Unsolicited Advice for Martha Coakley: Don’t Be A Bully

Image: Associated Press

You’re Martha Coakley and you’re running for the United States Senate. You didn’t ask me for my opinions or my advice, but I’m going to give them to you anyway. The first opinion, and I’ll give it to you straight: you’re having a bad week.

Last week was a bad week, too, what with that annoying poll result showing that you had a race on your hands. Your advisors probably even started telling you that you actually had to campaign!

You likely hoped this week would be better but while some polls showed better numbers, others showed the race getting even tighter and one actually had you running behind Scott Brown!

You were, I’m sure, hoping that Monday’s debate might turn things for you, but instead it was the start of another difficult week.

To be fair, some (if not most) of the week’s headaches for you and your campaign are self-inflicted. During the debate on Monday, you said something very ill-advised. You actually said that al Qaeda terrorists are no longer in Afghanistan. "They're gone," you said. "They're not there anymore. They're in, apparently Yemen, they're in Pakistan." (If you don’t believe me, Martha, cnn.com has the story here.)

Then, right after the debate, your negative attack ads went on the air. Nasty, misleading and inaccurate ads, if you ask me. You didn’t ask, but that’s my opinion. As the week has gone on, your ads have seemed to me to be more desperate, nastier, and frankly, out-of-touch. If you want to be a Senator in 2010, it’s time to stop running against George Bush and Dick Cheney; that so 2008. And Rush Limbaugh? You’ve got to be kidding; you’re running for the US Senate, not trying to get a radio talk show! You seem to want to run against everyone (or at least all Republicans, as your radio ad derisively says) except Scott Brown. But again, you didn’t ask me!

The kicker was that in your first attack ad, your campaign misspelled Massachusetts! “Massachusettes?” I’m sorry, Martha, are you running for Senator from Indiana? (My apologies to Dan Quayle, I just couldn’t resist, but if the former Vice President had spelled Massachusetts the way the Coakley campaign did, it would have been a bigger story.)

Then, Martha, you made another incomprehensible decision by going to Washington DC for a fund-raiser, I’m betting with lots of lobbyists, on the day after the debate. Who needs to campaign for votes when there’s a week left in the election, right? This decision just dumbfounds me. The Washington donor crowd is a rather professional donor group. I bet that if you explained to these fat-cats that you should stay in state and show that you want the seat by actually campaigning for it, they would have understood and donated anyway!

While you were in DC, things got even worse for you. A reporter had the gall to show up and ask you about your “no terrorists in Afghanistan” assertion from the night before! I know you’re probably used to getting away with these kinds of crazy statements at Democrat Town Committee meetings where no one challenges you, or in the Democrat Primary debates when you need to appease the Far Left Wing of your party. You probably didn’t expect someone to ask you to defend your position, so the exchange went as follows, according to the reporter who asked you the question, and as published in The Weekly Standard:

Reporter: “Attorney General Coakley, you said last night that there are no terrorists in Afghanistan--that they're all in Yemen and Pakistan. Do you stand by that remark?”

Martha Coakley: “I'm sorry, did someone else have a question?”

Again, just my advice, Martha, but ignoring a reporter like that doesn’t tend to generate positive, soft coverage when you need it the most!

This nastiness with the reporter wasn’t even done yet. I know, Martha, you don’t know all the facts of what happened next, although pictures (see AP photo above) and video appear to put you at the scene. The Weekly Standard reporter wound up on the ground, and now an aide of yours has conceded (see story in the Boston Herald), “I was a little too aggressive in trying to help the attorney general get to her car.”

As I say, Martha, I know you don’t know all the details. The Herald quotes you as saying the following: “I know there were people following, including two from the Brown campaign who have been very aggressive in their stalking. I’m not sure what happened. I know something occurred, but I’m not privy to the facts.”

Help me understand this, Martha. Are you saying brutish behavior is justified if there are “people” from your opponent’s campaign in the area? Is it justified if the “something occurs,” but only to your opponent’s “people?”

I know you didn’t ask me for my opinion, Martha, but I’d say you need to turn things around, and quickly. This week my perception of your campaign has gone from one that was indifferent and taking the election for granted to one that is desperately trying to keep the wheels from coming off your political wagon. Since Monday (in the debate) I have not heard a single positive message about what you would do in the Senate, but only what’s wrong with a variety of Republicans, including Sarah Palin, for crying out loud!

Meanwhile, Scott Brown has remained calm, cool, and collected, all the while seeming to be a pretty nice guy. People like to vote for nice people, by the way.

I have argued throughout the campaign that this election will come down to turnout, and I still believe that will be the case. No matter what has happened this week or what happens over the next few days, you and Scott Brown each have enough support to get elected, depending on who does a better job turning out your vote.

The problem, Martha, is that, win or lose, I humbly suggest that you don’t want people to think of you as a bully, and this week, in my opinion, that’s exactly what you appear to be.