I know many of you don’t trust my judgement, but here’s Bay Stater D.R. Tucker at the Washington Monthly on “The Case for Coakley“:
Ask yourself: why do the media and political elites want Massachusetts Democratic gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley to lose?
Do they think she should have curled into a ball after the unfortunate outcome of the January 2010 special Senate election in the Bay State? Do they think she should have tried to get a cushy private-sector job instead of continuing her fight on behalf of the powerless, the vulnerable, the working-class folks who break their backs every day trying to stay above water financially? Should she have just quit?
She didn’t quit after that election. She kept on fighting as attorney general, confronting the special interests that were putting the screws to those on the economic bottom, brawling with the big shots who wanted the political and legal system to work for them, not you…
There is a belief in some sections of the Bay State that Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker represents a return to old-school, centrist, reasonable New England Republicanism, the sort of rationality embodied by former Massachusetts Senator Edward Brooke. The idea that moderate Republicanism can return to life is powerfully seductive. It’s something we all desperately wish could be true. I found this idea powerfully seductive; it’s why I voted for Baker when he first ran for governor four years ago.
However, even the most idealistic among us now have to acknowledge that “moderate Republicanism” is as much of a fiction as “clean coal,” and that this seduction is always followed by a betrayal…
And here’s Mr. Pierce, with “Two Cheers for Martha“:
…[T]he last two Democratic governors [in Massachusetts] were Michael Dukakis, a neoliberal technocrat, and Deval Patrick, who, at least in his first campaign, ran as the same kind of post-partisan uniter that his good friend from Illinois pronounced himself to be in 2008. For our governors especially, but statewide generally, we elect Republicans. We elect Democrats. We do not elect wingnuts, nor do we elect radical southpaws. We’re a helluva lot more conventional than our image would have you believe. (Senator Professor Warren was both sui generis, and the exception that proves the rule.) And, frankly, Martha Coakley has run a decent campaign for governor, a campaign clearly superior to the one she ran against McDreamy. She won a tough Democratic primary, with opponents who covered the entire spectrum of Democratic politics. She has more than held her own against Baker in their debates. She has done everything that people said she failed to do in 2010, including humanizing herself through her ads. (There’s a very good one in which she describes her brother’s struggle with mental illness, a story that I, for one, had never heard before.) In addition, since losing to Brown, she’s been a damned good attorney general. And Charlie Baker has run a campaign of pablum.
Which brings me to the basic conundrum of this race — why is Martha Coakley paying forever for the bad campaign she ran in 2010 while Charlie Baker doesn’t pay at all for the equally terrible campaign he ran for governor later that same year? They’re both retreads. Neither one of them is in the least charismatic. At least Coakley’s been elected, several times, to a statewide office.
In 2010, Baker ran a nasty, futile, flailing campaign against Deval Patrick, who was perceived as being vulnerable by a lot of the same wiseguys who now see Baker as practically inevitable. Patrick kicked Baker’s ass from hell until breakfast. And this came after almost 20 years of Baker’s playing Hamlet during every state election cycle. In 2006, when there was no incumbent governor because Willard Romney finally gave up the job he’d quit doing back in 2004, Baker got scared out of a Republican primary by the mighty political demigod that was Kerry Murphy Healey, who went on to lose to Patrick, whom nobody expected to win at the beginning of the campaign, by 10 points.
What’s different now? Go back to the aging Hibernian power elite that I mentioned earlier in the piece. Unlike Healey, Baker is wired into that elite as one CEO among others. (Many of those people are the same people who can be, ah, inconvenienced by an attorney general who’s committed to doing her job well.)…
And EvenTheLiberal New Republic points out that “Martha Coakley Isn’t Choking“:
… The attorney general, to be sure, will never be confused for a political dynamo. She’s a product of a sclerotic Massachusetts Democratic Party establishment that specializes in producing hacks (and oftentimes felonious ones at that). In fact, the only Democrat to be elected governor in Massachusetts in the last 24 years is Deval Patrick, who won in large part because he wasn’t part of that Democratic establishment…
Making things even more difficult for Coakley is the fact that, like in 2010, when she was the first of many Democrats to be swept away by the Tea Party wave, she’s again running in an inhospitable political environment for Democrats. Although the conventional wisdom in Massachusetts is that a Coakley defeat would tarnish Deval Patrick’s legacy, CommonWealth’s Michael Jonas argues that “it is Patrick and his problem-plagued second term in office, as much as her own shortcomings as a candidate, that could ultimately be Coakley’s undoing.” As the Washington Post’s Philip Bump recently put it, “Coakley has a remarkable knack for running for high office right when the weather turns nasty.”
Finally, there’s the nasty matter of sexism. Historically, Massachusetts doesn’t like female candidates. And, for all the plaudits showered on the Commonwealth’s voters for overcoming their seeming misogyny by sending Elizabeth Warren to the Senate two years ago, the fact is that Warren is a political superstar. We’ll know Massachusetts has reached true gender equality when its female hacks stand as good a chance as its male ones…
Not to mention, there’s the Republican (not that he ever mentions his party affiliation) running against her. Read David S. Bernstein’s Boston Magazine profile of “Charlie Baker 2.0…” the warmest, nicest, friendliest, most amicable gubernatorial candidate you’ll ever meet. And he will not give a straight answer to a single question that I ask him.” Think about whether this is the guy you really want to trust with the corner office of our battered Commonwealth — because I sure as hell don’t.
JMG
Baker will win, because many of the Democratic legislators, notably including House Speaker DeLeo, do not want the aggravation of being forced to negotiate with a progressive Democratic Governor. It’ll be easy to cut deals with Baker, as the legislators share his basic goals — do nothing, especially nothing that might require raising taxes.
JMG
PS: Less ideologically, there’s just something about Coakley that gets the backs up of urban Eastern Mass pols. Marty Walsh, as progressive as she if not more so, has been notable by his lack of vigorous support. Her relations with both the late Tom Menino and the African American political community were dismal in 2010, the primary reason she lost that time. It may have something to do with the fact the Attorney General investigates pols. AG Scott Harshbarger lost in ;98, too, a very good Democratic year otherwise.
Downpuppy
I look forward to when, after Baker has turned the pension funds over to his buddies & they’ve stripped them, the Globe tells state workers they need to share in the sacrifice.
I look forward to this with torch and pitchfork ready.
Valdivia
@JMG: sounds like a lot of our guys in Congress actually.
FlyingToaster
Fells Acres. Louise Woodward. My next door neighbor. Yadda, yadda, yadda.
I held my nose and voted for her against Senator Centerfold — and she lost.
Never again.
Bobby Thomson
@JMG: I think it has much, much more to do with her lack of a penis.
Shit, Massachusetts voted for Reagan. It’s not nearly as liberal as people think.
Bobby Thomson
I’d be very interested in which of those words put my comment into moderation. Probably the term for a male member.
Let’s test it. Reagan.
ETA: Nah, that went through.
different-church-lady
Maybe the more appropriate question is, “What is it about Martha Coakley that makes more people vote for her opponent than her?”
It’s not your judgment that’s in question, it’s your ability to allow your powers of observation to trump your emotions that I have my doubts about.
Bobby Thomson
@different-church-lady:
That’s easy. She’s a she.
different-church-lady
@Bobby Thomson: Last I recall, Elizabeth Warren is a she.
Cervantes
@JMG:
@JMG:
OK, let’s say other pols don’t like her, but how do you explain the Globe endorsement (for example)?
@FlyingToaster:
“Never again” what?
Tom Levenson
Voted this a.m. Straight Donkey. Wasted half an hour arguing with a (very rare) GOP volunteer trying to get votes for the Republican state assembly candidate (in Brookline?) Depressing: perfect talking point machine, and a great one for deflection: why won’t GOPers support black money donor disclosure? The White House isn’t transparent! Voter suppression: just want to protect the integrity of the ballot…and so on.
If there had been a yellow dog on the Dem line, I’d have voted for it. Wish there were…
MomSense
If elections were about rational choices, we wouldn’t be in this predicament.
Some of the recent polling tells us that people trust the GOP more to fix the economy and improve economic mobility. This is clearly irrational. People are making emotional decisions, random decisions, loony decisions. The NYT video from this morning with the undecided voters was a perfect demonstration of the challenge we face.
Bobby Thomson
@different-church-lady: Just as African Americans don’t threaten racists if they go into accepted occupations, women become more threatening when they go into traditionally male occupations. Teaching is a role that has become acceptable for women. A prosecuting attorney is less so. Do your job and you’re a bitch; don’t and you’re a patsy.
lol
@Bobby Thomson:
It’s hard to extricate the sexism in the electorate from the mediocrity in the campaign. Hopefully this one was better but I heard lots of horror stories about her Senate campaign staff in 2010. I’m not talking about the gaffes but rather staff who didn’t believe she was in trouble and actively interfered with anyone outside it trying to bail them out.
Phoebe
FWIW, I’m in. And I’ve been doing what I can to talk my fellow not-enthusiastic-about-Coakley people around.
I’m not enthusiastic. Yes, prosecutorial overreach, surveillance, yadda yadda. But Baker is going to be worse on energy policy, and we will have zero influence on who he might appoint to key agency positions; and if Coakley pulls this out and she owes the progressive wing, that’s all useful. And hell, maybe if she does come into office owing the progressive wing, we’ll find out that she’s more progressive than those of us who don’t know her personally ever knew.
We take our toys and go home, and we have no possible influence with anybody after the election. And a whole lot of party people very angry with us when we start gearing up for 2018.
the Conster
People in this state have a loooooong memory about the Amiraults.
currants
@Bobby Thomson: You win!
Cervantes
@Bobby Thomson:
Was she a he when she won her previous state-wide campaigns?
Goblue72
52-48 GOP in the Senate. No way Dems hold on. Coakley is going to lose as well.
Undecided, “swing” voters – those morons of the electorate – are breaking for the GOP. Why? Because Obama “runs the country”, so it’s all his fault the economy isn’t any better.
Also too – notice that everyone in that video is white? I guess the NYT knows its audience.
Aimai
@FlyingToaster: really? Fuck you then when charlie baker gets in.
JMG
@Cervantes: The Globe has a traumatic need as an institution not to seem “liberal” left over from the busing crisis of the ’70s. It usually endorses one Republican each election, and Baker was it. He might’ve been endorsed by them in 2010 if he hadn’t run on severe tax and budget cuts. If Baker hadn’t been the token Republican, Tisei in the 6th would’ve been as he was in 2012.
Aimai
@different-church-lady: hello? It was a presidential election year and people were spitting mad to reclaim kennedys seat from the republicans. But the extreme sexism of the average mass voter is proverbial for good reason.
MomSense
@Goblue72:
Wouldn’t it be nice if our media actually reported on all the ways in which our economy is better?
El Caganer
Isn’t Baker mixed up in the Chris Christie follies being investigated by the Feds in NJ?
Betty Cracker
I hope she wins. I’d damn sure vote for her if I were living in Massachusetts. I don’t know enough about Mass politics to understand why voters don’t seem to like her, but we had a similar situation down here in FL with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink. Sink was a much worse candidate from a progressive standpoint than Coakley since she (Sink) used to be a Bank of America exec before she went into politics. I voted for her anyway in the general. Because I’m not stupid. But enough people WERE stupid, so we got stuck with Rick Scott. Don’t be stupid, Mass Dems.
Cervantes
@JMG:
OK, that’s plausible. Not that I think you’re right but it’s at least as plausible as the non-explanation the Globe gave.
@Betty Cracker:
I agree, about Coakley and Sink both.
eemom
@the Conster:
As well they should, because that is some unforgivable shit.
GregB
Reports on the ground of heavy voter turnout in a number of states.
The Republicans might end up ruing the day they nationalized this election.
It has given the D’s reason to gin up the Obama voters.
Belafon
There were a couple of good DK diaries about Coakly, pointing out that she’s done much better this time, but she’s had solme things going against her: The primary schedule for her ran right up against the general, not giving her much time to fund raise after winning the primary. Mass people are not afraid of electing a Republican governor to balance out the Democratic legislature. And they have a lot of trouble electing women.
Goblue72
@MomSense: sure would. Problem is most media outlets are owned by corporate conglomerates whose owners are actively rooting for the GOP.
“Moar tax cuts!” IS the solution to every problem if you’re rich.
the Conster
@eemom:
Yeah it was. Also her screwing up about Curt Schilling. These are all that lots of people know and care about her.
jibeaux
I’m not in Massachusetts, but I can’t say I’ve ever hesitated much about which level to pull for governor, even with weak Dems. NC has not historically elected Republican governors, but we did in 2012. Everyone called him a moderate. A guy who fought for mass transit in Charlotte! Not going to mess with abortion rights (just not going to veto it when the legislature does it)!
Now everyone’s going “abort! retry! fail!” but the signs were all there. Specifically, the R after his name on the ballot.
Cervantes
@El Caganer:
Sort of.
Identifying himself inaccurately as a partner in a venture-capital enterprise (he was not a partner, not even an employee, more like an advisor and occasional investor), he donated $10,000 at a fund-raiser Christie’s people organized in Boston. Some months later the wonderful people of New Jersey found themselves invested in a fund run by the enterprise Baker was associated with. The usual kinds of questions arose.
Felonious
Baker is another of the many empty suit CEO types that are drawn to politics because when they were given authority over businesses people were forced to listen to them. I’m sure he is a perfectly nice guy who made a fortune running Harvard Health Plan with no particular distinction other that to charge the highest network rates in the state. Meeting Baker is like meeting a puff of air and installed as Governor he will be of no particular benefit to anyone, his vapid counterparts included. Baker is the pastry that looks good in the case but has no flavor.
El Caganer
@Felonious: You mean a human version of Mitt Romney?
Helen
Just voted. As always easy as pie in NYC. In and out than 10 minutes. I left the Governor oval blank. I just could not vote for Cuomo – or any of those other idiots.
My congresswoman ran unopposed, WTF is up with that?
Really the only reason I voted is that there were two very important ballot measures: A $2 billion bond measure to pay for technology upgrades in schools and a measure to create a commission that will draw districts every 10 years. NY is trying to get ahead of the gerrymandering.
MomSense
@Goblue72:
That is exactly the problem. I would argue it is our biggest problem right now.
Cervantes
@Aimai:
@Belafon:
The “extreme sexism” and the “lot of trouble electing women” seems not to have prevented Coakley herself being elected state-wide. Twice. Was it her charisma that overcame sexism in those instances? (Not to mention Warren’s recent election, but I see above the suggestion that sexism in Warren’s race was overcome by the voters’ urgent need to not re-elect a man.)
Anyhow, sticking to Coakley’s two previous state-wide victories: is sexism less at play in AG elections? Or could people have taken a look at her record by now and decided: for this particular woman, this far and no further?
I have no idea — obviously.
wuzzat
@the Conster:
And despite what some around here would have you believe, it’s actually her job (or that of her campaign manager) to make us know/care differently. Fuck it, I’m voting for her anyway, but sometimes the problem’s not sexism or purity politics. She ran a slightly less lackluster campaign than her last lackluster campaign, but I’ve gotten more encouragement to vote for Jean Shaheen than for Coakley, and Jean’s running a state over. Add that to her shady past and I’m slightly more excited to be voting for Coakley than you New Yorkers must be to pull the lever for Cuomo.
FlipYrWhig
@Aimai: Sometimes I think I’m the only one who remembers a slew of stories about how Elizabeth Warren was running a lousy, quiet campaign and not connecting with people and was totally blowing it and would totally lose what a disaster AIIIEEEEE. But now, retrospectively, everyone seems to remember that campaign as proof that Elizabeth Warren has always been a universally-beloved unstoppable juggernaut.
Mike J
@wuzzat:
Amen.
I’d vote for her, but I wouldn’t stand around outside Fenway in the cold shaking hands for her.
skerry
OT, but related to politics: My daughter (born 1990) was just approached on the subway and followed through Manhattan by Andrew Stein (born 1945), previous borough president of Manhattan. He told her that he had seen her before, talked to her about his political positions and who he knows and asked her to join him in a hotel. Told her he could help her career (without knowing what her career is). Told her he was friends with Frank Sinatra (good way to hit on a 24 yr old, btw). She asked “isn’t he dead?”
She told me she moved away from him on the subway. He followed her. She went into a store to evade him. He followed her. He kept talking the entire time. She told him she was engaged and to leave her alone. She finally went into a building that required student ID and he couldn’t get in.
I am sickened.
Cervantes
@skerry:
Jeepers.
Creepers, even. Or especially.
Linnaeus
@Betty Cracker:
Well, this is America.
Peter
I don’t know exactly why Martha Coakley can’t get herself elected any higher than AG. But I do know this: if she loses this election, the party better not give her a third shot at throwing an easy get election.
JustRuss
@El Caganer:
Heh.
Brendan in NC
@jibeaux: The signs were there the first time McCrory ran. He couldn’t even win here in the county he governed in.
lamh36
Aloha kakahiaka Ohana (Good morning family/friends) from sunny Honolulu.
Hope election day is going well for everyone. I’m seeing A LOT of my FB fam posting their I voted stickers so I’m thinking Mary Landrieu pulls this one out again. Love her or hate her, the Landrieu fam is the best we got here for us Dems! So go Mary go!
I also wanted to say that my blog post from my Sunday in San Francisco is up at my blog. The next one will be either way later today or early tomorrow morning since I seem to be getting up at my regular NOLA time anyway.
So go check it out. After you’ve voted of course.
https://twitter.com/psddluva4evah/status/529682103110074368
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Why did people nominate her this time around? She’s an awful candidate. After pissing away that seat in 2010, nobody should have given her another look.
JPL
@GregB: The polls that I just drove by were busy. At least the parking lots were close to full. That is not good news for Nunn, imo.
Betty Cracker
@skerry: God, what a creep. The only reason I’ve ever heard of him is that he was once married to uber-buffoon Lady Lynn Forrester de Rothschild and dated the inflamed hate-pustule known as Ann Coulter. And now he’s pathetically dogging a woman young enough to be his granddaughter? Good on your daughter for ably evading his creepy pursuit.
KS in MA
I’m in for Coakley. No matter what her merits are or aren’t. She’s the Democrat. Nuff said.
lamh36
BTW, not for nothing, but I’m seeing A LOT of African American faces in alot of these election poll watching shots from MSNBC. Could there be an increase of Black voters this midterms that poll watcher didn’t expect? IDK, but I can say personally that more and more people are pissed at the treatment of POTUS and are made at the voting rights shenanigans. Even at churches they are reminding people about the rights other fought for and people are responding and pissed and seem to all be willing to exercise that right to prove how important it is.
raven
@lamh36: Get outside!!!!
the Conster
@KS in MA:
Agreed. I have never voted for a Republican. The thought of doing so sickens me.
Belafon
@JPL: I thought the consensus was that heavy voting was good for Democrats.
skerry
@raven: @lamh36:
Seriously! Aren’t you on your Hawaiian vacation?
Omnes Omnibus
This is a good thing.
JPL
@Belafon: The polling sites near by are very conservative. The city of Atlanta is where Nunn has to have a big turnout. The Sunday voting probably helped Nunn and Carter though.
jibeaux
@Brendan in NC: oh, sure. I just mean even without anything else, there’s that R. Just because it fools the occasional editorial board doesn’t mean it should fool the voters.
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah! How fine it would be to see Walker get kicked to the curb; that bastard needs to be nipped in the bud before he does nationwide damage.
FlyingToaster
@Aimai: Not convinced that Baker’ll be any more effective than Romney was. Romney was able to pass 1 of his ideas (the consolidation of Parks & Rec with the MDC to create the DCR, which turned out to be a much, much better idea than I believed at the time). He didn’t get a death penalty passed, he didn’t reduce the tax rate and impose the user fees he wanted on every damn thing, and he didn’t widen 495 and he managed to lose 7 seats for the Republicans after importing carpetbaggers to run.
@Cervantes: I’m not voting for her again. When she ran for Middlesex DA, I voted against her. When she ran for AG, I voted against her. When she was in the primary for Senate and Governor, I voted against her. But against ‘lil Scotty, I held my nose and voted for her, even though I think she’s a horrible human being and would be a lousy senator.
It’s very hard not to write in “Cthulhu” when faced with a choice between Coakley and Baker.
Mnemosyne
@lamh36:
Have a great time! We’re going to be in the same state next week, but a different island (Kauai). Remember, even if you go home and tell people all you did was lay on the beach and look at the ocean all week, they’ll still consider it a completely successful Hawaiian vacation. ;-)
And I’m really hoping you’re right about a surge in black voter turnout — IIRC, it was massive AA voter turnout that put McAuliffe over the top in the Virginia governor’s race last year. Hopefully, people around the country were emboldened by that.
GregB
The Democratic turnout machine needs to be in high gear in just a handful of states in order for this election to get turned on its head.
Belafon
@GregB: I realize people aren’t going to like this sentiment if we lose the Senate, but the fact that I’m seeing GOTV systems put in place by Democrats, not only the party operations but places like Daily Kos, is a very good thing. It will take a couple of elections for them to be in full working order, but it is one step in something that needed to be done. Now, all we need is for Democrats to challenge every office, from dog catcher on up, through out the country.
Cervantes
@FlyingToaster:
I see.
And this time in the primary did you also vote against her? (I did then, but not today.)
Anyhow, thanks for elaborating. I appreciate it.
NCSteve
How is it possible that, time and again, there are people claiming to be Democrats who have still failed to learn the basic lesson of 21st Century politics taught to them in 2000: the Democrat is better than you think and the Republican is far, far worse than you imagine.
The way idiot indies keep falling for the “but, baby, I’m a moderate Republican” line over and over again is exasperating, but knowing there are Democrats who keep buying it makes me want to personally track each and every one of them down and slap the shit out of their brains.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: The downside is that I am reading about heavy turn out in Waukesha County, Historically, Milwaukee does not vote heavily in non-presidential years, but I came across this in my semi-obsessive election watching : 702 votes before noon @ Clement Ave School in south Bay View. That’s high. Workers say history is 700 midterm votes in an entire day.
ETA: Bay View (Milwaukee) voting heavily is good news – just to clarify.
JPL
According to the AJC , Fulton county is experiencing problems with their machines. I also found this
Some people left after seeing long lines at North River Baptist Church in Roswell
That is not one of the polling stations, that I saw but it indicates that the burbs are voting.
JPL
@lamh36: Your blog updates are fun. Have a great time.
FlyingToaster
@Cervantes: Oh, yes, I voted for Don Berwick. Who’d be an excellent governor.
Betty Cracker
@FlyingToaster: I heard very similar complaints about Alex Sink, the bankster and abysmally bad politician who ran for governor of FL on the Dem ticket in 2010. Several progressives I know sat out that election or wrote in a protest vote, which enabled Rick Scott to squeak out a win with less than 50%.
No one thought it was possible. It has been a disaster and has literally cost lives (no Medicaid expansion for ACA) and jobs. I know the circumstances aren’t the same — different states. But please reconsider, hold your nose, and vote for the crappy Dem. It matters. It really, really does. Every GOP politician who gets elected validates a party that was taken over by kooks and fanatics years ago.
the Conster
@FlyingToaster:
Agreed. My (former) State Rep. David Linsky is also a great public servant, and a wonderful person. He’s going to be re-elected today, and I hope he has bigger ambitions.
Cervantes
@FlyingToaster: Me, too.
JMG
It’s only reasonable to expect heavier than usual turnout by both sides in a close race, and there are a lot of close races out there. It makes people feel the importance of their individual vote.
Elizabelle
@Belafon:
And Mass voters already have health insurance. That’s big.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
I agree, particular in the case of Senate races, but also in others.
RaflW
Remember back in 20012, when we heard endlessly that major media was in the tank for Obama? It seemed a bit suspect, but I think what the Prospect has written about recently, that the collective id of major media decides on a narrative and advances that throughout the campaign, facts be damned, was what created that “in the tank for Obama” sense. And maybe they actually helped elect Obama, at least on the margins? Not sure…
Now, a couple years later, the media are in the tank for Republicans. They so desperately want the narrative that the country is tired of Obama that they play right into it. It has always been that the presidential party loses big in year six, so that must again be the storyline.
Its fairly pathetic, really.
Mezz
Did my part today, voted early. Would have voted often if I’d known my polling place was gonna have candy!!
Bad feeling though for Martha, but I sure hope I’m wrong.
Though I definitely AM glad I went private with my pension last year when I signed on at a public college here.
Kropadope
Already voted for Falchuk. Not that any of this would have changed my mind. None of it answered my main concern about her, she’s a complete blank slate and I have no idea what she plans on doing. (Which is, oddly, inaccurately, what the second fella said about Baker)
SenyorDave
@NCSteve: @NCSteve: What you said ten times over! I personally will not vote for someone who runs on the Republican ticket since I disagree with virtually their entire platform.
Cervantes
@Kropadope:
True enough perhaps, but, in all honesty, you probably have no idea what Falchuk plans on doing next year, either — because whatever he’s going to be doing, he’s definitely not going to be governor.
And I do like him, too, for what it’s worth.
Kropadope
@Cervantes: Yeah, but I wasn’t taking any affirmative step to help either of those two clowns who might actually get elected.
This is what Mass dems wanted anyway, right? They nominated Coakley as a passive attempt to get Baker into office. That way, they don’t have to actually mark an R.
different-church-lady
@Cervantes:
My theory is in Mass. there’s a kind of above-the-line/below-the line mentality. Senate, US rep, and Governor are above the line. Everything else is below. Mass. residents swing above the line, but vote default Dem. below the line.
So people don’t pay attention to who Coakley “is” below the line — hell, probably nobody could name who’s running for AG this year without looking it up. But above the line, in the spotlight, weird things happen to her.
different-church-lady
@Kropadope:
Yeah, you’re probably snarking, but let’s stick with Occam’s Razor: the kind of Mass. voter that turns out for the primaries is a very different beast on the whole than those who turn out for the general. The voters who go for Coakley in the primaries are sincere.
Kropadope
@different-church-lady:
Maura Healey, one of the votes I most looked forward to casting today. My very Republican dad met her at one point and even said she’d do a good job. The only vote he requested me to make was Patricia St.Aubin for state auditor. Apparently Bump doesn’t do her job.
different-church-lady
@wuzzat:
DING! You control the board.
Kropadope
@different-church-lady:
Sincere what?
Cervantes
@Kropadope:
Nor any affirmative step to keep the Republican out.
Them’s the breaks. I quite understand.
That may be what they wanted — but whatever they wanted, I did not feel obliged to oblige them.
different-church-lady
@Kropadope: I plead guilty of categorical statement. Yes, there are engaged Mass. voters like yourself. There’s just not enough of them to buck the trends.
different-church-lady
@Kropadope: Sincere in their support of Coakley.
different-church-lady
@Mike J:
And, if you believe the narrative, neither would she.
Kropadope
@different-church-lady: Haha, yeah, I know. I was trying to be an A-hole.
Another Holocene Human
MARTHA COAKLEY IS AN EVIL FUCKING PERSON. She harries the innocent and comforts the all-too guilty.
Any liberal who showers her in fulsome praise should be ashamed of themselves. I’ll give you one name: GERALD AMIRAULT. The pain she caused this family is enormous. As in crimes enormes. It is an outrage to the conscience. But trust me, the Amiraults are not the only family who suffered for her careerist aspirations.
Any other pitch than Baker and Pollit (sp?) scare the bejeezus out of me, and here’s how they could harm the state even with a Dem legislature, is a lot of bull which will be rightfully ignored by voters. If Coakley loses, it’s because her supporters tried to piss up voters legs and tell them it was raining rather than make the case that the governor of Massachusetts matters, and not in the way that they think. Mass residents for the most part hate the fucking machine and love anyone who promises to stick it to the machine. They also don’t like evil creeps and have long memories.
Full metal Wingnut
@Bobby Thomson: That’s not really saying much though. Most states went for Reagan. Minnesota is the only state Reagan never won. Along with DC.
KS in MA
@FlyingToaster:
I voted for Berwick in the primary too, but I damn well am voting against Baker today!
beergoggles
Judging by my fb/twit feeds, Martha’s got the gays and lot of women voters. But I doubt that will be enough to offset the swamp yankees and the angry white men demographic.
Full metal Wingnut
@Goblue72: Relevant: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0tAxcnhhxzw
Goblue72
@Another Holocene Human: Meds. Take them. And I say that as a former Masshole.
tsquared2001
@Full metal Wingnut: I am tremendously proud of my homestate for many, many reasons but that fact lands in the Top Ten of Why Minnesota Is Awesome.
Full metal Wingnut
@tsquared2001: I too would be very proud of that!