What the Hell Is Going on in the Massachusetts Special Election for U.S. Senate?

The Republican candidate for Teddy Kennedy’s Massachusetts senate seat has pulled ahead of the Democratic candidate according to one poll. The election is on Tuesday. I’m not a fan of either party and find electoral politics in the USA to be – how to put this delicately? – a great big cow pie. But I am living in Massachusetts, that most Democratic of states (other than its governors). Like everyone else, I’m curious about how things got this way. After all, the stakes are high, not the least the challenge to Obama’s Senate majority.

Martha Coakley, the Democrat, is the state attorney general. Her face is familiar, she’s well-connected to the powerful Massachusetts political scene and she used to be many points ahead. Coakley’s campaign was complacent from the start: they did little fund-raising or reaching out, giving the impression that they were sure that it was in the bag. She had one ineffective (if not counterproductive) weird, talking head ad that was played endlessly, and little else.

Not, that is, until her opponent Scott Brown and the Republicans realized they could build on Obama's descending approval rates and a poll came out a few days ago saying Brown is ahead. Brown is a right-wing, anti-choice, healthcare reform-hater, who is a former model, including a nude pretty white-boy-centerfold for Cosmo. One of his most important weapons in the fight for women’s votes is his daughter. As the Washington Post points out, Ayla, who “as a basketball star and ‘American Idol’ semifinalist -- was far more famous than her father at the start of the campaign.”

As Brown closed the gap, the Democrats suddenly woke up. Now we’re being flooded with a variety of (mostly negative) ads from Coakley, Clinton is in town today and Obama, says PBS, is arriving on Sunday, despite the pressures of Haiti and health care legislation. John Kerry wrote his email list asking for money, Victoria Kennedy has made joint appearances with Coakley and many of us have received robo-calls from Obama – all this in just the last couple of days since the polls rang the alarm.

The Republican Party too has stepped up with national figures and resources. John McCain did a YouTube endorsement for Brown and Rudy Giuliani was in Boston today.

The failures of Coakley and her team are going to force me to go out and vote for her on Tuesday because I would hate to be that one vote that allowed in this Tea-Bagger to “represent” me – and that does not endear me to her, her party or this system. I already voted for a Democrat last year and what did it get me? A healthcare bill that attacks the health of women, that has no caps on the double/triple premiums the insurance companies can charge people my age, not a single step forward for the queer community, more wars mongering, more unemployment, no Guantanamo shut-down, bans on shoes and underpants on planes (okay, not quite) and the bonus class sucking my class dry. Sigh.