Notes from MA: Okay, I'm a bit worried [View All]

[TayTay]

We could have a long night Tuesday and the unthinkable is now a possibility.

I hate writing that, but it's true. It's true for a lot of reasons. I can give you a few impressions on this, but they are limited because my time has been so limited lately. (BTW, my Mom went home yesterday. She has been in hospitals and rehab for over 100 days, but she is finally at home, continuing her recovery and things are looking good. Thanks again for all the well wishes and prayers. They meant more than I can say and I am deeply humbled and grateful for all the support.)

All politics is local. Again, all politics is local. MA Dems currently hold 89% of the elected offices in Massachusetts. That is an unsustainable number and we were due for a reckoning. Single-party holds of that magnitude breed arrogance. That is simply a fact of life. That is part of what is going on in Massachusetts.

We have had 3 concurrent Speakers of the Massachusetts House *indicted* in the last few years. Indicted and facing serious corruption charges. This fosters an attitude that the accumulation of power is done to benefit a small, in-bred and nurtured band of insiders. This is an underlying tension in the State. The counter to that is to pledge an overhaul of the way things are done and recommit to grassroots politics and getting out and meeting the people. This has not been done. Deval Patrick said he would do this and, for various reasons, he didn't. The infrastructure of the Democratic Party in MA is in severe disrepair and we need the kind of overhaul that the 06 and 08 races promised. That hasn't happened and we are seeing the result in this election.

The Democratic race, including the primary, has been incredibly tone deaf. This recession/depression has produced a enormous amount of pain and suffering and anxiety for a great many people. Voters want someone to acknowledge that in plain English. They don't want a position paper or a wonk response to their concerns; they want some human feeling and emotion and someone who understands those feelings. The Democrats have not done that. This is partly not Martha Coakley's fault. (Had Martha run a "I feel your pain" campaign, she would have been ridiculed as a phony. She is a cool customer and a highly competent public official. However, the recession has changed things and competence is not the most highly prized of commodities in politics this year.)

There will be a lot of dissection of this race on Tuesday, whether Martha wins or not. There were some big problems that go back a number of years here, in MA. A lot of these are not national problems. This race is only partially a national race, no matter what the idiots who don't live here are saying. It's not about Obama. It's not about a lot of things you are reading about. It's about the voters, it's about them, their troubles, their rage and their disgust. It's about the voters, not the politicians.

I have gotten over 15 phone calls and robocalls in just the last week. My kids have gotten their own calls. My husband got calls and I got my own calls. We have been inundated with ads from all sides and it has gone beyond a saturation point. (Most people want it to stop at this point. The negativity is making people angry and the endless phone calls are not helping. I know people who simply have stopped answering the phone.)

Several people I know who are reliable Dem voters are voting for Brown this time around. They want to "send a message" to The Powers That Be in this state that they are tired of being taken for granted and used as a fly-by state for pols from other places who want money. Voters want to be heard, not considered as foregone conclusions on a balance sheet.

And, as a footnote, every person I talked to was miffed to downright angry at the use of the term "Teddy Kennedy's Senate seat." It's our Senate seat and we elected Teddy to it because he was a good and gifted man. That didn't mean it was his, it meant he was a good Senator. But it's our Senate seat. That single sentiment tells you volumes about the race this time out. Volumes. It's about the voter, not the pols. Too many in this State have forgotten that and we well could lose on Tuesday because of that.