Martha Coakley Concedes

Wow. I thought she had conceded like, a month ago.

The past month, I tended not to really address poliblogging, because although I follow politics, I do it more or less the way some folks follow sports. I recognize that I'm a Democratic partisan, and I can't really pretend to be otherwise. That doesn't mean I love everything my "team" does. And I don't think they played this game really well.

I'm going to point to John Cole's take on this:

Remember when you jumped through hoops a couple months back when Kennedy died, and changed the law (again!) to make sure there was a Democrat in office- that was the kind of arrogance and sense of entitlement that led to tonight’s defeat. Some of us tried to point that out then.

I know a lot of you are really upset about the loss, but if people want to be honest about what happened tonight, this is not the fault of progressive activists (despite the fact that I am incapable of behaving maturely and insisted on being a jackass on twitter). This is not the fault of the administration and Barack Obama, because if Coakley had Obama’s numbers in Mass., she would be the next Senator.
This is about an arrogant state party, a horrible and lazy candidate who was unprepared and unmotivated, out of touch with the voters, incapable or unwilling to put in the work and shake the hands and massage the egos and put in the hours, and they got their asses handed to them. I’m sure the exit polling will give us more information, but right now it looks to me that this was about the fundamentals of running a good campaign. Coakley and company didn’t adhere to them.

All of that is basically what I'm seeing. If I wanted to break down two things that could have really been done better: Coakley should have talked herself up as being ready to follow Kennedy's legacy and talk about what she would do, and--oppo research.

The first is bathetic and maudlin. Big whoop. If you want to follow in big footprints--try on the big shoes. If the stops only get pulled out in the last week or two--sorry! Obama can try and Vicky Kennedy can try and Kerry can try, but Coakley was the candidate. People didn't connect with her, so it was her job to step in and make those connections.

The second half is mean and totally necessary and deserved. Her campaign got "boo'ed" at a little by running an ad based on Scott Brown's support of legislation that would have medical professionals turn away rape victims based on their religious perspectives.

I heard about that last week. That's exactly one week before the election--she should have started hammering him on small stuff from the get-go if she wanted to take him down. Paint him as the guy who doesn't know what tea baggers are when he is talking to them, and a lightweight who posed nude and is still getting by on his looks. Then get ugly, so his response looks lame and he gets rope-a-doped.

Oh, she had a bounty to work with, if her and her people only wanted to work.

I know, I sound so Rove-ish about it. Yeah, I don't think poliblogging brings out the best in me.

I also am not 100% on the House just taking the Senate health care bill as is--but ay, me--

We should not need 60 votes in the first damn place.