Post Mortem

that could have gone better now couldn't it?








***



A couple of things went very wrong yesterday quite obvious, but they started going wrong some three months or more ago.



I think Martha Coakley fatally underestimated the threat from Scott Brown, she let slip a lead (although it was probably never so lavish as fifteen points). Moreover the state party clearly did not anticipate that Brown's candidacy would attract so much out of state money. The state democrats were late with their ground game (although they made an almighty effort at the last minute to be sure). There were very serious defficiencies up and down the line here (lack of signage, unmemorable TV adverts, poor party organization at the precinct level the list goes on), most of which was derived from a sense of complacency, well complacency doesn't win elections.



I firmly believe that this might have been a sixty-forty blowout if President Obama hadn't gotten the base fired up on Sunday. Likely though, the spin will be that this is a Huge Humiliation for the Administration.



However, this was Martha Coakley's race to lose and much as it pains me to write this she damn well found several good ways to lose it.



Moreover, it is time to speak plainly about a barely whispered topic, there is a real climate of sub rosa sexism in Bay State Politics for all our liberal bona fides. In the past ten years the guberatorial hopes of Shannon O'Brien, Scary Kerry Healey and Jane Jingle Money Swift have all come to naught and now we can add Martha Coakley's senatorial ambitions to the list...Anyone else see a bipartisan pattern here?



I think it is fatal for any woman to fun for terminal higher office in Massachusetts without a very well thought out game plan to short circuit said climate of sexism, I hate to have to write that but it is true. There is a gender gap in state politics and it prevents female candidates from moving up, period end of story.



Whoever can short circuit said gender gap can go the distance, right now though, it is a serious problem that prevents good women from moving into the right positions.



I tend to think, Brown will be a short lived phenom akin to Mitt Romney (who looked formidable in 2003 but had flamed out completely by 2005), he faces the electorate again in 2012 and likely will not have the same financial resources or out of state volunteers to draw on.



But once again we faces challenges from within and without, let us bend ourselves to the tasks at hand be equal to our times.