibuster in order to prevail in two years. "I'd rather have Scott Brown for two years than Martha Coakley for the rest of my life." a Democrat strategist told the Washington Examiner. So Democrats may be able to chalk this loss up to local problems instead of a national trend. But there's a catch. As they continue to claim that each loss (New Jersey, Virginia, and Massachusetts) is local, and ignore the lessons of each case, the Democratic Party may be undone by a tidal wave of "local elections" in 2010. |
