Martha Coakley blew it!

The special election held on January 19th to fill the late Edward Kennedy's seat was called many things by the pundits. Depending on the political persuasion of the commentator, it was viewed as either a referendum on the Obama administration, or the opportunity for the voters to continue the agenda of the late Senator Kennedy.

The candidates were fairly easy to define. Martha Coakley and Scott Brown both are what many writers describe as socially liberal. Brown however is more conservative on fiscal issues. In essence, both were well suited for a campaign in a liberal state.

But the fact is that the Democratic party has a near monopoly on most of the higher offices state wide and all of the members of the congessional delegation (save Brown) are Democrats. Coakley's experience and her record of public service made her a heavy favorite and in fact she was up by 30 points in December. She should have won this seat without a doubt.

So what happened? In plain English words, she blew it. Coakley figured that just having a capital "D" next to her name would be all that she needed to win. When asked at one point why she wasn't campaigning harder, she disdainfully replied that she saw no point in "standing outside Fenway in the cold shaking hands." She relied instead on establishment Democrats, Labor leaders and other key personnel in the party to do the heavy lifting and get out the vote.

Contrast that to Brown who campaigned the way a candidate should campaign. He went out to meet the electorate. He stood outside Fenway in the cold and shook hands. He did what any candidate should do: he earned the votes by getting his message out, whereas Coakley figured that she just needed to show up on election day.

As a result, the voters of Massachusetts sent the first Republican to the Senate from the Commonwealth for the first time in almost 40 years.

A former Political Science professor of mine once said that if you are ever running a campaign and your candidate is ahead in the polls run like you're 5 points behind. Martha Coakley should have been campaigning from the day after the primary until the polls opened. Too bad she thought that all she had to do was show up.

In sum, this wasn't a referendum on the Obama administration, nor was it an electorate rejecting the policies of the Democratic party. This was a classic example of what happens when a politician makes the almost always fatal mistake of taking the electorate for granted.