Scott Brown appeared on the "Today Show" this morning, where a slightly sad Meredith Vieira asked him about how he was able to pull off his historic win.
Brown emphasized that he's a "different kind of Republican," and that a Scott Brown Republican is someone who's "always been accountable and attentive and looked at each issue on its merits."
On why voters turned against Democrats he said, "People are hurting right now, and they think we can do better...People are angry; they're tired of the back-room deals. They want transparency, they want good government."
The only time the interview got a little testier is when Vieira asked if it was awkward to talk to Vicki Kennedy given that Brown, "plan to do everything in your power to derail what Kennedy considered his legacy of his lifetime."
Brown's quick and delicate retort gave me a confidence about his political future:
"Well, first of all, you're misrepresenting. I never said I was gonna do everything I can to stop health care. I think that everybody should have health care. It's just a matter of how we do it."
Die-hard health-care reform supporters will roll their eyes and call it a distinction without a difference, but there is an important difference, and it's one that Massachuseets voters heard. A less smart politician would have accepted Vieira's heavy-handed premise instead of correcting it. Good job.
The impact of Republican Scott Brown’s capture of the Massachusetts Senate seat held for decades by Teddy Kennedy will be both immediate and powerful. It’s safe to say no single Senate election in recent memory is as important as this one.
When Dean Barnett died at age 40 in August 2008, it was a loss of a unique voice in politics, and those who admired him could console themselves only with the thought that he had been needed for some pressing business above. Now, a year and a half after it happened, we know what it was: Only Barnett -- Bostonian, Red Sox fan, former aide to Mitt Romney, with a loathing of cant and a fine sense of lunacy, could have orchestrated the Senate race in Massachusetts thus far.
The latest Research 2000 poll, conducted January 15 to 17 for Daily Kos, shows Brown and Coakley tied at 48%. In sharp contrast to last night's PPP poll, the Kos poll shows Coakley with a higher favorable/unfavorable rating than Brown:
Coakley: 58/31
Brown: 51/30
The PPP poll showed Coakley with a -7 favorable rating (44/51), while Brown had a +19 favorable rating (56/37).
Martha Coakley spoke to the Boston Martin Luther King Day Breakfast this morning, making the case to a subdued crowd of dignitaries at the Hynes convention center that voting for her tomorrow will help carry on King's legacy.
"I'm running for the United States Senate because Dr. King's work is unfinished, his dream is unrealized," she said.
"Tomorrow we act on the dream and we make sure that we allow me to continue that work," Coakley said. "We remember the dream tomorrow and we will act on the dream tomorrow."
How presumptuous is Coakley to declare that voting for her is "act[ing] on the dream" of Martin Luther King Jr.?
A Republican tracking poll shows—amazingly—a slight uptick for Scott Brown over the weekend. He leads—amazingly—outside the margin of error in virtually every turnout model. The “rape” charge seems to be backfiring among independent women. While there is some increase in partisan Democratic intensity, Democratic intensity still trails—amazingly—that of independents, who continue to break overwhelmingly for Brown. The internals of the poll all look okay.
Public Policy Polling, a respected Democratic firm, has released its final poll on the Massachusetts Senate election. Republican Scott Brown leads Democrat Martha Coakley 51% to 46%.
Some striking results:
--Coakley now has a -7 favorable rating (44/51 fav/unfav), while Brown has a +19 favorable rating (56/37).
--Coakley's 44% favorable rating is exactly tied with Obama's 44% approval rating.
Obama's speech was halting, wandering, and humorless; the president looked as if he didn’t want to be there. There's no doubt the crowd was excited to see Obama, but he seemed so hesitant and out-of-rhythm at the top that it appeared he might have been having teleprompter trouble
In a Republican tracking poll, last night Scott Brown held on to a stable if narrow lead. Even if the results are adjusted to reflect a more Democratic-friendly turnout model than the pollsters expect, Brown maintains an edge.
There's been a little erosion for Brown with Democrats and an increase in Democratic intensity--but that was offset by Brown's ever increasing edge among independents. Brown's fav/unfav rating remains solid, whereas Coakley's has collapsed over the last two weeks.
Republican insiders are very nervous but very hopeful.
Less than 72 hours after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, what was United Nations special envoy to Haiti Bill Clinton doing to help the Haitian people? Why campaigning for Democrat Martha Coakley in Massachusetts, of course. You see, Clinton told National Review's Robert Costa Friday, campaigning for Coakley is all part of the plan to help Haiti:
The Boston Heraldreports that a Suffolk University/7News survey conducted Monday through Wednesday has Republican Scott Brown ahead of Democrat Martha Coakley by 50 percent to 46 percent. This is the first major independent public survey I’ve seen with Brown in the lead—though one should note the lead is within the 4.4 point margin of error.
Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley attended a fundraiser at the Capitol Hill restaurant Sonoma tonight. After the event concluded, Coakley took two questions from the media but declined to say whether or not she stands by her statement at last night's debate that there aren't any terrorists in Afghanistan (and that they've all gone to Pakistan or Yemen).
After taking a question from a CNN reporter on the street outside the restaurant, I asked her:
Scott Brown's rejoinder to David Gergen in his debate with Martha Coakley the other evening--"With all due respect, it's not the Kennedy seat and it's not the Democrats' seat. It's the people's seat"--is a great line and a memorable line, and may well survive the special election next week and enter the political annals.
Here's another great line, which is still quoted a half-century later: "If your name was Edward Moore instead of Edward Moore Kennedy, your candidacy would be a joke."
