Desperate Coakley Flees to DC to Fundraise; Uses Chicago-Style Push Polling Against Scott Brown

© 2009 TexasDarlin/TDBlog

“The massive enthusiasm gap we saw in Virginia is playing itself out in Massachusetts.”

(See UPDATE at end.)

Scott Brown’s candidacy must be rising like a blue new year’s moon, much to Martha Coakley’s horror. I can’t wait to see the PPP poll referenced in this Twitter tease:

http://twitter.com/ppppolls/status (Jan. 7, 2010)

Up until this week, Coakley was mostly a candidate in absentia, quietly scanning designer catalogs in flushed anticipation of furnishing Teddy’s old Senate office, biding her time like a true Kennedy heir.

But Martha has suddenly realized that she’s in an actual election, and that the people of Massachusetts — not the political establishment – will decide who goes to Washington.

Legal Insurrection reports on the lowlife push-polling engineered, presumably, by Coakley’s gang (h/t redstate) in response to Brown’s rise:

The caller initially asked which candidate best represented the e-mailer’s views. After the e-mailer identified Brown, the caller asked one question about Coakley (whether knowing she was “a tax and spend” liberal would change the e-mailer’s mind) and then a series of negative questions about Brown…

Ick.

Meanwhile, Coakley herself will be taking (more) time away from the ground campaign to go grovel for money in Washington, D.C. next Tuesday — one week from election day — an odd development in view of her campaign’s well-publicized $5.2 million haul. Looks like she spent that to win the primary, never imagining that she’d need one of those dollars to fight our hero of the hour, Scott Brown.

Despite their rotten push-polling, Coakley Dems are reportedly outraged that an outside group, American Future Fund, is spending $400,000 on this TV ad for Brown, which started airing Thursday night…

Brown has tried to distance himself from the initiative, but I don’t see anything wrong with the ad. It’s straightforward and features accurate quotes. What’s wrong with giving voters information that they can use to make informed decisions?

UPDATE: Public Policy Polling has issued a pre-poll statement:

Friday, January 8, 2010

What we’re seeing in Massachusetts

Because of the heavy interest we’ll try to get our Massachusetts numbers out over the weekend. But because we’ve already conducted most of the interviews for it here are some of the major storylines we’re seeing:

-At this point a plurality of those planning to turn out oppose the health care bill. The massive enthusiasm gap we saw in Virginia is playing itself out in Massachusetts as well. Republican voters are fired up and they’re going to turn out. Martha Coakley needs to have a coherent message up on the air over the last ten days that her election is critical to health care passing and Ted Kennedy’s legacy- right now Democrats in the state are not feeling a sense of urgency.

-Scott Brown’s favorables are up around 60%, a product of his having had the airwaves to himself for the last week. By comparison Bob McDonnell’s were at 55% right before his election and Chris Christie’s were only at 43%. Coakley’s campaign or outside groups need to tie Brown’s image to national Republicans and knock him down a notch over the final week of the campaign.

This has become a losable race for Democrats- but it could also be easily winnable if Coakley gets her act together for the last week of the campaign. Complacency is the Democrats’ biggest enemy at this point and something that needs to be overcome to avoid a potential disaster.

Go Scott Go!

Resources:

The Scott Brown Money Bomb is here.

Join Scott’s network as a phone volunteer, from any state, here.