Coakley 2010 = Dukakis 1988

In the summer of 1988 despite my reservations about him I felt a surge of ethnic pride when Michael Dukakis was nominated by the Democratic party. He left the convention with a huge lead and then went on vacation and then tended to state business. He thought he had it in the bag but when you're a cold fish: it's *never* in the bag. Meanwhile his weasley opponent went to work and wound up winning.

In the winter of 2009, Martha Coakley won a smashing primary victory and then went on vacation with a huge lead in the polls. She thought she had it in the bag but when you're a cold fish: it's *never* in the bag. Meanwhile her weasley opponent went to work and wound up winning.

Tip O'Neill correctly said that all politics is local and I think that's most of the reason for why this happened BUT I agree with Josh who wrote:

Message of the day to all Dems, Coakley, Rahm, Celinda Lake, national Dem committees, Axelrod, whoever, whatever: Shut the *$%& Up! I don't know how else to say it. I'm watching MSNBC and hearing all the key players dumping on each other. As I've said, the Coakley campaign seems to have been run just terribly. And that's just the beginning of it. But really, with all that's at stake, the White House political office left this to Coakley, unsupervised? Really? I just have very little patience hearing all the people who are by definition all to blame have an argument about who's most to blame.

What I'm seeing -- and this isn't just based on public comments but our reporting behind the scenes -- is that there's a lot more energy going into dodging blame for this unforced error of galactic proportions than there is going into the real issue: closing the loop on the health care bill. Which is the only issue in policy terms and political terms. That's it. Everything else is water under the bridge.

That's right: stop whining, STFU and get back to work or November is going to be eerily like tonight. The next person in a position of responsibility who points the finger of blame should have it cut off and inserted where the moon don't shine.

For my part, I promise to not use one of my tweets as the title of a post ever again but this was too good to waste on the tweeter tube. Okay, it's time for *me* to STFU and find out how much Scott Brown wants for his crappy truck now that he won't need it as a campaign prop....

Comments

[Tommy T]

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[hoppy]

I don't agree with Josh Marshall too much on this one. Unless Democrats can figure out why this happened it will continue to happen. If this was a winnable election at all, we either had the wrong candidate, and that was something that didn't have to happen, or the campaign that was waged was a poor one, and that didn't have to happen. So, please, let's try to determine how this happened, so we can work to be sure it isn't repeated a dozen times over in November.

If nothing else, this fiasco should stop all of the comments about how brilliant a political strategist Obama is. A truly brilliant political strategist would not have allowed this result to occur.

My own hope is that finally Obama will give up the nonsense about bipartisanship, and work to achieve something as president. That will require partisanship, since bipartisanship requires two parties to work on it - that's why the bi in the word - but isn't remotely possible with only one party working on it as we have had for a year now. (Yes, exactly one year ago Obama took office!)

[Adrastos]

It was a poorly run candidate with the wrong candidate in the wrong year. I think there was the mistaken assumption that she'd won statewide before and was well known and a Democrat. The biggest mistake was ignoring Brown until it was too late. The folks who decided in the last few days broke for Coakley but it was too late.

I agree about bipartisanship. That futile quest has allowed the Senate to be paralyzed out of fear of a filibuster. Let 'em do it. The Dems have 59 frakking votes, this is pitiful.

[joejoejoe]

He's a LAWYER with a truck. Unless it's got Juris-Posi or Tort-on-the-Floor it's not going to be too hard to pop the bubble of Scott Brown. How hard is it for Obama to go "He won fairly in Massachusetts and we welcome him to Congress to do the people's work. He's got a nice truck. I've got some cool cowboy hats. The fact is we're both lawyers. Now let's get to work."

Then start passing shit with 50 votes plus Joey "Balls" Biden.

I'm not looking for "Dems" to figure jack squat out. I'm looking for Obama, Pelosi, and Reid to figure the bare minimum needed to start getting things done and then DO IT without consulting the likes of Evan Bayh, Ben Nelson, Max Baucus, and Joe Lieberman.

[BlakNo1]

The democrats will take precisely the wrong lesson out of this. They're already saying that Coakley ran too far to the left. 2010 will be a blood bath and not in a good way.

[BlakNo1]

And what hoppy said. The idea of Obama being some kind of 11th dimensional chess master is now dead.

[JSG]

I agree with most of the posts here but have a slightly different take. Bush never had better than 51 Republican Senators and was able to ram through some of the most harmful bills to ever become law in this great country. He and the Republicans in congress did it by not giving a damn what the Democrates or the main stream media thought or said. They just did it and the American People ate it up. Lession to learn - The American People like bold action and guts more than compromise and weakness no matter what the outcome. If the Democrats had gone down in a blaze of glory in July fighting for single payer healthcare and picked themselves up and jumped back into the fray fighting for tough regulations on Wall Street they would have been in an excellent position to cream the Republicans come November 2010. They also would have gotten some of the work done right (cap and trade, card check, re-regulating Wall Street, etc) instead of the crap they are churning out now. Maybe Brown's win will kick some sense into the White House and get Obama to come out of his stupor and get to work.

[Doc]

WHY in God's name, can't we all figure this out? It's an 18-VOTE MAJORITY. I'm not good at math, but that seems to be, oh, I don't know... A LOT OF EFFIN VOTES! Go out there, punch them in the face, take their lunch money and get this damned thing done. If I hear one more radio guy saying that "this could spell doom for the president's health care initiative" I'm going to scream.

If you want it, go out there and take it. Where the hell is John Biebe when we need him?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJiaWxFMp4E

[virgotex]

Example: Debbie Wasserman Schulz on MSNBC last night, who is the VICE-CHAIR of the DCCC, first laid the blame on the Coakley campaign, then actually said she didn't know much about the inner workings of the DCCC but blah blah blah obviously there had been problems.

I'm with Josh. STFU, own it, sack up, and get to work for us. Preferably, harder than you have been up to now.

[Athenae]

Michael Dukakis would have been a great president. As would every other supposedly shitty candidate we have run for the past 60 years.

A.

[Adrastos]

He was a *very* bad candidate, A. A human punching bag for Bush and Ailes who wouldn't listen to anyone.

[pansypoo]

massachusetts has a thing for shitty shitty candidates. did she get picked in a primary? i do blame her for being clueless. but where was the DLC telling her to get off her ass?