A Word Or Two About Martha Coakley

It is inconceivable that the U.S. Senate Seat that belonged to Ted Kennedy for 47 years is now owned by a teabagger, but that is where we are.

I spent a good deal of time and energy recently doing whatever I could, in my own small way, to generate some "buzz" on behalf of Coakley, though of course it went for naught. And based on what I'd read, I'd suspected it was because, in addition to the anti-incumbency fervor, Martha Coakley was a certifiably bad candidate.

And after reading this post from Ryan Grim of HuffPo, I now realize how correct that appraisal is.

I cannot imagine the gall of a political campaign or candidate to blame President Obama for Coakley's loss, when Obama had just come to the state in an effort to whip "the faithful" into enough of a frenzy to try and propel her to victory, and in the process, make the emphatic case for her that she should have made for herself long ago.

You can legitimately blame Obama for not taking a harder line against the "banksters." But was it Obama's fault that the Coakley campaign appeared to fall into some sort of somnambulant trance for about a month but decided to respond to "the fierce urgency of sometime after the first of the New Year" when it realized the extent to which it had fallen in the polls?

Was it Obama's fault that the Coakley campaign didn't bother to run some kind of an ad with Ted Kennedy's widow endorsing her (I couldn't find one)? Was it Obama's fault that Coakley seemed to campaign like the deer in the proverbial headlights and show no fight whatsoever (and thus play into the slowly-building momentum for Brown...and let's not forget that the "racial divide" has basically fallen in our politics, but when it comes to the highest office, the "gender divide" hasn't...only trying to point out how hard it is for a woman in politics versus a man - not bitching about it, just stating a fact)?

Was it Obama's fault that Coakley made that utterly brainless remark about Curt Schilling, who of course used it to hammer her (she could have called Schilling a grand-stander and an opportunist after giving him his due as a great pitcher, and she would've been right, but no, she had to hand the opposition a nice, big, juicy piece of red meat by comparing him to the Yankees)?

Was it Obama’s fault that the Brown campaign ended up learning the lessons of social networking much better than the Coakley campaign did (substantially more “tweets” and lookups for Brown than Coakley)? Was it Obama’s fault that the Brown campaign was able to launch a “money bomb” when that apparently was something that the Coakley campaign realized it couldn’t pull off or didn’t even bother to try?

Was it Obama’s fault that the Coakley campaign slid to the point where it actually looked like Brown was taking the high road by criticizing his opponent for what looked like a campaign rally on the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday?

Obama is President of the United States, not just Massachusetts, almost-Senator Coakley. If you don’t understand what’s going on in your own state, then you have no business in the U.S. Senate.

The problem, of course, is that Brown doesn’t understand either (or he understands enough to parrot marketing-approved talking points and not much else), but he managed to win the election anyway.

If nothing else, it will be an interesting three years.

And by the way, I have a word for all of those independent voters out there who propelled Brown to victory.

The Republicans were the ones who damn near wrecked this country, with Obama and the Dems trying to rebuild it from the shards left after the dark Bushco reign. And if you honestly think that Brown isn’t one of them, or that he actually has any interest in fixing the messes you pretend to care about, then you’re nothing but a bunch of goddamned idiots (and by the way, what kos sez here).

Update 1 1/20/10: I think this is food for thought, particularly concerning my prior comment.

Update 2 1/20/10: As surely as flatulence follows indigestion (here)...