A Shot Heard ‘Round the World?

Byron York reports that the “bottom has fallen out of” the Martha Coakley Senate campaign. In her own polling, she is now running, York, says, around five points behind. Both local and national Democrats are convinced that unless something dramatic shifts in the next four days, she will lose to Republican Scott Brown. Thus, the Democrats are preparing to explain away her defeat:

Given those numbers, some Democrats, eager to distance Obama from any electoral failure, are beginning to compare Coakley to Creigh Deeds, the losing Democratic candidate in the Virginia governor’s race last year. Deeds ran such a lackluster campaign, Democrats say, that his defeat could be solely attributed to his own shortcomings, and should not be seen as a referendum on President Obama’s policies or those of the national Democratic party.
The same sort of thinking is emerging in Massachusetts. “This is a Creigh Deeds situation,” the Democrat says. “I don’t think it says that the Obama agenda is a problem. I think it says, 1) that she’s a terrible candidate, 2) that she ran a terrible campaign, 3) that the climate is difficult but she should have been able to overcome it, and 4) that Democrats beware — you better run good campaigns, or you’re going to lose.”

Martha Coakley, in other words, is to be thrown under the bus. She deserves it, to be sure, but the idea that anyone will believe that the Massachusetts Senate race has no national implications is absurd. Go here to get on the bandwagon and contribute to Brown’s campaign or volunteer to work for it.

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