3. Have a narrative to give your agenda coherence.
This failure doesn’t belong to Coakley alone. If she had a narrative, it was “vote for me, I’m the next Democrat in line.” The Democrat Party in general lacks a compelling narrative to unite its various positions. The New Deal gave us the narrative of the federal government (protagonist) battling against unemployment and big business (antagonists) using government programs. Movement conservatives, with the help of a Thermidorian reaction against the left, successfully destroyed the effectiveness of this narrative.
Brown’s narratives ranged from ridiculous–lower taxes equals jobs–to sublime–the masterful commercial with Brown and JFK. Yes, that amused political sophisticates like us but (incidentally, our vote doesn’t count any more than anyone else’s) it neutralized the Kennedy issue defining Brown as the real heir to the dynasty. Brown’s campaign was a good one, much better than Kerry Healey’s.
As a Democrat, I feel a lot like a pre-2004 Red Sox. Dedicated to and disgusted by my team. Martha Coakley may be 2010’s Bill Buckner, but the Democratic Party at the state and national level is the crappy management that allowed her to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. Yeah, they were all suprised. More’s the pity. The simple rule is to treat every election as a real contest.
A part of the Democratic base, I’m screwed. Believing in much of the party’s watered down platform and stuck with the Democrats inability to carry it out. It’s a matter of whether or not the Democrats are capable of getting it and once they get it are able to do something about it.
tblade characterized the party well in another post. Democrats are “cats.”
Mark
Let’s see who’ll run against her.
though I somewhat disagree with one of your points. I think Coakley was wise not to engage in negative advertising early, because the “I’m going to ignore you because I’m leading big” front-runner strategy was the way to go when she really was winning big.
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p>However, the key by far is your #1 — Coakley should have defined herself positively right from the start. Obviously, this meant working hard and holding numerous public events following the primary, which she failed to do. It also meant (re-)introducing herself to the voters, complete with the narrative you note in #3.
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p>The narrative was obvious, but it wasn’t used: “As your Attorney General over the past three years, I have fought for you. If you elect me your United States Senator, I’ll continue what I’ve been doing for the Commonwealth: fighting for the public interest.” Then you roll out some nice Vicki Kennedy stuff, which should have come together much earlier, and then some tough ads about taking on the banks and corporate fraud.
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p>Only then would it make sense to unleash negative ads, once it appeared Brown was closing (by the way, I don’t understand why the Coakley campaign wasn’t conducting more internal polling earlier. Very strange). Negative ads work, but only if the messenger is credible. The onslaught of negative ads in the last week only played into the narrative Brown created of her, since she failed to do so herself.
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p>(And as a side note, I doubt Brown’s JFK ad was very effective with the voters. It was effective in that it gave him a little bit of buzz, but it I think it ultimately played little or no role in his surge).
I really think it was pretty lame, even in retrospect — his later ads were much better. But it did get him some free press.
negative advertising. Coakley couldn’t appear negative that early on.
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p>However, Democrats needed to define Brown earlier and that definition had to be negative. That could be done through surrogates, but the various stories had to be out there.
The King Philip High School episode should have been devastating.
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p>You and David may be right about the JFK commercial. I don’t know how effective it was, but it was rhetorically very clever. Cheesy, but clever. None of us is likely to be influenced by such an ad, but a Kennedy independent, if there is such a thing, would likely be moved.
Running ads
Meeting voters
Giving interviews
Givng the impression that you actively want people to vote for you
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p>I’m going to try to move on from venting, and there were multiple varialbles but this was a serious case of political malpractice. For more of my analysis of the Coaklastrophe see: http://liebesphere.blogspot.com/
Brown’s advantage was getting way, way ahead of Martha. There’s a gov election in 10 months; let’s identify his positives, Baker’s negatives, and frame the message.
I can think of for Deval Patrick is “Vote for me. I’m not as bad as the other guy.” I can’t think of an affirmative reason to vote for our governor again. Maybe “Who knows, maybe I’ll figure out how to make this work!” Or appeal to independents by bragging about how much he’s offended many of his constituencies.
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p>On a more realistic tack, he needs to stress that he’s learned how to make things work and can now put it into effect. I don’t know Charlie Baker well enough to frame him. Patrick’s best hope is to somehow trash him–hard to do while taking the high road.
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p>Patrick needs to peel voters away from Baker, and get those voters to vote for Cahill or a wingnut if one pops up. Patrick’s not going to gain many votes beyond diehard Democrats; he simply hasn’t earned them. People had no opinion on Coakley, voters have a serious, deep antipathy towards him. His best bet is to make the election about someone else and make that person less popular him.
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p>I was talking to a fellow commuter rail passenger the night of the election: he wished he could vote for the candidate who had made the least number of calls to his various phones. Only the problem was that each candidate had made too many calls to count…
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p>The single most common sentiment I heard, the day after the election, was “Boy am I glad that’s over.”
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p>We here at BMG have the stomach (for the most part) for the constant and continuous campaign. But at some point, well below our threshold for pain, the campaign becomes intrusive. I think that, at the point where it becomes intrusive, the Republicans reach the tipping point where thinking voters turn into reactive sami-captives eager only for the end of the campaign. Lose lose for everybody concerned, if you ask me.
but “Thanks. I’m voting for Coakley.” SEIU, my own MTA.
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p>Those phone calls were not part of an A game. They were more a war of attrition–a Vietnam campaign strategy. Make the people suffer until they accept your regime.
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p>There’s a place for campaign phone calls, but 2-5 times a day for four or five days not only appears desperate, it’s freaking annoying. Almost as annoying as watching 2 to 4 campaign commercials back to back on my local network affiliates.
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p>I’m glad its over too. It was like being stuck in a very long, very bad movie.