Tag: martha coakley

How you can tell that the Democrats are worried about Brown/Coakley.

They don’t want to risk a loss slopping over on the President.

President Obama has no plans to travel to Massachusetts to campaign for Democrat Martha Coakley in the home stretch in the special election to fill the US Senate seat held by the late Edward M. Kennedy.

Presidential press secretary Robert Gibbs said today in response to a question at a briefing in the White House that the “president doesn’t have any travel plans to campaign in Massachusetts,” because “it’s not on our schedule to go to next week.”

But he sent out an email!  That’ll teach us rascally Republicans.

Moe Lane

PS: Via a very bitter AMERICAblog. You’d think that they’d be used to the caustic taste of betrayal by now.

PPS: Scott Brown for Senate.

Crossposted to RedState.

Gov Deval Patrick (D, MA) just gave the GOP three more House seats.

And I’m blaming the Governor for this one because I find it inconceivable that he would have let his subordinates set policy in such a nakedly partisan fashion without him first signing off on it.  Apparently the Democratic party just doesn’t care how many ‘moderate’ Democrats have to have their careers sacrificed to the leadership’s ambitions.   I don’t know where we’ll use this development – yet – but if you think that we’re not going to use this (win or lose):

The U.S. Senate ultimately will schedule the swearing-in of Kirk’s successor, but not until the state certifies the election.

Today, a spokesman for Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, who is overseeing the election but did not respond to a call seeking comment, said certification of the Jan. 19 election by the Governor’s Council would take a while.

“Because it’s a federal election,” spokesman Brian McNiff said. “We’d have to wait 10 days for absentee and military ballots to come in.”

Another source told the Herald that Galvin’s office has said the election won’t be certified until Feb. 20 – well after the president’s address.

Since the U.S. Senate doesn’t meet again in formal session until Jan. 20, Bay State voters will have made their decision before a vote on health-care reform could be held. But Kirk and Galvin’s office said today a victorious Brown would be left in limbo.

In contrast, Rep. Niki Tsongas (D-Lowell) was sworn in at the U.S. House of Representatives on Oct. 18, 2007, just two days after winning a special election to replace Martin Meehan. In that case, Tsongas made it to Capitol Hill in time to override a presidential veto of the expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

…to hammer home the point that Democrats Lie, think again.  The ads write themselves, and even should Coakley win the speed with which she’ll be installed will still let us run those ads.  And she would be installed speedily: her party’s leadership doesn’t just lie.  It assumes that the electorate is dumb, too.

It’s not, by the way.

Moe Lane

PS: That SCHIP veto wasn’t actually overturned, by the way.

Crossposted to RedState.

This is not DOOM for Coakley. Yet.

Further UPDATE: More from PPP here, via AoSHQ (and welcome to that site’s readers, by the way). You can sign up here to phone bank for Scott Brown.

But PPP is tweeting out a warning. They’re unabashedly a Democratic-aligned firm, but PPP played it straight in Virginia and New Jersey last year: if they say that Massachusetts is looking doable, then Massachusetts is looking doable.

Scott Brown for Senate.

Crossposted to RedState.

UPDATE: And now the Democrats are push-polling?  Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Rasmussen: Coakley/Brown 50/41.

Nine points.  In Masssachusetts.  And look here:

Both candidates get better than 70% of the vote from members of their respective parties, but Brown leads 65% to 21% among voters not affiliated with either of the major parties.

Rasmussen’s not pretending that this race isn’t a tough one for Brown, and neither will I: but I told a reporter yesterday that Coakley would have to win by at least ten points to keep national Democrats from getting nervous. Her being single-digits now should set off alarm bells for both parties…

See also Legal insurrection, Jules Crittenden, and Sisu.

Moe Lane

PS: Scott Brown for Senate.

Crossposted to RedState.

Ah, former Governor Palin?

Time to start the waltz, methinks.

A few days ago Sissy Willis asked a very interesting question: Will Sarah Palin endorse Scott Brown?  I’ve been thinking about it a bit; and while I can see the arguments both pro and con, I think that it’s time that Sarah Palin did.  You have to speculate to accumulate, after all.

So let’s light this candle.

Moe Lane

PS: Scott Brown for US Senate.

Crossposted to RedState.

Martha Coakley’s (D Cand, SEN-MA) oddly obscure cash-on-hand numbers.

[UPDATE]: Welcome, Instapundit & Vodkapundit readers. As I mentioned below, William Jacobson’s all over this topic.

Interesting. Here’s the short version: Martha Coakley is reporting that she’s raised over 1 million dollars since November 20th, and 5.2 million overall. So, Scott Brown’s (who raised 700K in the same time period, and who has just over 1.2 million overall) in trouble, yes?

No. At least, not from that.

Coakley, who faced three opponents in the Democratic primary, started the special election campaign with less than $500,000 in her campaign account, compared with about $300,000 for Brown, a Republican of Wrentham.

You see, most of that money Coakley raised got spent fighting for the nomination.  William Jacobson’s all over this topic: while he and I both think that she’s got more money in the bank right now than Brown, it’s not the 5-to-1 advantage she’s hyping.  At best, it’s 3-to-2. She’s also facing the problem that her public retreat on abortion language in the bill is going to depress enthusiasm in the progressive netroots; and that Republican activists at least have noted that flipping Massachusetts could – could! – possibly derail the health care rationing bill, and are contributing accordingly*.

Speaking of which: Jan 11th Scott Brown moneybomb here: main campaign site here.

Moe Lane

*Time for some unsolicited advice to the netroots: I understand that none of you want to hear this, but if you want to be taken seriously, you have to start punishing your would-be representatives when they tell you one thing and do another.  Bluntly? Martha Coakley broke her word when she fell into line with Senate Democrats on abortion language.  You know this.  But you will go nowhere until your legislators fear you and yours more than they fear me and mine.  In fact, I’ll tell you: they don’t fear you at all.

So here’s the Scott Brown moneybomb link again. Revenge is a dish that’s best served cold.

Crossposted to RedState.

Pick yourselves up. MA special election next month.

As Ace of Spades HQ reminds us.  Scott Brown is running for the GOP nod, and Democratic nominee Martha Coakley is already tap-dancing like crazy over abortion, of all things:

Coakley used her stark position on abortion rights to appeal to supporters for donations; in an e-mail, she declared her decision to make her position “a defining moment’’ in her campaign.

In a statement to the Globe yesterday, Coakley said that although she was disappointed that the Senate bill “gives states additional options regarding the funding mechanisms for women’s reproductive health services,’’ she would reluctantly support it because it would provide coverage for millions of uninsured people and reduce costs.

…more accurately, she is enthusiastically supporting it because she wants to be the next Senator from Massachusetts, only her last name isn’t Kennedy.  Her ‘principled’ position was one that was made before Stupak stirred the pot with his amendment; so her principled position gets to go out the window – and never mind what she said before.  After all, what are Massachusetts voters going to do about it?  Vote Republican?

[pause]

You know, with this particular candidate this particular candidate, they just might.  Even if you find him too pro-choice, it has to be admitted that he’s not a hypocrite about it.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

MA SEN: Coakley versus Brown.

The primary results are in for the Massachusetts special election primary, and it’s Massachusetts AG Martha Coakley for the Democrats; State Senator Scott Brown for the Republicans.  10% turnout; special election on January 19th .

Coakley, of course, is cookie-cutter: as Jim Geraghty put it, the Democratic side was “lefty vs. lefty vs. lefty vs. lefty.”  Scott Brown’s a bit more interesting, given that he’s running on strong opposition to cap-and-trade, and as a fiscal conservative.  His opponent in the primary wanted “a Paris peace conference to negotiate with the Taliban:” enough said.

Continue reading MA SEN: Coakley versus Brown.