Senate Race Gets Hotter, Weather Gets Colder

The latest (please leave comments below):

— RTE covers the race here and it is no surprise the focus is on Ted Kennedy and Obama’s “ambitious reform agenda”

— Another London paper, the Torygraph, weighs in as well

— New Globie narrative: Brown’s supporters are “bullies”. Didn’t Mass Dems write the book on political bullying?

— Brown leads home page coverage at Times of London

— Coakley hasn’t been ahead in any of the last eight polls

— Scott Brown’s Open Letter to the People of Massachusetts

— “Do it for Teddy“

— Scott Brown-branded cookies?

— My EQ clip featuring MSNBC’s Ed Schultz promoting voter fraud in Massachusetts has been linked at Drudge, Huffington Post, RealClearPolitics and dozens of other sites today.

— WSJ: Coakley’s soft on political corruption cases involving Dems

— Fellow libtalker Stephanie Miller couldn’t find anything substantive to say about Martha Coakley, so she resorted to crude sexual remarks about Scott Brown

— Martha still claims she’ll win tomorrow

— AP puffery: Martha’s win would be “historic” for Bay State

— CBS dreams of delaying Brown’s swearing-in

— How many robocalls are you receiving? My phone’s been ringing every 15 minutes or so all day, to the point where I’ve shut off the ringer.

— Polling shows wide Brown lead in key swing areas

— Much ado about nothing – one stray Facebook comment

— Brown crushing Coakley at Intrade

— CNN: Brown’s made effective use of Internet- future template for GOP candidates?

— John F’n Kerry: Brown supporters are bullies

— Charting the polls: a clear trend emerges

— Marsha’s in freefall!

— Obama in Martha’s TV spot- doesn’t that merely remind voters what they’re fighting against?

— MSNBC hatemonger Chris Matthews can’t contain his disappointment, he knows it’s over for Marsha

— Another MSNBC talker believes we’ve lost our minds

BREAKING: THE SLEAZIEST HIT PIECE EVER?

Politico is all over this one:

The Plum Line has a great deal more here.

Brown spoke out against it while visiting the Plymouth Fire Headquarters a short time ago.

Even The Globies Aren’t Fooled By Martha’s Cheap Ploy

When you’re a Massachusetts Democratic Party nominee for the US Senate, it’s not easy to run afoul of the Boston Globe, a partisan newspaper of the first order. Glowing tributes, followed by the inevitable endorsement, can be expected without fail.

That’s why today’s editorial is especially damning: did Martha Coakley really believe her childish ploy wouldn’t be seen as transparent? Her sudden concern for including “all candidates” in upcoming debates means a phony “Kennedy” on the ballot would participate and shield cowardly Coakley from a real one-on-one showdown.

From the Globie editorial:

Yet a one-on-one debate would be a microcosm of the political environment awaiting the next US senator – an intensely partisan climate in which Democrats and Republicans are forever jockeying for advantage – and give voters a look at how Coakley and Brown would hold up in it.

Kennedy, a libertarian who isn’t related to the most famous family in Massachusetts politics, deserves a spot in some debates. It’s easy to see, though, why the third-party candidate’s presence at all debates would be so helpful to Coakley. For one thing, it would pit Brown against another candidate who might appeal to conservative voters.

Furthermore, multicandidate debates helped the attorney general in the Democratic primary race. As rivals Michael Capuano and Steve Pagliuca duked it out, Coakley stayed serenely above the fray – a posture that’s much harder to maintain with only one other opponent on the stage.

But WRKO’s Howie Carr believes Coakley’s making a strategic error for a different reason: it’s not wise to promote the fact that a “Kennedy” is on the ballot. From his column:

But Martha’s problem is, with a Kennedy on the ballot – any Kennedy – any damned thing can happen. Back in the 1950s, three times Massachusetts elected a treasurer named John F. Kennedy, the F being for Francis, not Fitzgerald. The other JFK probably could have gone on having it made, except he decided to run for governor in 1960, the same year the real guy was running for president.

The other JFK finished fifth. Two other John Kennedys ran for treasurer. They lost too. Three other John Kennedys ran for office that year too – two for state rep and one for Norfolk County treasurer. I think they lost too.

Back in 1986, Joe Kennedy – Joe P., not Joe L. – was running for Tip O’Neill’s seat. I knew a guy working the polls on primary day in Medford – Ed Markey’s congressional district. All day, the guy said, old ladies would go into the voting booths and then come out, waving their ballots.

“I came down here to vote for Kennedy,” they’d yell. “Why isn’t Joe Kennedy’s name on the ballot?”

In those days the electorate was befuddled by beer. Now, I would venture to guess, most of Martha Coakley’s potential voters are addled by powerful prescription meds. Does anyone seriously think the electorate is shrewder than it used to be?

Martha Coakley: One Lousy Poker Player

After convincing most of us she wasn’t worried about coasting to victory in January’s special US Senate election, Martha Coakley’s actions tell a different story. The Democratic Party nominee’s cynical move to include phony candidate Joseph L Kennedy in upcoming debates is designed to eliminate the unpleasant prospect of directly facing Republican Scott Brown on camera.

As Coakley has a reputation for weak campaigning skills (due to a lack of opponents over the years) and a cold, distant public speaking style, adding fraudulent faker Kennedy (who is attempting to capitalize on surname confusion, he is unrelated to the family) is a ploy to undermine Brown.

If the general election was truly a cakewalk, Coakley wouldn’t waste the energy making a silly move like this, as it wouldn’t matter. Clearly, her internal polling shows this to be a tighter race than the public would believe (especially due to incredibly low expected turnout). She’s a lousy poker player.

So that begs the question: WHY is there cause for worry from the Coakley camp?

I think it’s directly tied to the last comparable open seat free-for-all in Massachusetts: the 2007 race between Democrat Niki Tsongas and Republican Jim Ogonowski in the Fifth Congressional District. In that one, Tsongas should have won by 20 points, given warm feelings toward her late husband, Paul.

Instead, she won in a relative squeaker, slightly more than five percentage points ahead of Ogonowski, a badly underfunded Republican whose claim to fame was based on his brother’s heroic role as a pilot during the 9-11 attacks.

Here’s the kicker: the national political climate two years ago heavily favored Democrats, as Bush’s popularity faded and the GOP lost control of Congress. It never should have been a competitive race, yet just a bit of attention from the increasingly inept national party could have put the Republican over the top.

In 2009, we’ve got the opposite environment, with Obama’s popularity fading fast and Republicans now leading Democrats on the generic congressional ballot (historically rare).

If Scott Brown were to run a more effective (aggressive) campaign than Ogonowski in 2007, Martha’s cakewalk vanishes and this becomes a truly tight race.

Coakley’s also got an even bigger problem: many of her voters may wrongly assume the race ended on primary day. Or, if they’re aware of the general election, they assume Coakley will sail to victory, so there’s no need to vote.

By contrast, the opposition is chomping at the bit to get a chance to go to the polls and express their disgust. It’s up to Scott Brown to channel that energy and get his own side fired up as much as possible.