Will The GOP Pick up Ted Kennedy's Seat?

Brainster

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Brainster
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At this point it's starting to look like the drubbing the Democrats are going to take in 2010 might start in what is arguably the bluest state in the nation. Consider:

Martha Coakley and the DNC have blasted an "urgent" message to top Democrat donors pleading for funds:

The memo, which was sent over by a source, is the latest sign that the campaign surge of GOPer Scott Brown has caught the Dem establishment off guard. It admits that the mobilization by big national conservative groups for Brown is “working” and acknowledges that the Dem camaign is “having trouble moving independents.”

“Our internal polling shows the race to be a very tight race that means we must do everything we can to ensure we are victorious,” reads the memo, which was written by Coakley’s finance chairman and sent to top donors late yesterday by the DNC.
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Polls on the race have varied widely, with most showing Coakley ahead, although Public Policy Polling recently released a poll showing Republican Scott Brown with a 1-point advantage, while Rasmussen went from Coakley +9 to Coakley +2. Part of the problem is identifying who's truly a likely voter in a special election like this.

Liberal blogger Nate Silver notes that turnout isn't the only issue:

If this were just about turnout, I would feel relatively safe about Coakley's position. The Democratic establishment has, somewhat belatedly, woken up to the closeness of the race, and polls like these will wake voters up too. And the Democrats have an experienced GOTV team on hand, with veterans from both the Obama and Hillary Clinton campaigns.

But if the Rasmussen numbers are right, there's also a chance that Coakley could lose even with a less-than-worst-case turnout scenario. Although I sometimes have concerns about the tightness of Rasmussen's likely voter screens, the fact is that an electorate which gives a 57 percent approval rating to Barack Obama is one that they ought to be reasonably contented with on election day.
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Coakley hasn't helped herself any with her latest ad, in which the word "Massachusetts" is misspelled:

Paid for by Massachusettes Democratic Party and Authorized by Martha Coakley for Senate. Approved by Martha Coakley.
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InTrade's Coakley shares are at about 79 while Brown is at 25. Still the idea that the Democrat is favored by only 3-1 in liberal Massachusetts is startling.
 
Brainster said:
At this point it's starting to look like the drubbing the Democrats are going to take in 2010 might start in what is arguably the bluest state in the nation.
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I don't understand. I thought it was all but assured that the Democrats would be in power for the rest of eternity.
 
Senate poll: Coakley up 15 points

Here's the negative ad that you can't get away from if you watch any Boston TV station:



Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of this man? Can you afford to vote for someone who will steal your children, strip them naked, and sell them to Chinese brothels!? He may be planning to require small business owners to hire Al Qaeda terrorists!

Seriously, this ad would make me less likely to vote for Coakley.
 
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As Scott Brown correctly pointed out- it's not Ted Kennedy's seat. It's the people's seat.
 
Coakley played a large part in keeping Gerald Amirault in prison according to Radley Balko:

In the 1980s, Violet Amirault and her children, Gerald Amirault and Cheryl Amirault LeFave, were convicted of sexually abusing several children at their day care facility. The cases came at the height of the 1980s sex abuse panic, leading to false convictions across the country based on improper questioning of children, mass hysteria about sex abuse and Satan worship, and bogus “recovered-memory” psychotherapy. Coakley didn’t prosecute the Amiraults; her former boss Scott Harshbarger did. But the case against the family began to come apart during her tenure as district attorney. Despite a parole board’s 5-0 recommendation to grant Gerald Amirault clemency and mounting doubts about the evidence against him, Coakley publicly and aggressively lobbied then-Gov. Jane Swift to deny Amirault relief. Amirault remained in prison.

Wall Street Journal reporter Dorothy Rabinowitz, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her coverage of bogus sex abuse cases, recently told The Boston Globe of the Amirault case, “Martha Coakley was a very, very good soldier who showed she would do anything to preserve this horrendous assault on justice.”
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The case against Amirault was so ridiculous that both the Wall Street Journal and The Nation editorialized in favor of his release.
 
Are there any prediction markets on this question?

InTrade's Coakley shares are at about 79 while Brown is at 25. Still the idea that the Democrat is favored by only 3-1 in liberal Massachusetts is startling.
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Doh! Never mind :o

Let me get this straight... the Coakley 79% Brown 25% numbers at InTrade are somehow good news for Republicans? Especially after all their bluster about this race over the last few days? :rolleyes:
 
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MattusMaximus said:
Let me get this straight... the Coakley 79% Brown 25% numbers at InTrade are somehow good news for Republicans? Especially after all their bluster about this race over the last few days? :rolleyes:
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You do understand that we are talking about Massachusetts, right? Where Obama won by a 26-point margin? And that this is the seat that Ted Kennedy (and before him John F. Kennedy) held?

A 25% chance of taking that seat is very good news for the GOP.

And can you imagine the howls of laughter if Sarah Palin had said this:

During Monday's debate with Republican Scott Brown, Coakley questioned why the United States still has troops in Afghanistan. She claimed that the al Qaeda terrorists who were originally targeted by American military action have migrated elsewhere, rendering the mission moot. "They're gone," she said. "They're not there anymore. They're in, apparently Yemen, they're in Pakistan."
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I am hopeful that Massachusetts voters will flush this turd.
 
No, that seems like a very sensible statement that I and others would applaud Sarah Palin for.

Really, I don't see it?
 
Eyeron said:
Boy the liberals sure are obsessed with Palin for some strange reason.
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Yes, it's confusing because, on the one hand, they are often going out of their way to practically beg for her to be the candidate. Statements about how it would mean certain victory for Obama. It would be the worst move the GOP could ever make. Please, please GOP, NOMINATE HER!

And yet.. they beat her down viciously, which demonstrates that they fear her. You don't go to that much effort to destroy someone who is actually zero threat to you whatsoever.. and that you actually WANT as a nominee. That doesn't even make any sense. They want her to run, so they can beat her.. but also doing all they can to destroy her, so she can't win. It's mind boggling.
 
Brainster said:
You do understand that we are talking about Massachusetts, right? Where Obama won by a 26-point margin? And that this is the seat that Ted Kennedy (and before him John F. Kennedy) held?

A 25% chance of taking that seat is very good news for the GOP.

And can you imagine the howls of laughter if Sarah Palin had said this:

I am hopeful that Massachusetts voters will flush this turd.
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Intrade is currently predicting an 85% chance that Coakley will win the seat. That's an increase in her favor of 6-7% in 24 hours.

How do you feel now?
 
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