There are alot of reasons behind Scott Brown's astounding upset victory last Tuesday. It would be a mistake to attribute Brown's victory to any one cause, yet everyone's trying to. I suspect that everyone's looking for a magic bullet. The Democrats need to know the one thing that has to change for November, and the Republicans need to know the one thing that they should model their neo-revolution on.
But whether it was fielding a strong campaigner against a weak one, or an anti-Obama referendum (which 538 doubts), whether it was strange winds blowing through the rotting Commonwealth Democrat leadership... Something happened. It was all of those things and more, though. There's no magic bullet. If anyone tells you that Scott Brown won for any single reason, they're just spinning this out of proportion.
There are a specific set of causes that led to the Brown ascendancy, and I'd like to examine all of them. They can be divided into two categories: why Martha Coakley lost and why Scott Brown won. Most everyone is focused on why Coakley lost, and so few people forget that she could have salvaged the race if she were faced with a lesser candidate.
Scott Brown ran. Despite all political wisdom, Brown was in this race to win it. Commentators (myself included) speculated that Brown was increasing his name recognition and establishing a statewide political machine to run for another office later this year. We were wrong. Brown surely knew this race would help with that, but it was Plan B. Plan A was to get elected Senator.
His campaign staff, especially the talent behind his ad campaign, deserve the highest accolades. Controversial without being too controversial with Brown's JFK ad, he came out swinging in December. He polished a working man image that may have been a little disingenuous (he is a lawyer and a politician, what has he hauled in that truck?) but it worked. Good looking family man with a successful family (news anchor wife, up and coming starlet daughter). The pick up truck. The barnjacket (though the Globe's Beth Teitell wonders if it's the real deal or an expensive stylistic choice). The risque college years (Coakley wouldn't get elected dog catcher with a centerfold past). Brown's campaign hit all of the right notes, and he genuinely seems like a regular guy. Voters responded to the idea of sending one of themselves to Washington.
I cannot stress this enough. Even if Coakley were a stronger candidate (and I'll examine why she lost in a bit), Brown would have made this race close. He's a hell of a campaigner with a damned fine stump speech, a photogenic perfect family, and good talent working his campaign. And a Coakley win could have been just as damaging, because it would have been close. Brown's campaign would still be the model for the upcoming midterm elections. He still would have energized the state Republicans.
Coakley lost this election on her own. There has been some fierce sniping back and forth over who's fault this is, but it ultimately lies with the candidate. Her campaign chose to focus on fundraising and building up a union-backed Get Out The Vote effort. It's reminiscent of an incumbent's campaign, except she never earned her incumbency. Coakley needed to win the hearts and minds of Massachusetts, and this is something she simply failed to do. You can blame it on the gaffes (Schilling is a Yankee fan was a labored metaphor for him going to bat for the other team, in this case the Republican party, but it makes a damaging sound bite, for example), but Coakley's focus was on getting into office, not winning a campaign.
This is not to say that Coakley bears all the blame for her loss. As above, I mentioned that Brown actually had to go out there and win this. And a big part of his campaign was asking what the deal was with the National Democratic Party. He did so cleverly, at first by making the subtle assertion that this was no longer JFK's party. Then the health care reform bill was drawn out in a labored Senate hearing. While some claimed the national GOP didn't come to Brown's aid, I'd argue they did alot for him by obstructing HCR until the mangled mess choked the Democrats. And Brown used that effectively against Coakley. He branded her as a rubber stamp well before Coakley shot back with calling him a lockstep Republican. He defined her as the non-independent candidate first. Between that and the general misgivings about how the Democrats are squandering away their political capital, it's really no shock that the voters were turned against the Democratic candidate.
One article of blame, however, that has been largely overlooked by the national media, is the state of the Massachusetts Democratic Party. And the deplorable state the party is in was on full display this race. The party has lately been besieged by scandal, the rotten fruits of years in charge. Coakley is, of course, as the state's Attorney General, charged with overseeing the legal problems in the state government. As has been pointed out many times during the campaign, Coakley has shown extreme reluctance to go after Democratic state officials caught with their hands in the cookie jar. She is as much a part of the rotting, failing machine as Sal DiMasi, Diane Wilkerson, or Anthony Galluccio. And while the national pundits don't realize that, or even care, these local concerns did Coakley no favors.
This campaign was harder to write up than my summary of the 2009 mayoral election, in part because there is no one reason that Scott Brown won. Brown didn't campaign solely on the health care reform mess, however. To claim that his election is a referendum on that, or a referendum on the Democrats in general, is to grossly over-simplify matters. At the end of the day, Scott Brown and Martha Coakley both own this election, for good or ill.
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