Reply #14: Victory has a thousand fathers... [View All]

[SanchoPanza]

... and defeat is an orphan.

There are two lessons, by my count, that will likely not be learned from this. People are far more interested in feeling better than embracing reality, so all you're going to see is how ObamaRahma is a corporate shill and SOLD US ALL OUT from places like FDL and OpenLeft, while the DLC will simply blame the left for being too radical. Both are wrong.

1) All politics is still local. Turnout in Boston and the surrounding area was pretty abysmal, and I think this points to the eastern faction of MAs Democratic Party not being happy with how the primary wrapped up in early December, as they had backed Capuano while western MA went for Coakley. Even Menino didn't publicly come out for Coakley. This isn't anyone's fault except the Boston establishment, really, because they and Capuano treated the primary the same way Coakley treated the general: It was his to win. They lost, and should have gotten over it and put their muscle behind Coakley.

The town-by-town map SSP put up clarifies this, I think. The small blue area in the east is Boston:

http://swingstateproject.com/diary/6241/masen-map-of-special-election-results-by-town

And these are the town-by-town results from Nov. 2008:

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/election_results/ma_president/

The towns Obama won in 2008 that were within 1-5 percentage points are the areas that Smith was able to flip. In most circumstances this wouldn't be enough, but 40% turnout in the Boston Metro area did the rest. Others have commented on the nature of the impact of Obama and HCR on the race. People who think this was a national referendum on anything, whether they be progressives, moderates, or conservatives, needs to turn off Cable News and get their heads out of their asses.

2) You take nothing for granted. The Clinton campaigned learned this the hard way in 2008, and this lesson was apparently lost on the Coakley campaign (and Capuano before her), as well as the DNC who didn't treat the race with the seriousness it deserved. Special elections don't follow the same rule as those in the Presidential season, which is the only time where national issues have any significance and the rank-and-file of the party can be expected to come out for any candidate on the ticket. Not to mention the fact that Republicans have previously done well in years where the state and national parties have dropped the ball (Weld, Romney, etc).

If this wasn't even enough, that no one bothered to do internal tracking polls until the last minute should be considered a fiasco of the highest order. Smith was allowed to sneak up and no one was the wiser until early January. The Democrats could have used most of December to squash him in his tracks, but apparently they have other uses for fundraising efforts. The DSCC has three times the financial reserves as their Republican counterpart, the NRSC, and that these funds weren't tapped to preserve a crucial seat going up for election shortly before FINAL PASSAGE of a critical policy initiative is sheer incompetence. One person having their eyes off the road is one thing, but this is a collective failure of basic politicking.