Updated at 2:22 p.m. on Jan. 20.
Sen.-elect Scott Brown's victory Tuesday in Massachusetts is terrifying Democratic candidates across the country, who fear they too will be targeted by angry voters in November. Some of them have good reason to worry. Some of them, however, do not.
Brown defeated state Attorney General Martha Coakley (D) with a targeted strategy, in a unique state. He ran a populist campaign, railing against career politicians and the political establishment in Boston and Washington, and was just as likely to tout his daughter's appearance on "American Idol" as he was to discuss his record on Beacon Hill. He courted the same independent voters who backed President Obama in 2008 with a message of "change." Those voters also abandoned Democrats in gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey last fall.
Some Democrats will be hard-pressed to distance themselves from Coakley, either because they too will be forced to defend their insider status or because they're running to continue a political legacy or family name.
Indeed, during his acceptance speech Tuesday, Brown never uttered the "R" word. "Tonight, the independent voice of Massachusetts has spoken," he said. "The independent majority has delivered a great victory."
The immediate impact of Brown's victory is clear: Coakley lost a safe seat controlled for 58 years by the Kennedy family, all but derailing her party's health care reform efforts in Washington. But the long-term, practical impact of her loss on her party's prospects this fall is more complicated.
To be sure, some Democrats will be hard-pressed to distance themselves from Coakley, either because they too will be forced to defend their insider status or because they're running to continue a political legacy or family name.
Ranking atop that list is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who trails three little-known GOP challengers and now must try to lead a dispirited caucus. Coakley's loss also could have repercussions in Delaware, where Vice President Joe Biden's son Beau (who, like Coakley, is a state attorney general) has so far declined to say whether he'll run for his dad's Senate seat. As we learned in Massachusetts, voters are in no mood to "pass the torch" without a clear rationale to do so.
Just north of Massachusetts, Rep. Paul Hodes (D-N.H.) also could have trouble distancing himself from Washington in his Senate bid. With that in mind, one of his possible GOP opponents, former state Attorney General Kelly Ayotte (R), sought to link her campaign's fortunes to Brown's on Tuesday, saying she could "feel the enthusiasm for his campaign" as she was going door to door in the Bay State and "making calls on his behalf."
But perhaps the most nervous Democrat on Tuesday night was Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D), whose own vulnerability has met with some skepticism among insiders because of his state's deep blue tint. No longer. Targeting Patrick as a potential liability in the Senate race, Republicans smartly deployed him as a bogeyman to paint Coakley as a product of the state's one-party system. That message resonated, much to Patrick's chagrin.
Some Republicans also could feel the heat of Coakley's defeat. Specifically, former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist are establishment frontrunners who face Senate primaries against conservative upstarts who have unabashedly sought to hitch their campaigns to Brown's wagon.
"Scott Brown and I have a lot in common," wrote state Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, who's running against Fiorina, in a message to supporters on Tuesday. "We're about the same age, we're both married with two daughters, we worked our way through local state politics, we both served for decades in the Army National Guard and we both can call upon deep business experience in the private sector."
As the Tampa Tribune noted Tuesday night, Crist's primary rival, Marco Rubio, called Brown an "anti-stimulus, anti-ObamaCare, anti-tax Republican who has promised to... stand up to the Obama-Reid-Pelosi agenda," which is how he usually describes himself. He called Coakley a "once heavily favored, former state attorney general who supported the failed Obama stimulus and would be a solid vote for other Obama agenda items," which is how he usually describes Crist.
Some Democrats, however, can rest easy after Tuesday's debacle, buoyed by circumstances that allow them to run against their party's establishment. Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., for example, could benefit in his primary challenge against party-switching Sen. Arlen Specter.
In case that subtlety was lost on anyone, Sestak drove home the point Tuesday night. "The message to Democrats is clear," he said in a statement released after Brown's victory. "People have had enough of establishment politics on both sides, such as Senator Specter's party switch after 30 years as a Republican in order to save his job. The people are looking for a new generation of accountable leadership. We must do what we were elected to do: get rid of the old politics of Washington and the Senate and get to work for America's working families."
Democrats of all stripes can take solace in one undeniable fact, however, which has been largely overlooked this week: No one can predict, with any certainty, what voters' mood will be in November. We know with absolute certainty, for example, that the past year has not been a good one for Obama and his party. One year ago today, no one would have predicted that.
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