Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown has surged ahead of his Democratic
opponent Martha Coakley, according to a new poll released Thursday night.
Brown leads Coakley by a margin of 50 percent to 46 percent, the Suffolk University/WHDH-TV poll found. It is the first poll to show Brown, who had been thought a long-shot underdog, leading the race.
It raises the possibility of an historic political upset in Massachusetts.
“It’s a massive change in the political landscape,” David Paleologos, director of
Suffolk’s Political Research Center, told The Boston Herald.
If you've been following the race, you know that this poll comes as no surprise. Martha Coakley's campaign has been a series of mistakes and gaffes over the last couple days. Meanwhile, Scott Brown has been raising enormous amounts of money and staying on message.
Things first really started heading south for the Coakley campaign when the candidate pronounced to a debate audience that there are no more terrorists in Afghanistan. The very next evening it was revealed that the same Martha Coakley was holding a fundraiser in D.C. with a bunch of lobbyists from the pharmaceutical industry. Following this get together, Coakley and her entourage ran into Weekly Standard reporter John McCormack. That confrontation produced this now infamous photo.
Meanwhile, Scott Brown has been staying on message. First, he continues to call himself the "41st Vote" against health. Since the debate, he's come up with a second sound bite, "it's not Ted Kennedy's seat, it's the people's seat."
Since the race has only recently received a lot of attention, this series of gaffes is what has been the topic of conversation in the national and Boston media recently.
For instance, this confrontation was covered by both Boston newspapers, the Herald and Globe. In response to the Herald's article, it received an enormous 834 comments (and counting). In the Globe, it received 389 comments (and counting) and the story went through four name changes, as the mostly conservative audience wasn't all that happy with the spin of the left wing titles.
So, there's no question the citizens of the country, and most importantly the state of Massachusetts, are engaged. They are watching one campaign stay totally on message, while another is totally disintegrating.
The Coakley campaign has put out the big guns. Most notably, President Obama did this internet video.
At this point, however, I don't think it will matter. Scott Brown is about to pull off a stunning victory. Health care reform will be dead and Obama's Presidency will be on life support come four evenings from this one.
I have contributed to Brown's campaign not once, but twice now.
ReplyDeleteThis has become a national race that has ramifications not too far below that of a presidential contest because of the 41st vote. Indeed it certainly affects the presidency going forward IMO.
Fortunately for my own principles, he seems to be a pretty straight shooter, and is worthy of such support. Crossing fingers, and looking forward to a positive result and a Brown win (hopefully a significant one that avoids a count process) for a more tempered legislative branch going forward.
I too like Scott Brown. He's an impressive candidate, though, to be fair, he voted for Romney Care, and that's pretty much one and the same as Obama Care.
ReplyDeleteResearch 2000 conducted a poll at the same time that still has Coakley with an 8 point lead.
ReplyDeleteTalk about an all-in situation. If Brown doesn't pull it off, it will instantly throw into question the "only conservative Republicans are motivated to vote in 2010" meme most pollsters have been using to craft their "likely voter" demographics.
There's no doubt that there's all sorts of discrepancy in the polls. That's why I am looking at what is happening. Brown is running a near perfect campaign while Coakley is making one mistake after another.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what you were trying to say with that comment except that as a friend of mine used to say,
"if if was a fifth, we'd all be drunk."