Massachusetts Senate Brawl: No Template for GOP Wins in November

BOSTON -- One of the more puzzling hand-lettered signs at a recent rally for Republican state Sen. Scott Brown was "It's our turn for a change." George W. Bush survived six years and a re-election campaign before the country turned against him and put Democrats in charge of Congress, but President Obama is getting just a one-year pass from many voters in Massachusetts. There are so many of them that he's in real danger of losing his filibuster-proof Senate supermajority and ability to get things done.

Clearly the closeness of Tuesday's special election to succeed the late Ted Kennedy, in this of all states, for this of all seats, reflects national apprehension about an economy that's still tough and a health reform drive that's been difficult to explain and sell. But it's worth looking at the singular aspects of the contest before we conclude that because Attorney General Martha Coakley is in trouble here, Democrats across the country are doomed in November.

Joyce Boyan of Reading expressed a widespread sentiment at the Brown rally when she told me that "I'm sick and tired of Democrats thinking they can run roughshod over us." It sounded bewildering – after all, Democrats have only recently emerged from utter impotence in Washington. But Boyan's remark makes sense in the context of the monolithic political culture here. Democrats hold all Massachusetts House and Senate seats, the governorship and both chambers of the Legislature. There hasn't been a Republican senator since Ed Brooke won a seat 44 years ago – so there's a decent case for giving somebody else a turn.

Beyond that, Coakley's home-state burdens include Gov. Deval Patrick's 35 percent approval rating and several statehouse Democrats involved in scandals. Then there is her pattern of unforced errors. She didn't appear to notice until lately that voters are not happy with the way things are going with her party at the helm. She did not move to aggressively define herself or Brown until her lead slipped away. She said in a debate that terrorists are gone from Afghanistan, dismissed the idea of shaking hands outside Fenway Park "in the cold" (as Brown did) and inexplicably called former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling a Yankees fan. A local columnist – Adrian Walker of the Boston Globe – said she has been perhaps fatally afraid to reveal her personality.

For all those many reasons, Coakley may not be a harbinger of what's in store for her fellow Democrats this fall. The party is doing its best to make sure the results Tuesday nip that story line before it takes off. The Democratic establishment – Presidents Clinton and Obama, Vicki Kennedy et al – have rushed to Coakley's rescue with money, rallies, ads and robocalls.

Brown sees their embrace as an opportunity and doesn't let anyone forget it for a minute. "She'll be a Washington insider," an establishment politician who hobnobs with special interests, he says of Coakley, whereas he will be "an independent voter and thinker," taking on the "political machine." But let's be clear about what he means by that: He'll take on the Democrats. Judging by Brown's positions and positioning, it's highly doubtful he'll be an "independent thinker" when it comes to the GOP.

That's not to say Coakley will be a maverick. She agrees with Obama on health, climate change, financial regulation, just about everything but his troop surge in Afghanistan. Brown, as Boston Mayor Tom Menino put it to Democrats last week, would negate every vote cast by the state's senior senator, Democrat John Kerry.

Brown is a hardliner on terror (he even supports waterboarding). His views on most issues are straight Republican and where they're not, he's adapted them. He says "we should start over" on health care. He slams the stimulus package and his proposed recession fix is – you guessed it -- lower taxes. He has backed off his onetime certainty that there is global warming and support for a cap-and-trade system. If he gets to Washington, there will be what Republican-turned-Democrat Arlen Specter calls "tremendous pressure" on him to block Obama at every turn, no matter the issue or its merits or the potential for compromise. There's no reason to think Brown would be more independent than, say, moderate Maine Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.

As far as Coakley's reliance on Democratic bigwigs in the final days of the race, it's a safe bet that Brown made a strategic choice to go it alone. If he thought there was anything to gain from visits by Bush, Dick Cheney or Sarah Palin, they'd be here trying to push him over the top. But they're deeply polarizing and they won't help – so they're MIA. The one national figure who has shown up, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, is best known for his role after 9/11 and terrorist positions that mirror Brown's. It is unclear, however, if that tack will help. Many polls show majorities approve of how Obama is handling terrorism.

Republican leaders believe Brown is offering them a template of how to win by tapping anxiety over the economy and health reform. But in a full-out nationalized campaign in November, with all House seats and one-third of Senate seats on the ballot, they may need to do better than rage against "the machine," the Democratic attempts to rein in banks and health insurance companies, and a federal spending binge that economists say averted a massive economic collapse. The GOP brand is not exactly riding high. Two thirds in a new poll still blame Bush for the state of the economy and three-quarters don't trust congressional Republicans to make good decisions.

Democrats who are not Coakley, and who do not live in Massachusetts, will not necessarily be fine in November. But it is hard to see how Brown's election will move Washington in a more functional direction or the country to a less painful place. If he wins, it'll be on him to prove he wants to do more than block anything that could be construed as a victory for Obama and his party. And that includes health care. Democrats know that failure would be far worse than passing and aggressively selling a landmark new law – which is why Republicans are so elated that they have a chance to kill it.