 "Photo: Flickr user weinbergagain")
Despite polls that showed a tightening race in the final week of November, Massachusetts Democrats on December 8 overwhelmingly selected state Attorney General Martha Coakley as their candidate for the U.S. Senate seat that opened with the passing of former Senator Edward M. Kennedy. The seat is currently occupied by interim Senator Paul G. Kirk ’64.
Coakley will go on to face Republican challenger Scott Brown, who crushed primary opponent Jack E. Robinson ’85 nearly nine to one, in the special election to be held on January 19. For many, however, it seems unlikely that a Republican senator could be elected, making Coakley all but the presumptive senator.
A surprising lack of excitement and low turnout characterized the final days of the campaign for the first Senate seat to open up in Massachusetts in over a quarter century. There were estimates that only about 16% of the possible electorate in the Commonwealth – around only 650,000 people out of around five million – showed up at the polls on Tuesday. But state political commentators pointed out that Coakley’s positional advantages – and some of the corresponding disadvantages of her challengers – were larger determinants of the result.
Narrowing polls never presented a serious risk to her lead, which was bolstered by a late endorsement from former President Bill Clinton, who robo-called voters across the Commonwealth on election eve. Coakley won around 47% of the vote, a remarkable total given her three determined challengers.
Having announced her candidacy soon after the passing of Senator Kennedy, Coakley leapt ahead due to statewide name recognition – she was the only candidate in the race to have run statewide before – and early fundraising success. Coakley managed to raise over $2 million in a single month during one part of the short campaign, much of which was contributed by what her finance director called “the new girls network”.
If victorious in the January 19 election, Coakley will be the first female senator from Massachusetts. “The glass ceiling in Massachusetts has been shattered wide open” by Coakley’s victory, Senator John Kerry said. Some say her chances were boosted by the political organization of women undertaken in the state during now-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's run in the 2008 presidential primary. Clinton won the primary in Massachusetts.
Michael Capuano, the Representative for Massachusetts’ 8th District, was thought to pose the greatest challenge to Coakley. The fiery old-line Democrat claimed to represent the Kennedy mantle with his fighting spirit. He had institutional support statewide, picking up endorsements from seven of the Representatives in Massachusetts’ Congressional delegation, many firefighter and police unions, and former Massachusetts Governor and 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis ’60. Capuano’s ground campaign, particularly in his densely populated, heavily Democratic district, was considered formidable.
But support for the Representative did not translate into enough votes: Capuano came in second with around 21% of the final tally. In his concession speech Tuesday night, Capuano said there had not been enough time during the two and a half month campaign to build a large enough statewide network to challenge Coakley’s name recognition.
Both Capuano and Steven Pagliuca, the Harvard Business School alumnus who made his fortune working with Bain Capital and who is owner of the Boston Celtics, endorsed Coakley and said they would do whatever was necessary to help her get elected in January.
Pagliuca also took note of the candidacy of Alan Khazei ’87, for what he said was the political newcomer’s “ability to get new people involved in the political process”. Khazei, known for his creation of the service organization City Year, ran on a grassroots platform similar to those that propelled the candidacies of now-U.S. President Barack Obama ’91 and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick ’82. His campaign even received a surprise boost in the form of an endorsement from the state’s largest newspaper, the Boston Globe, which said he had the potential to be the “next great senator from Massachusetts,” in contrast to the purportedly too-safe Coakley and too-pugnacious Capuano.
But with no real political experience – a liability Khazei shared with Pagliuca – and very little name recognition even among state political observers, Khazei’s ability to mount a successful campaign in a short timeframe was limited. Still, he came in third in the race, beating expectations by besting the slightly better-known Pagliuca.
Coakley’s Republican opponent, Scott Brown, faces potentially insurmountable challenges. He is now hoping to defeat a Democrat in a heavily liberal state, and seeking to inherit the Senate seat once held by one of its most tenaciously left-wing members. Coakley’s potential to be the first female senator from the state will also present significant obstacles for Brown.
Still, the Republican lawyer from Wrentham has faced serious challenges before, beating a popular liberal Democrat for his current State Senate job. He is expected to portray Coakley as a “cookie-cutter” Democrat and capitalize on the decreasing popularity of President Obama and Governor Patrick. In his victory speech Tuesday night, he criticized the Democrats’ economic stimulus package for “not creating one new job” – a position to the right of even the Republican Party’s leadership – and called for a continuation and broadening of tax cuts as a solution to the ongoing economic crisis. However, Brown, who is a member of the military, supports Obama’s Afghanistan policy wholeheartedly.
Despite his party affiliation, Brown is running as an “independent,” and does not list the word “Republican” anywhere on his website. The national Republican Party has been weary of candidates who fail to tow the party line, however, and Brown’s candidacy may be a test of how willing it is to compromise to deprive Democrats of their current supermajority in the Senate. “The last thing we need in the Senate is another rubber stamp,” he said in his speech.
But Coakley has a formidable track record on issues that have been thorns in the side for Obama, who has been accused of being soft on Wall Street and unwisely extending the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. As Attorney General, Coakley forced a huge settlement with mammoth investment bank Goldman Sachs and has called for increased regulation of the financial sector. Like all the candidates in the Democratic primary, she opposed President Obama’s plan to escalate the war in Afghanistan.
Coakley also went to court to challenge the Environmental Protection Agency to enforce tougher emissions regulations, and challenged the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, which imposes federal limitations on same-sex marriage. In 2004, Massachusetts was the first state in the country to legalize same-sex marriage; huge cheers arose when she said she would continue her fight against the act if sent to Washington.
In a strange footnote, both candidates will be up against an obstacle that may prove even more formidable than any jabs they may be able to make at one another – the possible presence of a Kennedy as a competitor. Independent Joe Kennedy (who has no relation to the former Congressman from Massachusetts or the famous political family of which he is part) may garner enough signatures on a petition to appear on the ballot. In a Senate race that has been low-profile so far, and which may disappear even further from political radar screens now that the Democrat – and presumptive winner – has been anointed, the confusion Kennedy’s name generates could prove an issue on election day in January.
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