The Enthusiasm Gap Leads to Vicious Attack Campaign by Coakley
By Bronwyn's Harbor on January 16, 2010 at 11:49 PM in Current Affairs
What does a candidate like Martha Coakley do when the enthusiasm for her U.S. Senate seat opponent Scott Brown far outweighs any excitement for her? She stoops to the lowest possible attacks in an ugly but sometimes effective tactic of dampening the support of her opponent’s backers. (I’ll describe those tactics below the fold.)
GOP candidate Scott Brown is scoring high in the excitement factor, writes Politico’s Jonathan Martin in “Enthusiasm gap in Mass. Senate race,” with excited supporters chanting “People’s seat, people’s seat!” as Brown enters the room (from the now-famous line uttered by Scott Brown in the last debate):
As the two candidates running in the special Senate election here barnstormed across the state Saturday, the enthusiasm gap between the two parties was on vivid display.
Democrat Martha Coakley, Massachusetts’ attorney general, kicked off a series of stops with a morning speech at a Boston union hall, receiving a response more polite than enthusiastic.
Coakley and Vicki Kennedy, the widow of the late senator, both addressed a crowd of about 100 electrical workers but it fell to a state representative from nearby Dorchester to deliver the closing remarks aimed at firing up the Democrats.
“I see there is some excitement in this room but there is not enough excitement in this room,” Martin Walsh said, as the heavily male, Carhartt-and-jeans crowd stood with hands in pockets.
There was no need for such an exhortation on Cape Cod as state Sen. Scott Brown, the Republican nominee, was enveloped by a couple hundred, sign-waving supporters as he attempted to walk into a local pub where another hundred voters waited for an afternoon rally.
“People’s seat, people’s seat!” the Hyannis crowd chanted, aping the retort Brown gave at a debate Monday when asked about “the Kennedy seat.”
With three days until Bay State voters go to the polls to decide whether Democrats will retain their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, the momentum plainly is with the GOP.
He’s drawing crowds rarely seen by Republicans in this state and seems to have more organic support than Coakley, an impression underscored by the imperfect measurement of yard signs spotted for the Republican (many) and the Democrat (none) along the South Shore and on the Cape. … (Read more)
Now we get to Coakley’s decision to use the most base tactics possible. I won’t explain each one, but will list the articles, the titles of which will give you the negativism that Coakley has sunk to exploiting:
(1) “BMG Exclusive: Scott Brown thought maybe Obama was born out of wedlock”
(2) “Dem Mail: Scott Brown Wants Hospitals To Turn Away All Rape Victims ” (an especially nasty attack)
(3) “Coakley: Scott Brown doesn’t pay for health care for [campaign] workers”
And on and on. For a full list, check out Memeorandum.com.
The Wall Street Journal has a fascinating article on Massachuetts voters, and their tendencies, titled, “The Backlash Is Coming! The Backlash Is Coming!.”
The subtitle is “People in Massachusetts think they’re at the leading edge of politics. That’s not good news for Democrats.”
The entire essay is a must read, but here’s a long excerpt that will give you the flavor of its message:
That election, which will be held on Tuesday, was widely seen as a formality. Ms. Coakley coasted through the holiday season while the GOP challenger, little-known state Sen. Scott Brown, scrambled for traction.
The new year, however, brought polls showing the race tightening. This week a Rasmussen Reports poll gave Ms. Coakley a slim 49% to 47% advantage; a Suffolk University survey has Mr. Brown with a narrow lead. Independents are breaking for Mr. Brown by a three-to-one margin, Rasmussen finds. And many people do not realize that independents outnumber Democrats—51% of registered voters in the state are not affiliated with a party, while 37% are registered as Democrats and 11% as Republicans.
“Around the country they look at Massachusetts and just write us off,” longtime local activist Barbara Anderson of Citizens for Limited Taxation and Government told me. “But people around here are really not happy with the extremes in the Democrat Party.”
Those extremes are cropping up as issues in this race. One is giving civilian legal rights to terror suspects, which Ms. Coakley supports. Mr. Brown, a lieutenant colonel in the Massachusetts National Guard, hammered her for that even before Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day. That incident has tried the patience of an electorate normally known for its civil libertarianism. Rasmussen’s most recent survey found that 65% of them want Abdulmutallab tried by the military.
Another issue is taxes. Mr. Brown has scolded Ms. Coakley for supporting a repeal of the Bush tax cuts, for entertaining the idea of passing a “war tax,” and for proclaiming in a recent debate that “we need to get taxes up.” Ms. Coakley says she meant that tax revenues, not rates, need to rebound. Nonetheless, Mr. Brown’s critique resonates with voters who are smarting from a 25% hike in sales tax last year.
Gov. Patrick’s approval ratings have also crashed, fertilizing the soil for Mr. Brown’s claim in a radio ad that “our government in Washington is making the same mistakes as our government here in Massachusetts.”
But nothing excites Mr. Brown’s supporters more than his vow to stop ObamaCare by denying Democrats the 60th vote they would need in the U.S. Senate to shut off a GOP filibuster. The Rasmussen and Suffolk polls report that once-overwhelming statewide support for the federal health reform has fallen to a wafer-thin majority.
Support for the state’s universal health-care law, close to 70% in 2008, is also in free fall; only 32% of state residents told Rasmussen earlier this month that they’d call it a success, with 36% labeling it a failure. The rest were unsure. Massachusetts families pay the country’s highest health insurance premiums, with costs soaring at a rate 7% ahead of the national average, according to a recent report by the nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund.
Doubt about the Massachusetts health-care reform “does not necessarily translate into opposition to the federal bill,” cautions veteran local Democratic strategist Stephen Crawford, who is not working for any candidate in the Senate race. “I don’t think opposition to the plan is going to be a make-or-break issue.” That’s a far cry from the once widely-held belief here that the Democratic nominee would be hustled into office by voters eager to pass ObamaCare. But it reflects a conviction among local Democratic elites that antitax and anti-big-government politics are “a tired strategy, the same old Karl Rove playbook,” as Mr. Crawford puts it.
On Tuesday, we’ll have a reading on whether that complacency is justified. It may not be definitive; barely two in 10 voters voted in the primaries, and turnout, especially if it is short on independents, could render the outcome a road test for each party’s get-out-the-vote machinery. Here that’s akin to a drag race between a Democratic Cadillac fueled with high-octane labor support and a GOP go-kart driven by pedal power. But the long-range weather forecast for the Election Day is clear. There are anecdotal reports of brisk absentee voting, a practice often driven by the state’s small but aggressive pro-life faction. And the polls show a sharp enthusiasm gap in Mr. Brown’s favor.
Tellingly, the usually-demure Ms. Coakley has been scorching Mr. Brown with a tired strategy out of the Obama campaign playbook, linking him to “the failed policies of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.” Mr. Brown counters by linking Ms. Coakley to Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Deval Patrick—people actually in power.
Are we in for another shot heard ’round the world? Perhaps. More likely, listen for the sound of horse hooves on the pavement, and a modern-day version of Paul Revere’s historic warning—the backlash is coming.
We shall see if those independents turn out to vote on Tuesday. It’s one thing to be passionate and vocal. It’s quite another to make that time-consuming, dreary trip to the polling station. Let’s hope that people are sufficiently enthused to make that trip.
Tuesday night should be exciting, and here at No Quarter, we’ll be following the results closely. Drop in, and share what you’re hearing.
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