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Coakley vs. Brown
By adamg on Tue, 12/08/2009 - 8:19pm
Capuano leading in Boston, but way behind in the rest of the state.
Channel 4 has a results page.
What do you think of the results?
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Who has where?
Capuano is ruling in Boston...
From afar, is this even a
From afar, is this even a contest?
Why I'm disappointed
I'm most sad because I can do a decent Capuano imitation but don't even know what Martha Coakley sounds like.
Like she swallowed tacks, ate
Like she swallowed tacks, ate a beehive, and has the sw1n3 flu. It's pretty ugh.
Seriously though, what the hell is her accent? No way she's a Masshole.
Ive always thought it sounded
Ive always thought it sounded canadian.
Western Mass lockjaw
It says here.
Fallout
So, Martha Coakley serves as Senator until 2012. Capuano mounted an impressive run, but after this, he'll almost certainly stay in the House. Running again in 2012 would likely mean vacating his seat, and he's starting to accrue some seniority - he ranks 188th, and his ethics work drew rave reviews and will open more doors.
That leaves Khazei and Pagliuca, and I'd be surprised if we'd seen the last of either of them. Both of them displayed an impressive learning curve on the campaign trail, mastering issues as well as the style of political discourse and debate. Khazei gained a grassroots network that he can re-activate. It's tough to imagine him challenging Deval Patrick in a year, but he could easily try to unseat Coakley in 2012. At the very least, his higher profile is likely to make him a significant player for some time to come.
Pagliuca seems to have caught the politics bug - and we all remember the last time a guy from Bain Capital made an unsuccessful bid for US Senate. It's easier to imagine Pags gunning for Deval, who's certainly going to be vulnerable. And he has the cash to take on Coakley again in 2012, if he wants. In the interim, look for him to seize opportunities to burnish his civic credentials.
And of course - brace yourselves - we've got another election coming. We're going to have to choose another Attorney General. The list of candidates is still forming, but it'll include Sen. Steven Baddour of Methuen, DA William Keating of Norfolk County, probably some other legislators, and possibly Bill Galvin or Samuel Sutter. Of course, the job is probably Gerry Leone's for the taking, if he wants it - the last four Mass Attorneys General have been Middlesex DAs, and Leone is assured of the backing of his old boss, our new United States Senator.
Never a dull moment, huh?
No special election for Attorney General
According to Secretary Galvin's office, only state legislative and US Congressional seats are filled by special elections. I don't know how we get a new temporary state Attorney General but it won't be by election.
I nominate
Jake Wark!
Not exactly
My understanding is that it's filled by legislative appointment, but it still means that the office will effectively be an open seat - whichever of its cronies the legislature installs won't have much time to boost name recognition or gain the advantages of incumbency. The state elections take place this coming fall. So there'll be something like nine months from the time Coakley formally steps down until the primary - and substantially less between the legislature's actual appointment. That means that the candidates for the job will be ramping up their campaigns over the next month, and positioning themselves to formally declare as soon as Coakley locks down the senate seat.
So, yeah, not a special election. But it's the same difference.
Pagliuca
He spent a boatload of money and is going to finish far behind, probably in last place. That's not much of a recommendation for him to try this again.
Pagliuca spent a little more
Pagliuca spent a little more than 1% of his personal net worth - a boatload of money by any reasonable standard, but hardly a lot for him. He now has statewide name recognition. More importantly, he's got the political bug. He clearly grew to like this stuff. It's going to be tough, after a campaign like this, for Pagliuca to go back to work at Bain and try to turn a $400m fortune into a $500m fortune. Where's the thrill?
He's got the cash to be instantly competitive in any election he cares to contest. In a race played out over a longer timeframe, and with turnout that extends beyond the hardcore supervoters in a special primary, he'd have done a lot better. And he has to know that. More to the point, he improved as the race went on, just like Khazei. This thing was too short for either of them to catch on, but other races won't be.
I'm not saying he'll win some future race, mind you. I'm just saying that he doesn't sound chastened; quite the contrary. Listening to him tonight, I think he sounds like a guy who got his first taste of something he really likes. He'll learn from his mistakes, and he'll reemerge down the road in some other race. Very few business types who venture into politics give up after their first try - if that were their attitude toward a tough challenge, they probably wouldn't have succeeded in business. For better or worse, it normally takes a race in which they lay it all on the line for them to decide that it's not going to happen. And that certainly wasn't this abbreviated campaign.
Was it true, Matt O'Malley
Was it true, Matt O'Malley was paid 100,000 to be Pags' field director?
Seems a bit high
I browsed through Pags' most recent financial report (no search tool, alas, looks like they just make PDF copies of print forms) and what I found was $3,745 paid to O'Malley between 10/5 and 11/9. Works out to quite a bit less than $100,000 as a yearly salary (doesn't mean there wasn't an initial balloon payment or something, but click on the link to do your own hunting). Also interesting: A $2,500 payment to a Brookline company that promises to improve your speechmaking abilities or your money back.
boatload of money
Was that the biggest waste of Celtics ownership money since Pervis Ellison?
Errr...
Um, correctly me if I'm wrong, but isn't the next US Senator election in November, 2010? Or are you assuming she's a shoe-in for that?
You're wrong
Ted Kennedy was last re-elected in 2006, and Senators serve six-year terms. Coakley (or Brown) won't be up for re-election again until 2012.
He could be right
Sort of. The Senate staggers its terms, so that one third of the Senate ends their terms every two years.
So, it's entirely possible that Kerry's up for re-election in 2010, no?
you seem to have missed the
you seem to have missed the part where Kerry was just reelected last year and serves until 2015.
Sorry. I only tried to say
Sorry. I only tried to say it was possible.
And yes, I tend to forget the Senate races since we always elect the incumbents.
Maahhtha
It's a resounding victory for Martha and you have to acknowledge her overwhelming numbers.
The race was beginning to change in the last two weeks and I can only wonder how it would have turned out in an normal election cycle. I don't expect to see Martha take liberal votes on law enforcement, civil and Constitutional rights but I do expect her to vote a better record than Scott Brown who has all the GOP talking points down to a fair the well - tax cuts, more tax cuts and more tax cuts. We couldn't afford them when Bush rammed them through under budget reconciliation with 50 votes (plus Cheney) and we can't afford them after we get the economy back on track (another Bush failure) and people employed.
The way to campaign against Scott Brown is to make him declare and then defend Republican party positions. Hell, he won't even put the word "REPUBLICAN" on his web site.
He sounded good on GBH
Actually Brown sounded fiscally responsible on GBH opposing Robinson's pushes for cuts and making some very interesting arguments about tax credits for job creation. Realistically most Mass voters will just walk in and pull the D - but from the few minutes I saw he could make it interesting. Martha's track record on a number of issues could come back to haunt her.
Bottom line - every state should be smart enough to have one Republican and one Democrat - majority's don't last forever and balance is a wonderful thing.
"balance is a wonderful thing"
I wish more Republicans had been singing that tune from 2000-2008.
I agree
which is why I remain a registered independent and voted Kerry in 2004 even though I disagreed with a lot of his positions - the Republicans in my opinion had gone too far on many things and we needed someone on the other side of the argument - the R's proved me right two years later by imploding and the Dems are pushing the envelope in the other direction now - we should always have either have a split congress or have the other party controlling the white house - it usually forces compromise and repels hubris (Think of when we had some of the worst problems in recent times - didn't do a Wikipedia double check but I think it was all Dems under Carter, All Dems under the first 2 years of Clinton and all Repubs under the first 6 years of Bush).
The founders put checks and balances in the Constitution for a reason and we would all be wise to follow their guidance. Even more dangerous than one party controlling everything is 60 senators of the party in power dominating the senate which can eliminate reasoned debate on many important issues.
Don't know enough about Brown to say I support him - we would all be wise to consider his candidacy seriously - no matter how liberal we may be. And Coakley frightens me.
To be fair, political
To be fair, political scientists still aren't sure whether gridlock (opposite parties in the White House and Congress) or full-party leadership (same party in White House and Congress) is worse.
She'll be a competent senator...
...and a reliable vote for the Dems on big ticket issues.
Beyond that, who knows?
I'm getting a sense of deja
I'm getting a sense of deja vu from the mayoral election. Coakley and Brown - I don't really want to vote for either of them.
Mediocrity elevated: Beyond the Peter Principle
She'll be a reliable vote for the expansion of government power and the contraction of individual rights, except for the rights of corporations. A typical senator in that way.
She'll grandstand on "law and order" issues and will follow the line of trying to strip rights away from people and superempower the police. Not just a statist, a police-statist.
Except for abortion, she'd fit in well with the Republicans.
I bet she's already dreaming about running for president in 2016, egads.
Silver lining?
Well, at least she won't be screwing up as the Attorney General any more...
Anyone?
Good night, sweet Queen of the Mooninite "Hoax Bombers". Farewell, Madam "Men just become candidates, because that's what men do (even when they're not qualified)". auf wiedersehen, Frau "the Glue Supplier should have KNOWN we were going to use it incorrectly!".
In recap...where were the attack ads on Coakley?? Why did none of her failures come up in the campaign?? Capuano probably wasn't trying too hard...he's already elected to Congress. Pagliuca thought we just needed to know him better. I don't think Khazei kills gnats let alone attacks other people.
Weaksauce. There had better be a strong Democratic competitor against her in 2012 after she basically walks the party line and keeps her mouth shut for a few years in the Senate. There's no way I'm going to add another Republican vote to the Senate right now, but I am seriously unimpressed with the results of this primary.
Real ambivalence
Massachusetts has not been good ground for female candidates running for statewide office, so I'm very happy to see that apparent break in the state's glass/opaque ceiling. I wish I was more enthusiastic about Coakley herself, but maybe she'll surprise.
Some of the commentators were remarking how difficult it is for anyone to run in Kennedy's shadow, and there's truth in that. But sheez, it was an awfully lackluster primary election campaign, and the voter disinterest was telling.
The Boys and Girls Factor
None of the other candidates attacked Coakley because male candidates attacking female candidates typically end with it blowing up in the male's face.
What Do I Think?
Boooooooooooooring.
If it were Robinson, at least we'd have seen some fun debates. Brown isn't as entertaining as Robinson, and the debates (if any) will be mundane.
The only hope for some fun in this race is Joe Kennedy.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com