POLITICO

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Enthusiasm gap in Mass. Senate race

By JONATHAN MARTIN | 1/16/10 8:59 PM EST


Scott Brown and Martha Coakley, both running in the special Senate election, barnstormed across the state. | AP Photos

HYANNIS, Mass. – As the two candidates running in the special Senate election here barnstormed across the state Saturday, the enthusiasm gap between the two parties was on vivid display.

Democrat Martha Coakley, Massachusetts’ attorney general, kicked off a series of stops with a morning speech at a Boston union hall, receiving a response more polite than enthusiastic.

Coakley and Vicki Kennedy, the widow of the late senator, both addressed a crowd of about 100 electrical workers but it fell to a state representative from nearby Dorchester to deliver the closing remarks aimed at firing up the Democrats.

“I see there is some excitement in this room but there is not enough excitement in this room,” Martin Walsh said, as the heavily male, Carhartt-and-jeans crowd stood with hands in pockets.

There was no need for such an exhortation on Cape Cod as state Sen. Scott Brown, the Republican nominee, was enveloped by a couple hundred, sign-waving supporters as he attempted to walk into a local pub where another hundred voters waited for an afternoon rally.

“People’s seat, people’s seat!” the Hyannis crowd chanted, aping the retort Brown gave at a debate Monday when asked about “the Kennedy seat.”

With three days until Bay State voters go to the polls to decide whether Democrats will retain their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, the momentum plainly is with the GOP.

He’s drawing crowds rarely seen by Republicans in this state and seems to have more organic support than Coakley, an impression underscored by the imperfect measurement of yard signs spotted for the Republican (many) and the Democrat (none) along the South Shore and on the Cape.

Brown’s message of taking on the state’s entrenched Democratic majority—what he repeatedly calls “the machine”—and addressing a larger discontent among voters here toward Washington has given Republicans an opportunity to win their first Massachusetts Senate contest in nearly 40 years.

With Democrats now alerted to the threat, though, it’s uncertain whether the energy behind Brown will prove enough to overcome the structural disadvantage Republicans face in one of the most liberal states in the country. Vocal and enthused supporters are helpful – though not necessarily enough to get beyond scaring Coakley to actually beating her.

Clearly, though, Brown has Democrats back on their heels.

-- Edited by Sanders on Saturday 16th of January 2010 10:51:01 PM