Republican pundits are selling - and the mainstream media is already buying - the narrative that tonight's election`is a referendum on Obama's presidency and the Democratic Party. That, my friends, is bullshit.
If American politics has taught us anything, it is that the political is intensely personal. The two cannot be divorced from one another. This principle comes through most clearly at the highest levels. We all knew that Bill Clinton was the son of a single mother, from a little town called Hope. We knew his story. In 2000 and 2004, we constantly heard folks say that they liked George W. Bush- that he was the kind of guy they could have a beer with. Barack Obama? We all knew his story; we knew who he was and where he was from. Sarah Palin? She won the Governorship in Alaska running as a folksy hockey mom moose hunter turned (fake) political corruption fighter. Then sold that same line of nonsense when she was tapped as McCain's VP candidate. In fact, McCain himself provides a perfect example: his whole Senate career has been based on the personal narrative.
This is where Coakley fails, and epically. As the state's Attorney General, she was an obvious candidate for an open Senate seat. In fact, she was the first to throw her hat into the ring, and was clearly the establishment pick. She had all the necessary credentials, on paper. Given that Massachusetts is deep blue, nobody really expected a tough fight in the general election.
But then there was Scott Brown. Throwing around trite, tea-bagger platitudes and talking about his Ford truck with 200,000 miles (but not his 5 houses). A political unknown, the guy was virtually free to make up whatever persona he wanted. Taking a page out of Sarah Palin's playbook, he went with the folksy, freedom loving, independent Mavericky Maverick (read Republican) next door. It doesn't matter how much of this is bullshit; people started eating it up. It got played two or three times on the 24/7 news cycle, and it suddenly became true.
So where does Coakley come in? What should Coakley have done? The answer is pretty damn simple: Something. Coakley just had to do something. She had to define herself; get out there; shake hands; kiss babies; tell people what she believed in; why she was right for them; how she would fight for them. But instead, she froze. She wasn't ready. She had no reaction for Brown and his folksy bullshit, because she was just expecting to cruise to that Senate seat. Beyond that, she had the audacity to dismiss Brown's campaign as a joke. Even when Brown was gaining, Coakley literally refused to get out there in the cold and shake hands with people outside of Fenway Park. She scoffed at the idea. Coakley was never a woman of the people-- Hell, she didn't even know who Curt Schilling was. And on policy? She claimed there were no terrorists remaining in Afghanistan. She made herself look like a bumbling idiot who felt entitled to a Senate seat and considered herself somehow above the act of campaigning.
So in the end, this isn't a referendum on the Democratic Party or President Obama. Just like Virginia wasn't a referendum on the Democratic Party or President Obama (see, i.e., Creigh Deeds). This is about Martha Coakley: a lazy, terrible and terribly impersonal candidate. Nobdoy knows who Martha Coakley is; nobody knows her story; nobody knows what she's like as a person; nobody saw her out there fighting for them. Because she never went there. And Scott Brown did.
Case in point: If Teddy Kennedy was alive and running for reelection, he'd win this one in a landslide.
Once again, the personal trumps the political.