Coakley lost the election. Not Rahm, Obama, the Boogieman, or anyone else.

[grytpype]

She had a 30-point lead and she let it slip away!

She didn't campaign!

She gave Brown an opening and he took advantage of it.

Better campaign = Coakley would have won.

This does not mean Obama has to surrender to the screaming, crying libs, and bust up all the mean corporations and distribute their property to the masses.

[freddie mertz]

1. ABO at work. Must defend the President. This does not compute!

:nopity: :puffpiece: :banghead: :rofl: :nuke:

[grytpype]

2. :eyes:

:eyes:

[cali]

5. not necessarily. I'm none too thrilled with Obama's lack of leadership

and drift to the right, but having watched this race closely, I think she gets about 75% of the blame.

[freddie mertz]

9. She blew it, but the political team in DC has been asleep at the wheel...

And arrogant and self-important to boot.

Absent without leave.

I admire you, though, for admitting that there is more too it than Coakley's incompetence.

[auburnblu]

29. standing outside Fenway Park? In the cold? Shaking hands?

She said that not Obama. A decent candidate would have won.

[Zenlitened]

3. President Obama himself seems to disagree with your analysis.

...The president also said the same voter anger that swept him into office in 2008 carried Brown into office on a stunning upset victory Tuesday night over heavily favored Democrat Martha Coakley.

"Here's my assessment of not just the vote in Massachusetts, but the mood around the country: the same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office," the president said in an exclusive interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos. "People are angry and they are frustrated. Not just because of what's happened in the last year or two years, but what's happened over the last eight years."

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Politics/president-obama-scott-brown-massachusetts-victory/story?id=9611222

[Webster Green]

4. "libs"?

You consider that to be an insult, don't you?

How about liberty? Do you find that distasteful as well?

Are you a visitor from another site?

[pecwae]

8. How very odd.

I've never seen a DUer use the term "libs" in the several years I've been here.

[vi5]

17. And this is the third time I've seen it used...

..by 3 different posters in just as many days.

[tekisui]

19. The OP loves to denigrate the left.

Closer to a freeper than a Dem.

[d_b]

6. wahhh

:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

[yourout]

7. Keep spinning....keep spinning.....keep spinning

Like Dori in Finding Nemo.

[Lasher]

10. Yeah right

[HiddenInVA]

11. For what it's worth...

I think it was plain-old complacency. She took it for granted that fellow Democrats
would vote for her, sat on her tuckus and while she was snoring, Brown was out
campaigning.

She woke up at the last minute, had an "Oh Sh*t!" moment, with some last second
rebuttals, but it was too late.

Nobody to blame but herself, asleep at the switch.... :shrug:

[T Wolf]

12. Bullshit. If it had been close, MAYBE. But losing by 100,000 votes in Massachusetts means

that a lot more than a terrible campaign is to blame.

[zulchzulu]

13. Blaming Obama for Coakley's loss is like blaming NASA for someone who jumped out a building

I think Obama was a little busy working on other stuff while Coakley was running her campaign into the ground and taking a goddamn vacation in the middle of the race.

[Milo_Bloom]

14. Reality says otherwise.

[grytpype]

15. If Brown won because screaming, crying libs crossed party lines and voted for him...

... then Jesus, the screamers are as stupid as I think they are.

Is Brown going to deliver the free health care you want?

[Ex Lurker]

16. Rahm Emanuel is the Democrat version of Karl Rove:

an obnoxioius asshole whose political skills are vastly overrated.

[freddie mertz]

18. Except he can't win anything from the WH.

[tekisui]

20. Zing!

[David Zephyr]

24. double zing.

.

[tekisui]

21. 'Crying libs'? Get bent.

[Teaser]

22. She may have blown it, but contingency plans

should have been in place for HCR in case she blew it, or Robert Byrd couldn't vote...or any realistic contingency. Clearly that was not the case.

We may yet save this thing from complete destruction. But it will take Herculean effort from the WH. So far today, I have not seen that effort.

[Cha]

23. That's right.. "LESSONS LEARNED"

LESSONS LEARNED.... Given that the results in Massachusetts were not quite what the political world was expecting as of, say, two weeks ago, there will be plenty of "what just happened?" questions over the next several days. We're already hearing ample talk about what lessons Democrats should have learned from this painful defeat.

I think it's probably a mistake to overstate the larger significance of a special election 10 months before the midterms, but it'd be foolish to pretend Scott Brown's victory was some random fluke, never to be repeated again.

With that in mind, here are my Top 5 lessons to be learned from the Mess in Massachusetts.

1. Successful candidates hit the campaign trail. Candidates seeking office should probably campaign while voters are making up their minds. It's old-fashioned thinking, I know, but winning a primary and then dropping out of sight -- while your opponent is working hard to reach out to voters -- tends to be a bad idea.

For much of the post-primary period, the campaign calendar on the Coakley website was blank. Dave Weigel noted yesterday, "From the primary through last Sunday, Scott Brown held 66 events of varying size. Coakley held 19." Part of this is because Brown had to introduce himself to voters who had no idea who he was, while Coakley was already well known. But 19 events in 40 days is evidence of a Senate candidate who was taking victory for granted -- and in the process, throwing victory away.

2. Voters like likeable candidates. Some voters care more about policy and substance than which candidate they most want to have a beer with, but these voters tend to be outnumbered. We've all seen races in which the thoughtful, hard-working, experienced candidate who emphasizes substantive issues loses out to the fun, likable opponent (see 2000, presidential election of).

The Massachusetts race fits this model nicely. Chris Good noted this week, "hile Coakley focused on the issues in this race, Brown can credit his lead in multiple polls to his own personality and personal image, which he crafted with a series of successful ads portraying him as an average, likable guy." It's tempting to think voters in a mature democracy, especially in a state like Massachusetts, would prioritize policy over personality, and appreciate the candidate who "focused on the issues." But yesterday was the latest in a series of reminders that personal qualities often trump everything else.

3. Saying dumb things will undermine public support. When the pressure was on, Coakley insulted Red Sox fans -- twice. She kinda sorta said there are "no terrorists in Afghanistan," and that "devout Catholics" may not want to work in emergency rooms. When the Democratic campaign realized it was in deep trouble, and readied an effort to turn things around, it had trouble overcoming the distractions caused by the candidate's public remarks.

Maybe, if the campaign had been in gear throughout the post-primary process, Coakley would have been sharper on the stump, had more message discipline, and been less likely to make these costly, distracting errors.

4. Learn something about your opponent. Because the Democratic campaign assumed it would win, it didn't invest much energy in understanding its opponent (who, incidentally, won). They didn't identify Brown's weak points, and seemed to know practically nothing about his background. When the race grew competitive, nearly all of the damaging stories about the Republican candidate came from well-researched blog posts, not the campaign's opposition research team. "Get to know your opponent" is one of those lessons taught on the first day of Campaign 101, and campaigns that forget it are going to struggle.

5. Enthusiasm matters. No matter how confused and uninformed Brown's supporters seemed, they were also motivated. Dems liked Coakley, but they weren't, to borrow a phrase, fired up and ready to go.

Looking ahead, chances are pretty good that organized right-wing voters will be mobilized and itching to vote in November. They certainly were yesterday. Democrats can't expect to do well with an unmotivated, listless party base.

—Steve Benen 6:30 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (51)
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/

Candidate in sheep clothing who supports torture.

[Arkana]

25. Yep.

Except for the last sentence--that's just unnecessary.

[depakid]

26. Still blind as a bat

and dumb as a rack of socks.

Sure hope the leadership of the party isn't so narrow minded and has the good sense to look beyond the usual scapegoats- otherwise, November isn't going to be a fun month for DEms.

Then again- maybe that's precisely what some want- a repeat of 1994.

[rasputin1952]

27. Posted in wrong spot...

:blush:

[smalll]

28. You got it. It's Martha Chokely, that's it -- with a little local flavor thrown in.

I'm too lazy at this point to write an OP about ALL her mis-steps - they were legion. I already wrote one about the skeletons in her prosecutorial closet, from Louise Woodward to the Souzas to the Amiraults up to Keith Winfield. No-one liked the woman. Mumbles Menino's machine was't out yesterday. It's impossible to read anything out of this except - run a good campaign!