by Bill Kavanagh: The Senate's 60th vote for healthcare reform and the rest of the Democrats' agenda rests with the people of Massachusetts on Tuesday. They are choosing between a dry but steady prosecutor who made her name as a specialist at putting away child abusers and a flashy State Senator whose makeover from Republican to independent maverick has been accomplished in weeks through a savvy media campaign.
Martha Coakley ran a campaign designed around Massachusetts' enormous Democratic registration advantage: she evidently initally thought she'd bore the voters and win on the numbers without much of a thrill. Her sound bites grated, but conveyed her positions without a twist. She was a matter-of-fact-attorney turned Attorney General. Not much charisma there.
Meanwhile, Republican Scott Brown busied himself turning his record around for a state that didn't know his name to sell a projection of a truck-driving guy in National Guard fatigues with a winning smile. His media portrayed a man of the people for "the peoples' seat." He buried his opposition to the state's gay marriage law, his support for allowing medical personnel to opt out of emergency contraception for rape victims, and his lonely characterization of waterboarding as legitimate interrogation. In short, he created a likable character without ties to anyone currently in power during a bad season for incumbents and the well-connected.
Brown also enjoyed the full-throated support of the Tea Party movement, of the Fund for Growth, and the American Future Fund, who saw his campaign as a place to draw a line over taxes, government spending to stimulate the economy, and healthcare reform. Their ads for Brown began to soften up a lackadaisical Coakley campaign early in the going. Right wing talk radio adopted Brown as a standard-bearer as well.
Meanwhile, Massachusetts voters looked for a way to show their anger at the status quo of high unemployment, Wall Street's recklessness, and a stalled healthcare reform package that staggered through Congress as the country's economy teetered through 2009. The special election to fill Ted Kennedy's seat seemed an opportunity to vent an inchoate rage at the system. Everyone knew people suffering from the wreckage of the meltdown (or was such a person) and few thought the government had done enough to help.
So Scott Brown's handlers figured out that the image of independence and allegiance with the Tea Party movement could bring out angry voters while Martha Coakley was slowly putting the mainstream voters under with a personality like anesthesia. After a speedy six-week campaign, he emerged as a viable candidate in the late stages of a special election which initially promised to attract a tiny turnout. The large independent portion of Massachusetts voters were breaking his way and conservatives were already highly motivated to get out to the polls.
Coakley has run her campaign without much elan. Her answers tend to be direct, sometimes overly complex, and she strays into controversy when simplicity would be more appropriate. Her speaking style has been likened to that of a prosecutor during debates with her opponent. She has been slow to energize voters and reluctant to connect emotionally on issues she legitimately believes in. In short, Coakley has not electrified, even once she began running a campaign that recognized there was a real race going on.
Like Al Gore in 2000, Martha Coakley seemed intent on winning without tying her coattails to the biggest political attraction around. In her case, that obvious partner would have been the Kennedy family. Coakley's primary campaign veered away from the Kennedy history and until this week, her general election bid was unadorned by the most popular Kennedys— Ted's widow Vicki and his well-known nephew Joe, a former Congressman. The prosecutor turned state Attorney General appeared to believe she could take the Kennedy's seat without genuflecting before them.
That's all changed in the past week, since the polling showed Coakley's substantial lead evaporating like snow in a winter thaw. Now, Vicki Kennedy's warmth and concern for her husband's legacy is being broadcast all over the Bay State in a 30-second ad, entitled "With Her." Joe Kennedy is stumping for Coakley and raising money for the campaign. The Kennedy family is fully engaged in attempting to keep Ted's life's work for a national health plan alive by keeping the 60th Senate seat in the Democratic column.
The campaign has taken on a national profile, but for Massachusetts voters the special Senate election has a local cast. Even with President Obama arriving today to campaign for Ms. Coakley, it's an open question whether voters will view their ballots as a referendum on his Presidency. If they do, it should bode well for the Democratic candidate; the state gave Obama over 61% of its total in the 2008 election.
The other important uncertainty is turnout. Democrats have not been as motivated this season as they were in 2008. Healthcare reform has not moved quickly and the Senate left off the critical public option feature progressives worked for. Many changes Democrats supported have not materialized and economic suffering has continued through 2009. Special elections usually feature a precariously low percentage of the registered voters getting out to the polls. Recent national focus on financial reform may help that Democrat, but whether progressives will rally around Coakley and get to the polls is an open question. The GOTV operation will be critical for both sides in a state where there is not usually a close race in national elections.
Another odd twist to the Massachusetts Senate campaign will center on a Joe Kennedy almost no one outside of the state knows: Joe the Libertarian. An information technology executive by the same name as Ted Kennedy's nephew is polling at around 3% as the candidate of the Libertarian Party. Who he'll draw more votes from— and whether those pulling the lever for him will even know who they're voting for is anyone's guess.
Massachusetts will make January a critical political month for the midterm campaign. In true Bay State tradition, it will be election-as-blood-sport and feature a cast of characters both real and fictional, and personalities large, small and almost invisible. The latest polls are a little too close to call. And now that the campaign had become nationalized, the result, either way, will be seen as a bellwether, like it or not.
(Bill cross-posts at Bill's Big Diamond .)
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