Scott Brown, wearing a dark suit, blue shirt and red striped tie in the mild winter air, stood a few yards in front of a statue of Paul Revere and directly across the street from St Stephen's Church, where Rose Kennedy's funeral Mass was celebrated in 1995, telling about 200 gleeful voters that they had a chance to re-arrange a political universe. The crowd spilled across the sidewalk onto the narrow street that cuts through the heart of the city's North End, the local cannoli capital, located in Ward 3 that Barack Obama carried two to one just 15 months ago.

" 'Scuse me," Joanne Prevost said to a man who had two 'Scott Brown for Senate' signs tucked under his left arm. "Can I have one of those signs? I'll put it in my window. My office is right there."

She turned and pointed across the street to a storefront with the words 'Anzalone Realty' stenciled on window. "Everybody will see it."

Joanne Prevost used to be an important precinct captain for Kevin White, a former mayor of Boston. A Catholic, she was baptized Democrat and now, here she was, putting a big sign in her window for a Republican riding the wave of a perfect political storm, his candidacy propelled upward by a combustible combination of resentment, anxiety and anger toward anyone — anyone in either party — carrying a curious illness called incumbentitis.

Brown is a 50-year-old state senator, a tall, amiable, good-looking guy with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair who could pass for a high school football coach. He comes from a village 15 miles west of Boston where the total vote wouldn't fill the bleachers at Fenway Park, but in the space of about a month he has utilized his personality, a smile and a lot of handshakes to capitalize on voter frustration with nearly everything to bring the paper-mache campaign of the Democrat, the incumbent state Attorney General, Martha Coakley, to its knees.

As Tuesday approaches, Coakley desperately seeks to eke out a win after she and her staff spent the past month acting like un-indicted co-conspirators in destroying a 30-point lead. She has approached the public with the demeanor of a substitute teacher with little interest in her students' lives. In a state where politics and revenge are in the blood, poor Martha Coakley apparently never learned that a name on the ballot is nothing more than a job application. People want to be asked for their vote. People want a retail shopping experience with a candidate: eye contact, a handshake. Elections are not coronations. Coakley spent a month behaving like a fugitive, attending fund-raisers and meeting with mayors instead of hurling herself at the public.

"As opposed to standing outside Fenway Park? In the cold? Shaking hands?" she said dismissively to the media, after being asked why she was practically hiding out.

[SNIP]

Election day arrives Tuesday. Polls show it's jump ball. Democrats are on their knees praying that a last-second three pointer from Barrack Obama can save the seat and rescue his agenda. But, in a sense, Scott Brown has already won; not simply for his party, Republican, but for any candidate across the landscape who looks toward a volatile November with the message, "It's our turn." (Emphasis added)

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