Last night’s victory by Republican Scott Brown over Democrat Martha Coakley for Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat in the Bay State was certainly one of the biggest political shockers in my lifetime. The fact that in happened on the eve of the first anniversary of the Obama presidency also leaves a sour taste in everyone but Republican’s mouths.
My view is the Democrats got complacent with “safe” seats, and Republicans can get that way also as we’ve seen in the last 4 years when they just kept losing. The Democrats were so used to Ted Kennedy holding onto his seat, they thought it would be a lock for them and they could run just about anybody, no matter how terrible a candidate he or she was. Brown managed to develop what I thought was a great one-liner in response to David Gergen: “It’s not the Kennedy seat, it’s the People’s seat!”
All the telltale signs that this was not a safe Democrat haven since at least 1990 were there. William Weld, Paul Cellucci, and Mitt Romney weren’t accidents. If they could win the governorship with that much success, it was only a matter of time before they managed to ascend to higher office. Hell, Brown even made Coakley look like an elistist with his driving around in his GMC Truck. Can you say “Fred Thompson 1994”?
For a party that emphasized reaching out to Indpendents in 2008, how in the world did they not realize that Independents now outnumber either party affliation is staggering. Either people out there honestly did not approve of HRC, or they didn’t understand it because Democrats on the ground weren’t campaigning hard enough up to this vote to gain ground with Independents. I would argue that the latter point is more accurate. Democrats like Coakley and Obama pretty much failed to actually campaign until the last minute, allowing Brown to capitalize. How else do you explain a 30 point lead for Coakley evaporating virtually overnight?
Where I come from, I know of a party that had been in office for a long time. They thought the other guys could never beat them and they got complacent. Guess what? The Liberal Party of Canada is in opposition today, and the best leader we could come up with was a guy who spent 30 years away from Canada and was recently a professor at, coincidentially, Harvard. While Democrats haven’t been in control in the amount of time Liberals had been, the same situation seems to be present. They need to pick up their game and campaign hard, or else they can start to lose safe seats like they did last night.
Elitism, complacency, overconfidence, taking people (especially Independents) for “granted”, inability to listen (frequently – direct intolerance) to any views and opinions, but their own – features observed now among some Democratic party leaders (and “activists” as well). Instead of trying to convince people who disagee on some issues – attempts to smear them with labels (“bigot”, “teabagger” and so on). So, why these very people are surprised facing a backlash like Brown’s election yesterday? Probably the successes of 2006 and 2008 made some overconfident. sometimes – openly naughty and (i don’t want to repeat further…). As Tip O’Neill was told once by his voter after losing an election in seemengly reliable Democratic district in his youth “People like to be asked, Thomas”. Democrats earned trust of many people by hard work in 2005-2008 only to squander that in 1 year,
than anything else, but you make some good points, and as usual, Nate Silver has interesting things to say.
This is Massachusetts, not Arkansas…the “guy next door” could just as well drive a Prius as a pickup truck.
Let me try to explain it. Though I suspect it will be as in vain as when I tried to do it on dKos.
-Ted Kennedy. It finally sunk in that he was truly gone over the course of December. The backlash that broke out into the open around New Year’s was anger and violated vanity pent up over Kennedy’s 47 years in office. That’s what drove Republican and “Independent””enthusiasm”, i.e. very high turnout of the ~35% of Presidential election voters who voted Republican (McCain).
The Brown/Coakley campaign was pretty much all a chewing over of the Kennedy legacy. Abortion rights, gay marriage (covertly), black people, taxes and government programs generally, HCR specifically, the Kennedy family, the Massachusetts Democratic cadres and ‘machine’, the fairly Kennedy-centric Democratic establishment in Washington which had enlisted Obama. All the bitching about a ‘bad candidate’ and tactical wrongs of the campaign: to be frank, that didn’t matter. That didn’t make the difference.
The Brown campaign was all about people venting resentment of what Ted had been and wrought. The King is dead, time to piss on his grave and verbally tear down everything about him.
-What really cost Coakley/why the Democratic base here wouldn’t rally to beat a cynical empty suit Republican: Harry Reid’s dithering. The Democratic establishment in Washington has slid off to center Right in Kennedy’s absence. And for past 8+ months it has giving The Finger to liberals (who showed up for Coakley, she being a liberal) and committed Leftists (who didn’t show). While Kennedy was part of that establishment he made sure to do enough to keep support of the liberals and Leftists
What’s next: Scott Brown represents Massachusetts giving The Finger to Harry Reid and the Gang of 14, Rahm Emmanuel, and the Blue Dog Caucus. But mostly Harry Reid.
There are a lot of parallels between Brown/Coakley 2010 and Romney/O’Brien in 2002. Romney and Republicans both nationally and in Massachusetts thought that Mitt winning was a stunning victory that would serve Republican ends. But the 2002 Romney/O’Brien election campaign was basically about Tom Finneran, the corrupt conservaDem state House Speaker. Romney was popular in office (60% support levels) while Finneran ruled the roost in the state legislature. When Finneran abruptly resigned in September 2004 because a federal investigation (instigated by fellow state House Democrats) had caught up with him, Romney’s numbers collapsed to an unreelectable 35% within the month (maybe the week). His term as governor was practically over at that point; he got told as much by the new state legislature leadership after the November 2004 elections. He spent most of the next two years in places such as South Carolina…. Oh, and bitterly realizing that the real winners of his term as governor turned out be liberal Democrats.
I think that Scott Brown will likewise be popular and a bit of a phenom until Harry Reid and the centrist Democrat gang hit the exits. That might be as soon as this fall.