Mercifully, there are less than 24 hours to go before the special election between Martha Coakley and Scott Brown. Between the robocalls and the TV commercials, it’s reached the point that I am totally turned off to both candidates and really don’t want either of them to win. And, quite frankly, neither of them deserve to win: Coakley has proven that she does not have what it takes to be a national-level politician by blowing what should have been a no-brainer election, and Brown is an empty suit who got lucky to be able to cash in on the anti-Obama vibe at exactly the right moment. Neither of them could carry Ted Kennedy’s bags let alone succeed him in the Senate.
Back in December, as we wound up the primaries, I said that I thought Coakley would turn out to be a weak candidate, easily targeted by the Republicans, except I was looking down the road at the seat’s general election. Who would have believed she wouldn’t even be able to seal the deal on this? She ran a stealth campaign in the primary, but was lucky that her opposition was so divided among three candidates. Not so lucky when it was whittled down to one guy who had nothing to lose by blowing all his cash early on TV spots. Whether it’s a case of her campaign thinking they didn’t have to do any work, or a case of the candidate herself not really being up to the challenge, they’ve blown this fair and square.
A win by Brown tomorrow won’t really change much here in Massachusetts. Don’t expect to see a surge of Republican candidates sweeping the well-entrenched Democrats of the House delegation or the state legislature. The Democratic governor is toast anyway, and Massachusetts does have a tendency to elect Republican governors despite the Democratic legislature. Brown himself is not terribly substantial; I wouldn’t expect him to hold up well against a better Democratic candidate when the seat comes up, even if the GOP gave him all the money in the world, and you can be damn well sure that the Democrats won’t let someone like Martha Coakley on the ticket again.
If Coakley does manage to pull a rabbit out of a hat tomorrow and win, she goes into the Senate already wounded at home. No doubt she stands ready to be a good soldier for Harry Reid, but with such a stunning lack of support among the most liberal constituency in the country, she won’t hold the line on anything tough. And she won’t survive into a full term if she doesn’t radically alter her style as a candidate. If she has come this close to defeat at the hands of a total nobody, imagine the drubbing she would get if the Republicans came up with a serious contender.
I’ll hold my nose and vote for Coakley tomorrow, but frankly I am disappointed by the entire turn of events of this process. Obviously, a lot of other Massachusetts voters are, too, which is why nobody should be surprised to learn on Wednesday morning that Scott Brown is the new junior senator.
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