I hope you find this enlightening.
Some research done by
“If there is one unassailable bit of conventional wisdom among Democrats in this state it is that Martha Coakley blew the special senate election against Scott Brown in 2010 with her gaffe prone campaign. It is such a verity that the AG herself, campaigning for governor, goes about the state in sack cloth chanting mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. The only problem with that narrative is that it is wrong. Martha’s Mistakes didn’t matter.”
www.masspoliticsprofs.com/2013/10/10/the-myth-of-martha-coakleys-mistakes/
Please share widely!
The primary promulgators of this “myth” are “supporters” and the Martha Coakley campaign itself. I offer “Forgive Martha” thread as Exhibit A … enough is enough.
What does this thread do that the one Tom linked to doesn’t. And seriously, you guys are really trolling this one and making your candidate look bad. At least Doug and Kate have the decency to apologize and move on.
How about ‘Why I’m backing Martha’ or ‘Why Coakley is the most progressive’-I am really interested in what those posts might say. This just seems like another way to bait Coakley foes and belittle us as sexist. I won’t take part.
but you won’t find any accusations of sexism from me.
In fact I down rated some of the accusations and “denouncement” of you. I don’t think you hate Coakley because of her sex, I think you hate her because people much, much, much smarter than you have convinced you of a lie.
I’m not sexist, just an idiot. Phew!
I’m happy to join you on the back-bench of the Coakley campaign, reserved for sexist idiots like you and me.
So say we all!
As a supporter of Don Berwick, I hope you and your cohorts continue to push this meme as hard as you can.
Your arrogant attacks on and insults towards jconway exemplify the aspect of Ms. Coakley that energizes my animosity towards her. With supporters like you, Ms. Coakley needs no opponent.
And yes, that last observation WAS at play in her earlier debacle. I was a supporter of Mike Capuano during the special primary who very reluctantly pulled the lever for Ms. Coakley in the special.
I saw the same arrogant and insulting behavior from her supporters then that has been so much on display now. I can’t help but conclude that something about Ms. Coakley attracts “supporters” like you.
In any case, I encourage you to keep on keeping on. Displays such as your last comment towards jconway do more for my candidate than anything the Berwick campaign could invent.
So “the lie” is that her mistakes mattered?
Coakley +31 to Brown +7, according to your link.
32 of those were BEFORE the “Fenway” line.
So I’m essentially willing to accept your premise that the most famous mistakes didn’t matter, but I have to say, this makes me even more nervous about nominating Martha. Even without the gaffes, she was sinking like a stone.
…beneath a Tea Party tidal wave. You remember the Tea Party, yes?
She was sinking like a stone under the dead weight of her own COMPLETE disconnect with the voters of Massachusetts, the issues that matter to us, and her demonstrated unwillingness to actually lead on any of them.
Martha was dealt a bad hand…she was the first one hit by the reactionary Tea Party. It would have swamped anybody. Crud timing.
But…if Heidi Heitkamp can get elected US Senator as a Democrat in North Dakota in 2012, clearly nobody is unbeatable. I think anyone would have had a real fight on their hands against Scott Brown. I don’t think every candidate would have lost.
The wave that swept Nikki Tsongas, John Tierney, Bill Keating out of
Office along with the Corner Office and General Court…oh wait that didn’t flipping happen since MA had the best Dem result of the 2010 elections.
Coakley’s failed campaign — and her mistakes — woke the Democrats up and forced everybody to campaign. Coakley forced Democrats to not take anything for granted. And, Governor Patrick, who always out-organizes his opponents, was on the ballot. And, as for Keating in 2010, it was no guarantee that he was going to win that one. It helped a lot that his GOP opponent was a pretty horrible human being.
Look, there’s only so much we can blame Coakley’s loss on the Tea Party — there is no *question* she ran a crummy campaign in 2010. But we can either think that Coakley learned from her mistakes in 2010, like the rest of the Democrats did, or not. Seems to me which side of the fence you are on that question is more of a Rorschach of the voter than a commentary on Coakley herself.
There are plenty of reasons why Coakley should or should not be Governor. Her campaign and her detractors will be making those arguments. But let’s remember that every election is different — even ones in the same year — and that each election ought to be about the future and not the past. In 2014, I think most voters want to know what these candidates are actually going to do as Governor and don’t really care what they already did as a candidate in 2010. Let’s focus on that.
if Coakley supporters didn’t continue to post about 2010 rather than 2014.
Also, we’re not “most voters.” I’m certainly not saying we’re better than any other voters. But we are largely political junkies and activists trying to pick a candidate. For us the extent to which Coakley is to blame for 2010, and whether or not she’ll run a better race this time, are relevant questions. We’d like to hold the office.
Of course, other aspects of her record (good and bad) and her vision for the corner office also are highly relevant in that process.
I don’t think Coakley supporters are doing her any favors by consistently bringing up 2010. I suspect they are keenly sensitive to the issue and are eager to come to her aid…but aren’t really helping. They’d be better off talking about issues where she is on surer footing.
I also agree that BMGers are not “most voters,” and didn’t meant to imply otherwise. But I do think that this issue on BMG has been hashed and rehashed. I do wish that we would focus on 2014 (and what that person wants to do in 2015) if only because I find that more edifying personally.
“I personally pledge not to bring up 2010 in response to any post focusing on what Martha Coakley wants to do in the 2014 campaign and as governor.”
I don’t think I’ve ever raised 2010 on my own, though I have replied to statements about it with which I disagreed (as on this thread).
It seems to me that the objective reality is that Scott Brown was the political story of 2010. Certainly NOT Martha Coakley.
I think it was *Scott Brown*, not Martha Coakley, who woke everybody up. I think the emergence of Elizabeth Warren was perfectly timed. Ms. Warren was everything that Scott Brown was not. I note that the Scott Brown campaign against Elizabeth Warren was at least as incompetent, badly managed, and generally crummy as any Democratic campaign I can remember. It didn’t help that Scott Brown himself was his own worst enemy.
I hate to belabor the point, but the top ranks of a subset of the Massachusetts Democratic Party establishment are the ONLY people who even remember Martha Coakley’s name. After his 2010 victory, Scott Brown was THE political story — both locally and nationally.
I actually think the “Tea Party tidal wave” helped Elizabeth Warren a great deal, particularly in contrast to Scott Brown. Ms. Warren validated many aspects of class warfare that the Tea Party movement draws its own energy from. Elizabeth Warren demonstrates, over and over, that she understands how to focus that energy on needed, effective, and persuasive political action.
Two years of “Senator Scott Brown” were, in my opinion, what woke Democrats up. That reality partially explains why I find this whole meme and spin so perturbing … because it is patently false.
I got the sense that when it was announced on election night that January that Scott Brown had won, the most surprised person in the state was Scott Brown himself. He ran to get his name out there, but then got to the Senate and seemed to show he was in over his head and just ended up following party leadership because he was too dear-in-the-headlights to think for himself. It reminds me of the movie (I forget the title.) wherein the underdog pulls off an upset victory and upon being told he won, the last line of the movie is his saying, “Now what do we do?”
Why do almost none of the other Democrats in Congress understand or practice that? I see Al Franken, but where is everyone else?
This simply isn’t true. I have regular interactions with politically active individuals in D.C. and from other states. They always ask, so who’s running for Governor. And, just at the mere mention of her name, they always remember Coakley lost to Brown in 2010. They always ask something about the repercussions from that race. They remember.
…she IS the sitting AG. In this race as in that one her poll numbers showing her leading the field are likely largely a product precisely of name recognition. For better or worse, people know who she is.
I enjoy Professor Cunningham’s writings but I don’t find that post compelling in the least. The argument based on the timeline is not helpful. There are far too few polls, spread too far apart, to show the decline of Coakley’s fortunes with any precision. Plus, special election polls are notoriously difficult: Polling on the Markey special showed a 6-point race and a 20-point race in the same week.
The social science cited does not exonerate the candidate:
Unmotivated does not mean unmotivatable. Perhaps Coakley’s lack of outreach to minority neighborhoods played a role here? In November 2010 statewide turnout was about the same as in January, but urban turnout was up. And Deval Patrick got 30,000 more votes in the cities than Coakley did, even with a third candidate taking nearly 7%.
The economy was poor enough in November 2009 that Republicans took the governor’s seats in NJ and VA. At the same time, Martha Coakley was up 30 in the polls. Unless you discount the November Suffolk poll, in which case the idea that the collapse came, due to external factors, before the gaffes goes out the window.
Perhaps, had Coakley had pedal to the floor throughout December, there would not have been a narrowing of the polling prompting such a shift.
I am reminded of a Daily Kos commenter last year who insisted the Markey campaign was “moribund.” I said I’d been out canvassing a dozen times myself and our local Markey office was a beehive of activity. We agreed to disagree, and neither narrative took hold.
In the Coakley-Brown race, the absolutely inexcusable gaffes allowed the narrative of a flailing, inept campaign (a narrative created by the difference between two polls (+31 to +9 in 8 weeks)) to calcify. Many voters tune in during the last three weeks: the period in which the modest +9 turned into a catastrophic -5 in the only poll that mattered.
Thanks.
I don’t mean you’re wrong, and I don’t mean that my BMG pals are wrong. This is an argument you lose by arguing it.
I understand your frustration and desire to win the argument, but Coakley would be better served with you posting about her platform and accomplishments.
but right now, her being in front of this issue is about the only issue for which I can demonstrate graditude, and by itself, it isn’t enough because I would like to not devolve into a one-issue voter, regardless of how much I care about this one issue.
I agree. The Myth is set in stone, and perception is reality. You can’t change someone’s mind if they’ve decide to stop thinking. I don’t really mind if someone hates a candidate, I just mind when their reason is false.
How many different ways do so many different Democratic activists have to tell you that your myth exists primarily in the perception of your own candidate’s campaign, and apparently yourself?
I’ll tell you what is “set in stone” — Martha Coakley’s record as Attorney General. Her decisions about who and what to investigate and prosecute. Her eager embrace of EXPANDED government invasions of my privacy.
Tell me, please — after the all-too-brief and obligatory press conference following Paul Ware’s devastating report about the MASSIVE corruption plaguing the Probation Department, Martha Coakley promised an “aggressive investigation” by a “team of prosecutors”.
What came of that? Who did Martha Coakley’s office investigate, what did they find? If they indicted anybody (THOUSANDS of fraudulent job interviews were performed, with falsified scoring sheets orchestrated by Mr. O’Brien), WHO? If they didn’t indict anybody, why not?
In the Probation Department scandal, the McLaughlin scandal, the Dookhan scandal, even the City Hall connection to Diane Wilkerson’s corruption — all of them — please show me where Martha Coakley has shown ANY willingness to pursue wrongdoing by corrupt Democrats?
That record of looking the other way at wrong-doing in order to advance her own political career is what is MUCH harder to dislodge in THIS Democratic voter than anything she did or didn’t do in a campaign years ago.
matter who’s right and who’s wrong. The damage, whatever the cause, is done.
The message that I keep getting from some Coakley supporters here is “remember that she lost in 2010”. How, whether it was her fault, not her fault, or some combination of both, does that convince me to vote for her? I really don’t care about that anymore.
In the end, we got a much better Senator in Liz Warren. Which is the real problem with Coakley, at least for me. Over time I have come to realize that she just is not a progressive. I think she would be a particularly poor leader on criminal justice issues, and I don’t really trust her on economic issues either. I don’t feel she has a particularly strong sense of justice, despite her serving as AG for all these years. I hope somebody else gets the nomination, and at the very least I think Democratic voters deserve a primary.
1. Loss of a seat held by Senator Kennedy for decades was humiliating.
2. Loss of a filibuster-proof major in the Senate meant the end of President Obama being able to get any major legislation through.
Sens. Lieberman and Nelson could never be taken for granted and I got the sense they liked it that way.
Sadly, though, each was better than Mr Brown who also relished that role.
…I recommend adding the MassPoliticalProfs site to your browser favorites. They post about once a day during the week and I find them to have well-thought and well-written analysis. They trend liberal for the most part, not so much in an ideological sense, but in the reality-has-a-liberal-bias sense.
After some work, I actually got the note from Prof. Cunningham. I expected to find that the paragraph quoted above was the conclusion of a carefully reasoned article containing all sorts of political science goodness.
Instead, that was the entire article. So there’s not enough there there to form a conclusion.
If I can guess, the political scientists of the world look at cold, objective metrics (e.g., direction of the unemployment rate) and derive from them predictions of electoral outcomes. Perhaps there is some model whereby a Democrat, even in Massachusetts, had only a 20% chance of winning (to invent a number). This analysis has not been provided, and that reduces the quoted paragraph to a mere argument from authority. (Oh! He’s a professor! With a blog!)
of pointing out the article’s shortcomings. There is enough in the article for a hypothesis, but not a conclusion.
Her 30 point differential in November was largely name recognition, much as Baker has a 30 point lead right now on Democrats most of the state hasn’t heard. If one of them emerges and wins the primary, that advantage will disappear quickly. The collapse of 30 points is neither surprising nor in and of itself catastrophic. In fact it’s the natural order of things.
That is what is so disturbing about her campaign. This was easy to see coming.
I think Cunningham has a point that her gaffes such as the Fenway and Schilling gaffes weren’t what did her in. It’s the long-term 7-week long gaffe of not running a real campaign. This was a race that everyone should have assumed would be single digits, based on everything we knew about the political environment and the fact that 50% of Massachusetts voters are unenrolled. Did we assume that it was a mantle pass from Kennedy to “Any Dem Will Do?” That’s what the “People’s Seat” comment unravelled in one easy focus-grouped phrase.
Those of us upset at Coakley aren’t upset that she made situational gaffes. Anyone can do that. We’re upset that she ran a crappy primary based on ‘let the boys fight it out, cause none can beat me’, and then continued that crappiness into the general:
– Leaving out the back door of events
– Mailing out negative mailers putting Brown in a UPS uniform
– The f’ing vacation
– Didn’t have volunteers knock on a single door until the last few days
– The predictive dialer had thousands of callers from around the country calling the same people over and over and over and over and over in the same hour
– The DSCC asked African American volunteers to go into their communities with negative lit against Joe Kennedy (the independent at the time)
– etc.
She could have run a good campaign from day one. Had she done so, she probably would have won a close race.
The good news is her current campaign has fixed the “gaffe” of utter incompetence and dereliction of duty. The bad news is she’s still basically running the same ‘run out the clock’ primary in 20014 that she did in 2009. It feels like we’ve been here before. This time, though, once her name recognition advantage dwindles away, I think so will her victory.