Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Lessons from Last Night

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We have to simplify the message. For instance, the discussion in this campaign should not have been about “Obama's health care plan.” It should have been about prohibiting insurers from denying coverage due to preexisting conditions. It should have been about guaranteeing that if you get sick, your insurer can't drop your coverage. It should have been about expanding drug coverage for Seniors. It should have been about allowing 55-64 year olds the chance to buy into Medicare. There are dozens of good, popular things in that bill, but Coakley never spoke about them in simple, specific terms. We need to break our issues down to simple, easy to understand points and hammer away on those points.

We have to define our opponents and fight the campaign on our terms. Martha Coakley should have been out the day after the primary with a commercial similar to my video endorsement. She should have looked straight into the camera and told the people of Massachusetts what she stood for, and how that was different from Brown's position. Set a narrative about yourself and your opponent and make the opponent work to change people's minds.

We have to give people an affirmative reason to vote for our candidates; voting against the other guy isn't good enough. Did Coakley ever tell you why she wanted to be our Senator? Did she ever outline a rationale for her campaign? Anyone could have run under the mantle of carrying on Ted Kennedy's legacy and saving the President's agenda. In the end, people needed a reason to vote for Coakley and she never gave it to them. The entire theme of the Coakley campaign the last 10 days was “Don't vote for that scary Republican.” That rarely works, and since Brown had already defined himself (see previous point), it was particularly ineffective this time.

We have to ask people for their votes. It seems like that should go unsaid, but did Coakley ever look you straight in the eye (through the magic of TV, or in person) and tell you she needed your vote? We cannot win on principles and issues alone. While those are extremely important, in the end we are electing a person, not an issue. That person needs to ask for our votes.

“Get out the vote” can't mean someone gets out the vote for us, it has to mean our candidates get out the vote themselves. Those of us who work on campaigns can hold signs and phone bank and all of that, but the candidate has to get on the ground in those areas where the base is. By and large, the urban centers had lower turnout than the suburbs and if Coakley was going to win, she needed those areas to turnout in high numbers. The people working the phones worked very hard to get folks out, but how many days did Coakley spend shaking hands in Senior Centers in Worcester, or Community Centers in Springfield, or in Churches in Roxbury? The point is that our candidates cannot take our reliable Democratic votes for granted, or that they may not be so reliable after all.

We have to ignore the “fundamentals.” Every statistical model, every historical campaign, every last piece of data pointed to an easy Coakley win. We all believed it. Worse, the campaign believed it. We cannot afford to wake up after primary day this September and think “If all the Dems who came out for the primary vote in November, we can't lose.” If it takes us until the end of October to get in gear, it will be too late.

Finally, those of us who are not candidates can't wait for our candidates to do the right thing. Unfortunately, some of our favorite people will need to be dragged kicking and screaming out to shake hands, and meet with town and ward committees, and work the phones with us o get themselves reelected. We have to get organized and motivated and committed NOW. Every town and ward committee has a role to play. Write letters to the editors of your newspapers touting your candidates. Find out what your opponent stands for and gently (but firmly) question him or her about it. Call your neighbors. Hold house parties. Whatever you can do. But do not wait until mid-September to get moving.

Yesterday is over. It is what it is. It's our job to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Cross posted at No Drumlins.

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  1. I write for the blog http://www.richardhowe.com based in Lowell. One of our commenters, Arthur, pointed out that the amount of votes Brown received in Lowell was almost identical to the number received by McCain/Palin. Brown received 10,548 votes and McCain/Palin received 10,393.

    <

    p>We decided to test this for the surrounding communities and found that the pattern continued. In Billerica, Brown got 9,583 votes and McCain/Palin got 9,274. In Chelmsford, Brown got 9,417 votes and McCain/Palin got 8,704. In Dracut, Brown got 7,658 votes and McCain/Palin got 7,284. In Tewksbury, Brown got 7,353 votes and McCain/Palin got 7,659. In Tyngsborough, Brown got 3,186 votes and McCain/Palin got 3,082. In Andover, Brown got 8,336 votes and McCain/Palin got 7,786. In Haverhill, Brown got 11,069 votes and McCain/Palin got 10,764. In Lawrence, Brown got 3,331 votes and McCain/Palin got 3,620. In Methuen, Brown got 9,171 votes and McCain/Palin got 9,285 votes.

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    p>In all, Brown received 79,651 votes to McCain/Palin’s 77,851. This was an increase of only 2.26%. We concluded that, for the area around Lowell at least, there was no surge of independents who had voted for Obama who suddenly switched their votes to Brown, as the news media has been saying.

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    p>To test our hypothesis further, we looked at the communities listed on BMG as bellwethers before polls closed. The pattern held up.
    Chicopee: Brown got 8,339 votes; McCain/Palin got 8,259 votes.
    Falmouth: Brown got 8,041 votes; McCain/Palin got 7,492 votes.
    Fitchburg: Brown got 5,574 votes; McCain/Palin got 5,367 votes.
    Hull: Brown got 2,409 votes; McCain/Palin got 2,258 votes.
    Milton: Brown got 6,347 votes; McCain/Palin got 5,743 votes.
    Quincy: Brown got 15,607 votes; McCain/Palin got 15,536 votes.
    South Hadley: Brown got 3,434 votes; McCain/Palin got 3,195 votes.
    Waltham: Brown got 8,546 votes; McCain/Palin got 8,372 votes.
    Wellesley: Brown got 5,922 votes; McCain/Palin got 4,818 votes.
    Westport: Brown got 3,203 votes; McCain/Palin got 3,066 votes.
    Winthrop: Brown got 3,596 votes; McCain/Palin got 3,567 votes.

    <

    p>This puts the totals at 150,669 votes for Brown and 145,524 for McCain/Palin in the 21 communities surveyed. That means that the vote for Brown was only 3.4% larger than the vote for McCain/Palin.

    <

    p>We think that this means that Brown only succeeded in getting the Republican base to turn up at the polls and did not win over more than a few Obama supporters. We wanted to throw this out there and are wondering what everyone else thinks of this pattern. Is this true for the rest of the state? If so, then this election represents a failure on the Democrats’ part turning out their base, rather than a Republican winning away voters who had voted for Obama.

    <

    p>(The relevant post can be found here.)

    • Nov. 2008: Obama/Biden 12984, McCain/Palin 4593

      <

      p>Jan. 2010: Coakley: 9378, McCain/Palin 4955

      <

      p>If I calculated correctly, that’s an 8% increase on the Republican side and a 28% decrease on the Dem side.

      <

      p>I can’t quibble with anything nodrumlins says. Good post!

    • We think that this means that Brown only succeeded in getting the Republican base to turn up at the polls and did not win over more than a few Obama supporters.

      This poll (and I apologize for posting it yet again) does not support your thinking:

      18% of Obama supporters who voted supported Brown.

      That’s more than a few. If they are right, your numbers suggest that a nearly equal number of McCain voters stayed home.

      • And actually is worse news for Republicans, who are talking like they’ve made inroads in MA.

        <

        p>We know the motivated base of the R’s turned up in droves for this race – they would have been crazy not to. The motivated Dems generally do too, though I’m guessing less so than the R’s.

        <

        p>The less regular voters on both sides (generally U’s that lean one way or other, or some D’s/R’s but see above) are less likely to turn up in a special election (they generally only stir themselves for a prez race, sometimes for a Gov). If those people still stayed home even with a competitive race, and much of the difference was made up of the 3:2 former Obama voter pissed about them not passing their agenda, then those voters are seriously up for grabs for the Dems in 2010, and in 2012 with a great candidate.

        <

        p>And for those who say that Patrick is in trouble, one forgets that he actually knows very well how to wage a good campaign. And contrary to the news media storyline, he’s actually done a LOT of stuff that he can be proud of, so if that story gets told in the campaign, I think you could see a change of favorable numbers. (Also, Cahill, hahaha.)

        • I hope the news is just as horrible in November. Maybe even more horrible.

          <

          p>Remember the days when we used to debate the public option… single payer… abortion funding in the healthcare bill… Now we have been reduced to “will there even be a healthcare bill”. I hope there is, bu a truly bipartisan one (just like Obama wanted from the beginning). The news for Republicans keeps getting worse.

          <

          p>Great job of getting out the vote in Lowell.

          <

          p>Lowell 38% turnout Brown got 10,548 and Martha only got 9,547.

          <

          p>Please help get out the vote in November as well.

          <

          p>GO SCOTT GO!!!!!

      • Working with the 18%, that means that about 340,395 Obama supporters voted for Brown. When you compare his turnout to the McCain/Palin vote, that means about 276,572 McCain/Palin voters either did not show up or voted for Coakley. That’s 25% of their voters.

        <

        p>If this is true then I stand corrected. But 25% seems rather high. Are there any other exit polls that show the same thing? Especially ones polling people who voted for McCain/Palin?

        <

        p>(Assuming that 18% of Obama supporters did vote for Brown and all of Coakley’s supporters did vote for Obama, that means about 492,000 Obama supporters did not vote at all in this election. That’s 26% of his total vote.)

    • Those statistics are aggregated,  without  an exit poll you have no idea what side voted for who. McCain voters could have crossed  over for Coakley – I doubt it but it’s possible.

      <

      p> Don’t forget the arrogance  of our legislators,  changing the way we replace senators because a republican was governor, really didn’t work out for them.  If you believe in a fair election process you don’t change the rules in the middle of the game.

      <

      p>

      • that motivated many voters. This was a referendum on not seeing a faster, stronger govt reaction on the economy, the perception of coziness with Wall St, and the health care bill not going far enough.

        <

        p>And that was FROM an exit poll, by the way – the one that many people have cited, which showed that by 3:2 former Obama voters voting for Brown thought exactly that.

          • I’m pretty sure that was directed at me.

            <

            p>It does seem that our hypothesis was wrong; about 30% of those who voted on Tuesday switched from Obama to Brown. However, the poll kirth posted is pretty clear about why they switched.

            <

            p>They’re unhappy with the Democrats not doing enough and being too close to lobbyists. They don’t think Obama and the Democrats have delivered on enough of their campaign promises.

    • McCain/Palin 1,104,284 Brown increase 5.8% to 1,168,107
      Obama 1,891,083  Coakley 1,058,682

    • Nov. 2008: Obama/Biden 17,507, McCain/Palin 8,627
      Jan. 2010: Coakley: 11,415, McCain/Palin 8,381

  2. Republicans were motivated to vote. Coakley really didn’t motivate anyone. Many voters for Obama in 2008 were motivated to vote for Obama, Lots of the Obama voters were first time voters or only Presidential voters.

    <

    p>How about turnout in college towns? Obama turned on very young voters in 2008. I bet a lot of these voters were either still on Christmas break or didn’t even now there was an election.

    • If, on election day, your opponents are using this and you’ve asked your supporters to randomly leaflet neighborhoods, it means your voter ID operation was terrible.
    • Don’t just phone bank for phonebanking’s sake.  If you’re collecting data, do something with it.
    • Even the brightest political/strategic minds in the country can not turnaround a campaign in the last seven days if there’s no foundation to build on.
    • Female candidates who make rape a focus of a TV ad campaign are now 0-2 in statewide elections.  I’m not really sure if that means anything.
    • Give local committees goals.  Contacting them just to ‘introduce yourself’ is helpful only if you’re willing to empower them, take suggestions, or give direction.
    • If, at the end of an election, all you can say is “But I Tweeted so hard!” Then you didn’t do anything.
    • I can no longer subsist for an entire day on only pizza and beer.

  4. In overwhelmingly Democratic Boston, Coakley pulled 69 percent of the vote, giving her a margin coming out of the city of about 59,000 votes. She rolled up huge margins in the predominantly black and Hispanic wards of the city, but the turnout was so light that it did not give her much of a lift. In Roxbury’s Ward 12, for instance, she beat Brown, 3,529 votes to 131, a 27-to-1 margin. The turnout, however, was only 34 percent.

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