THE SINS OF MARTHA COAKLEY

In 2010, when the unthinkable happened and the Massachusetts Senate seat that had been held by Edward Kennedy went to Republican Scott Brown, Democrats in Massachusetts re-grouped, found themselves a non-traditional, new and fresh candidate in Elizabeth Warren and defeated Brown when the seat next came up for election.  Scott Brown now wanders the streets of New Hampshire telling voters there how he is really one of them.  Problem solved, lesson learned, at least as far as the Democrats were concerned.

Right?

Not so fast.  Democrats will tell you that the aforementioned non-traditional, new and fresh candidate has worked out exceedingly well.  But what they neglect to understand is that in order for a candidate to be non-traditional, new and fresh they have to replace someone who is conventional, old and stale.  How do we know they’ve neglected to understand this basic fact?  Because people, there is a very good chance they are about to recycle that tired old model yet again.  Look out – Martha Coakley is back.

Of course, Coakley never really went away – she used her “base” to retain her position as Attorney General and remains an elected official.  Voters overlooked the disaster of her Senate campaign, which nearly destroyed (and certainly gravely damaged) many of the primary legislative goals of the party she purports to represent, and maintained the status quo.  That’s OK – voters tend to do that.  But now Coakley is attempting to ascend to the Governor’s chair, to make herself the chief executive of the Commonwealth and Democrats (as well as all Massachusetts voters) are again being asked to validate the career and legacy of Martha Coakley.  

Why would they?

Martha Coakley is a candidate who combines the worst aspects of the Massachusetts Democratic Party - slavish adherence to the “hackocracy” and a tendency to treat every candidate as anointed rather than elected.  But more than this – Coakley’s short and miserable campaign for the Senate revealed a candidate so flawed, so offensive and so inept that she managed to single-handedly derail a political movement that had, up until her appearance, seemed so capable of delivering on its message of hope.  The truly sad part is that before nominating Coakley for the Senate this was all available for review – and before anointing her the nominee for the Governorship it was still out there, plain as day, for all to see. 

Martha Coakley has a history that makes her uniquely vulnerable as a candidate.  As to whether this also makes her a bad person – that’s an individual choice, but it is pretty clear how the vast majority of Massachusetts voters came to view her when she was on the big stage.  Here, for consideration, is a recap of some of the lowlights of the career of the woman who managed to add the words “abandon all” to the Obama “HOPE” posters.

1.  Fells Acres
    
   In 1984 a four year old boy attending a day care center known as “Fells Acres” wet himself while taking a nap.  He was changed in to some dry clothes by a man named Gerald Amirault, whose family owned and operated the 19 year old center.  Later that year, this same boy was found playing with a cousin in a sexually suggestive manner.  This led some of his relatives, including an uncle who had himself been sexually molested as a child, to question the boy and come to the conclusion that he had been molested by Amirault.
    
   Police were notified and Amirault was arrested.  The authorities, conducting what was a typical investigation for the time, held group meetings with parents from the Fells Acres center and advised them to question their children carefully to see if any evidence of abuse emerged.
    
   None did – at least initially.  But, following questioning that can, (at an absolute minimum), be called leading and is more accurately described as bizarre, some of the children began to tell stories of ritual abuse. This included being raped with lobsters and butcher knives, being tied naked to trees in public, and being beaten by several of Amirault’s family members.  Despite the fact that no physical evidence of such abuse was ever found, that many of the children involved contradicted their own testimony, that the methods used for interviewing the children were clearly coercive and that the many teachers who worked for Fells Acres were not only unable to verify the childrens’ accounts but directly contradicted them - Gerald Amirault was convicted of the abuse charges and sent to prison for 30-40 years.  In a separate trial Amirault’s 65 year-old mother and 32 year old sister were likewise convicted.
    
   The Fells Acres case became one of the prime examples of the “witch hunt” atmosphere concerning child sexual abuse that sprang up during the 1980’s.  Dorothy Rabinowitz, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, made the case famous in a series of articles pointing out the absurdities surrounding the trials and convictions of the Amiraults.  As the hysteria died out and rational thought set in most people, aside from those with a vested interest in perpetuating the myth of the convictions, came to view the continued imprisonment of the Amiraults as a travesty.
    
   Who were those vested interests?  Well – enter Martha Coakley.  The Amiraults were prosecuted by the Middlesex County District Attorney’s office under the leadership of then D.A. Scott Harshbarger.  Harshbarger, in what might again be safely labelled an immense understatement, had extensive political ambitions.  He peopled the DA’s office with appointees beholden to him, one of whom was Martha Coakley.  Harshbarger was later elected Attorney General and went on to run (unsuccessfully) for Governor.  Martha Coakley was, at the same time, running for Harshbarger’s old DA’s job.  As part of the inner circle of the Middlesex County DA’s office she was well aware of the fact that any criticism of that office for its handling of the Fell’s Acres case would reflect poorly on her.  Accordingly, when it became apparent that Cheryl Lafave, Gerald Amirault’s sister, would have to be let out of prison Coakley negotiated one of the more bizarre parole agreement’s in history.  In order to protect the DA’s office from adverse publicity Coakley assented to LaFave’s release so long as she refrained from doing television interviews.  That way there would be no chance of a wrongly convicted individual constantly re-hashing the facts of the case (and the District Attorney’s involvement) on television.  Prosecutors were likewise barred from giving television interviews – but this was to Coakley’s advantage because, when she was asked about the case in front of a camera she could dodge the inquiry by falling back on the old “I’m restricted from speaking about that under court order” ploy.  However, because the case was so shaky, unlike most probation cases Lafave was allowed to assert her innocence on radio and in print (most parolee’s must admit guilt).
    
   So to Gerald Amirault.  His case had been tried in front of a different judge and so he still languished in prison.  In his case the conviction went before the Massachusetts Parole Board which voted 5-0 to commute his sentence and release him from jail.  If this release went through it would not be subject to the gag rule that Coakley had imposed on the other defendant and so she determined to quash the recommendation.  Pulling out all the stops Coakley appeared on talk shows, pressured elected officials and even arranged press conferences for selected children who claimed they were victims of Fell’s Acres abuse.  Under this pressure the Massachusetts Governor, Jane Swift, refused to sanction the unanimous recommendation.  As a result of Coakley’s intransigence Amirault remained in prison three more years – but Coakley’s ploy worked and her political star remained undimmed. 
    
   Incidentally, if you think this is the only instance where Coakley went out of her way to keep innocent people behind bars, think again.  Not only are there other examples, hell, they even made a movie about one of them - Conviction, starring Hilary Swank (not as Martha) in which Coakley’s real life role in keeping a wrongly convicted man in jail is central to the plot.  But at least Coakley is erring on the side of being tough on crime – or is she?
    
2. Selective Prosecution
    
   Coakley’s defense for her actions in the Amirault case has always been that she was not acting out of any private concerns but simply was defending “the children”.  While it may have been that her actions all just coincidentally happened to forward her career, that was merely an adjunct to her true, altruistic, purposes.
    
   Really?
    
   In October 2005 a 23 month old girl was found in agony by her mother. Her private regions had been penetrated and burned by a hot instrument, probably a curling iron.  It was determined by police that the child’s uncle had been alone with her on the day, and at the time, the rape occurred.   On questioning he stated words to the effect that he couldn’t “take” another child.  Despite these admissions the uncle, who was a police officer in a city within Middlesex County, was not pursued or charged by the Middlesex District Attorney’s office, headed, at that time, by Martha Coakley.  In January, with no action having been taken by the DA, Larry Frisoli, an attorney for the family of the toddler, threatened to bring a citizen’s criminal complaint against the accused officer.  In response Coakley promised to bring the matter before a grand jury.  However, by July no such action had taken place and Frisoli’s patience reached its end.  He brought his criminal complaint and decided he would run against Coakley for Attorney General.  Now alarmed, Coakley’s office rammed the case through the grand jury and indicted the officer on two rape and two assault charges, thus protecting Coakley from claims of inaction just in time for the election. However, in a decision that, again, was nothing short of bizarre (a word often associated with Coakley’s actions) the DA’s office agreed to release the officer on personal recognizance and sought no bail whatsoever.  Fifteen months later, by which time Coakley had become Attorney General, a new DA finally tried and convicted Keith Winfield of the brutal rape of his niece. 
    
   As a DA seeking higher office it was Coakley’s firm desire to maintain good relations with the local police.  Prosecuting a brother officer, no matter how heinous the charges, doesn’t always achieve that end.  So, where was Martha Coakley when it came to protecting a child who had been so clearly assaulted?  She was hiding behind the legalese argument that a person who her office alleged had raped a two year old child with a scalding hot iron was not a “danger to the public”.  The poor infant who was assaulted will wear the scars of that torture for her life – but evidently Martha didn’t want to be seen as “too aggressive” in her prosecution.  Was this a consistent position or only one she took when it served her ends?  One need only examine Coakley’s most infamous case to find the answer to that question.
    
   III.           Overcharging
    
   Before getting in to the specifics of Coakley’s best known prosecution, it might be best to take some time to consider what might well be the most glaring deficiency of the American legal system.  Let’s start with a hypothetical.
    
   Your name is Ahmet Ali.  You are a cab driver in New York City.  One day, after lunch, you enter your cab munching on a pickle.  One of those big old deli style gherkins.  You start down a busy street and, as you come up on someone who appears to be waving you down, you glance out your window and thus miss one of those common New York City potholes.  When the cab hits said pothole things go a bit crazy.  You lose control of the cab, careen across the sidewalk and end up lodged in the revolving door of a fancy hotel.  Let’s complicate things a bit – let’s say that at the time of the accident a major conference is underway at the UN and a number of diplomats are staying at just this hotel.
    
   Back to the accident.  Thankfully no one is hurt but the next day all the papers have pictures of your cab wedged in to the revolving door while panicked security officers with guns pointed at you are approaching from each side, and you sit there with your hands up and enormous pickle clenched firmly in your mouth.
    
   A few days later you get a summons to appear in court where you are charged with reckless driving.  You try to explain to the DA assigned to the case that it was the pothole that caused the accident but he tells you to get a lawyer.  You do this.  You figure that this is America, you’ll tell a judge or jury at trial what happened and you’ll be acquitted.  The lawyer seems to agree – he says that even if you are convicted the most you would likely get is a fine.  That would be bad – you’d lose your taxi licence – but at least you can go to the courts and get a fair trial.
    
   But the DA doesn’t want to try the pickle case.  He wants to clear his desk.  He understands that everyone is supposed to be entitled to a fair trial – but hey – the court system is clogged, the guy was eating a pickle while driving – he should plead.  So instead of accepting the fact that the two sides disagree and letting the courts settle things he takes a different route.  The next day your lawyer calls with a bit of bad news – you have now been charged with drunk driving as well.  The conversation then goes like this:
    
   “But I wasn’t drinking – no one’s even mentioned that before”.
    
   “The DA say’s that the arresting officer’s report notes a sharp odor coming off you and that you stated yourself that you had just come from Joe’s Pub and Grill”.
    
   “I had a pickle smeared all over my face – of course there was a sharp odor – and I always eat at Joe’s – I love the burgers – but I don’t drink, I’m a practicing Muslim.”
    
   “The DA says that the fact of the odor, combined with having just left a licenced premises together with the erratic driving allows him to sustain a charge of drunk driving.  Personally – I just think he wants to see if he can make us plead to the reckless driving charge.”
    
   And so it goes – your lawyer goes back to the DA with the rejection of the plea.  But he also explains to you that if the DA somehow manages to convince a jury that there was drunk driving involved, something that can happen, you could now end up in jail for a period.  In fact, you could end up in prison for longer than someone who actually was drunk driving and pled guilty, because the system is rigged to hand out stiffer sentences to those who have the temerity to insist on what is supposed to be their right – a trial.
    
   But you are angry now and decide that you will insist on just that – a trial.  So your lawyer informs the DA and one week later calls you up again.
    
   “I have some more bad news – the charge of terrorism has been added to the list.”
    
   It seems that the fact that you were a Muslim made the DA realize that a drunk driving charge might be hard to prove if you were actively practicing a religion that banned alcohol.  So he checked you out.  He pulled the records of the mosque you attend and it seems the membership there includes some fairly radical types – and there are video tapes of you in attendance while they speak at a meeting.  The DA now thinks he can convince a jury that it is a bit too much of a coincidence that your cab ended up driving in to the lobby of a hotel filled with diplomats.
    
   After venting a bit about how crazy it is that anyone could even think this you tell your lawyer that you didn’t chose the mosque for political reasons – it just happened to be the one closest to your home.  And you don’t associate with the radicals (you call them the “nut jobs”) and only went to what you thought was an anti-discrimination meeting not knowing they were even speaking.  How could you possibly end up being called a terrorist for hitting a pothole while eating a pickle?  “Let’s fight this!” you say.
    
   Then your lawyer tells you the facts of life.
    
   Your name is Ahmet Ali, and in New York, the American city most traumatised by terrorism, you drove your cab into a hotel lobby filled with diplomats.  There are pictures of you submitting at gunpoint to security personnel, you attended rallies with Muslim radicals, and, yes, you were driving and eating a pickle at the same time.  Can a DA inflate these facts into a terrorism conviction?  Possibly – but admittedly not likely.  Nonetheless – it is possible – and, by the way – “do you happen to know the penalty for a conviction in such a case?”
    
   “No” you say “what is it?”
    
   So he tells you – it’s life, life!, in prison.  Life, against the payment of a $1,500 fine and loss of your taxi licence.  Life.
    
   And that is how you end up $1,500 poorer, unemployed, but much wiser.
    
   But this doesn’t really happen does it?  Prosecutors don’t knowingly overcharge just to wring a plea bargain out of defendants when the stakes are so high – do they?
    
   Now we’ll talk about the Louise Woodward case.
    
   In February of 1997 an ambulance was called to the house of Sunil and Deborah Eappen by au pair Louise Woodward.  Young Matthew Eappen, a baby in Woodward’s care, had become unresponsive and seemed very sick.  Woodward was questioned (and, according to police, stated that she had shaken the baby and “dropped” him on to a pile of towels).  She is arrested and the next day pleads not guilty to the battery of Matthew.  Immediately the case begins to get massive press coverage.  Five days after the initial charge of battery – Matthew Eappen dies.
    
   At this point the DA’s office had some choices to make.  When one human being dies at the hands of another the law puts the homicide in to a number of categories.  These vary somewhat but basically break down as follows:  Justifiable, Accidental, Unintentional, Malicious and Premeditated Malicious. 
    
   “Justifiable” homicide is typically applied to self defence or the defence of others.  Obviously that wasn’t what happened to Matthew Eappen.  “Accidental” homicide doesn’t necessarily mean an accident happened in the traditional sense (for example, an automobile accident where a driver kills another while speeding is not an “accidental” death – it is perhaps unintentional, perhaps reckless).  Instead “accident” is more properly understood to mean an instance such as where a vase is toppled off a tall shelf and freakishly falls on someone’s head, killing them.  There was no intent to kill, no intent to harm – not even the conscious knowledge that the event would lead to death.  This type of incident is usually seen as “excusable” and thus is more of a defence than a charge.  Louise Woodward might use it to clear herself, but it did not enter in to the prosecution's deliberations other than, perhaps, when considering whether to charge her at all.  “Involuntary” homicide, sometimes simply called “manslaughter” other times “involuntary manslaughter” requires “wanton or reckless” conduct leading to the death of another, or the battery of another where you did not intend to kill.  This is distinguished from “voluntary manslaughter” by the element of intent.  The typical example is where a spouse finds their partner in an act of adultery, loses control, and kills.  There is no reflection, no time taken to consider what was done, no “malice aforethought” in the legal sense.  One might say “no malice? – someone just got killed!”  But “malice” is more properly thought of as “reflection” – a manslaughter occurs when the killing takes place so soon after a provocation that there is no “cooling off” period.
    
   Once you are out of the manslaughter realm you are in to the area of “murder”.  Murder in the second degree, in Massachusetts, is a common law crime - it is differentiated from murder in the first degree by the element of pre-meditation.  The differences might best be understood by running through some of the variations on the scenario outlined in the example previously given.

1.  Mr. X walks in to the house and finds his wife in flagrante with the gardener.  As he turns to run from the house in shame and disgust his wife rushes after him, begging forgiveness.  At the top of the stairs she clings to him and he shoves her away causing her to fall down the stairs and break her neck.  Involuntary manslaughter – it was reckless to shove someone down stairs but he didn’t want to kill his wife or necessarily even harm her – he was exiting the scene.  But she did die as the result of his actions.
2. Same scenario – Mr. X, in the heat of the moment picks up a heavy lamp and crashes it down on the gardener’s head, killing him.  Voluntary manslaughter – X wanted to kill (or at least cause great harm which could reasonably lead to death) but did so in a moment of passion.
3. Same scenario – Mr. X, after seeing the adulterous act, runs from the house and circles the block twice.  Ten minutes later, after his second trip around, he spies the gardener leaving his house.  He runs up, grabs a brick, and beats the man dead.  Murder Two – intent to kill and plenty of malice, (because there had been a cooling off period), but there was no planning – the murder weapon was improvised and the meeting was random.
4. Finally – the same scenario again.  Mr. X sees the adulterous act but slips unnoticed back out of the house.  Two weeks later he invites the gardener to the house on some pretense.  He then drugs the couple, ties them to the bed and tortures them to death.
    
   Ladies and gentlemen – that is murder in the first degree.
    
   Any rational person reading through the facts of the Woodward case would have to conclude that it was not a murder case.  In point of fact – the DA’s office reached this same conclusion initially when they charged Louise Woodward with battery and not “attempted murder”. 
    
   Enter Martha Coakley.  When the time came for charges to be brought following Matthew Eappen’s death Martha was the face of the prosecution, holding forth at press briefings and, almost secondarily, the courts of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  Faced with the possibility of having to actually try the case however the DA’s office obviously decided  that the best way forward was to follow the path of maximum force – so, despite having no legal basis upon which to sustain the claim, Louise Woodward was charged with murder in the first degree.
    
   As would become painfully clear over the coming trial this was the worst kind of overcharging.  It was the real world equivalent of charging the cabbie with terrorism.  Remember – murder one requires premeditation and malice – the husband who drugs the wife and her lover two weeks after discovering the affair and then tortures them slowly to death.  In the Woodward case the prosecution was now essentially alleging that not only did Louise Woodward want Matthew Eappen to die – she planned how to do it.
    
   Of course, it was entirely possible that in a moment of rage, frustration or recklessness Woodward had done something that led to Matthew Eappen’s death.  This would have led to a charge of manslaughter – but it would also have most likely led to a trial.  What was really going on here was not a prosecutor attempting to be “tough on crime” or stepping up to become a crusader against a particular criminal class (unless baby-dropping nannies were now being treated as the equivalent of gang-bangers).  No – what Coakley was doing was attempting to bludgeon her way to a guilty plea – because she was afraid she didn’t have the chops to try a real case.  The DA’s office was hoping to have the usual scenario play out, where the threat of something as disproportionate as a mandatory life sentence (required for any murder conviction in Massachusetts)  would force the defendant to accept, at the very least, a guilty plea for voluntary manslaughter.
    
   There was only one problem with this.  The defendant was insistent on pursuing her right to a trial.  This is the great difficulty with overcharging and plea-bargaining.  As much as it sounds “efficient” to allow prosecutors to incentivize guilty pleas by bringing unwarranted draconian charges – it really is “justice by fear”.  What, in its most basic analysis, is the difference between scaring someone into a guilty plea by facing them with an option of life in prison or scaring them in to the same confession by putting a gun to their head?  Also – what do you do if you threaten to bring an unsustainable charge and the defendant doesn’t scare?
    
   What happened in the Woodward case was that the DA’s office, led by Coakley, embarked on an embarrassing farce of a public relations campaign rather than a trial.  Louise Woodward was not so much tried as demonized – and the effort, though patently absurd, was effective.  In closing arguments the best the prosecution could come up with was to describe Woodward as an “aspiring actress”, as if an interest in the theater was a hanging offense.  Coakley and the DA’s office sneered and obfuscated throughout the trial – but never came close to proving a murder case.  Woodward’s defense team, taking a calculated gamble, (which proved incorrect) that the jury would see through this nonsense, refused to allow the jury to be instructed on the lesser charge of manslaughter (which they could do, since the prosecution had never tried the case on that basis).  Their reasoning was that defense strategy had been altered by the prosecution’s overcharge – therefore compromising the ability to construct that defense.  Think about it – if a prosecutor tells you that you’re going on trial for drunk driving – and doesn’t try to convict you of reckless driving, why would you allow the jury to consider reckless driving when the DA is unable to show at trial that you ever took a drink in your life?
    
   So the case went to the jury, which was faced with a terrible quandary.  They knew that an innocent child was dead, but because the overcharging and incompetence of the prosecution had painted them in to a corner they either had to let Louise Woodward walk free or convict her of murder and hope that the system would, somehow, work things out.  They chose the latter course and convicted Woodward of second degree murder, a crime which, based on the evidence at trial, she could never have been said to have committed.
    
   When the verdict was read out all hell broke loose in the courtroom.  Woodward dissolved in tears, gasping out “how could they do this – I’m innocent”.  The jury looked as if they were ready to vomit from the strain.  Reporters who had followed the case incredulously attempted to explain how this result jibed with the facts (it didn’t).  Unbelievably, Martha Coakley and the Middlesex’s District Attorney’s office had managed to make a person whose possible lack of adequate care had led to the death of a child in to a figure of sympathy.
    
   The situation created an enormous difficulty for the judge, who, under Massachusetts law had a duty to review a verdict and overturn it if it is clearly lacking in a legal basis, which this one was.  The judge could have punted and let the verdict be overturned on appeal, but to his credit he immediately stepped in and reduced the verdict to one of involuntary manslaughter.  Despite the fact that the overall impact of this was to let the DA’s office off the hook for their own incompetence Martha and the gang roundly criticized the judge for doing their job for them.
    
   Overzealous publicity hungry prosecutors like Martha Coakley will often say, as a defense for overcharging, that it is their duty to “aggressively seek the most severe conviction the jury will sustain”.  This is ridiculous.  If it were true every southern DA who brought conspiracy charges against civil rights protestors would have been perfectly justified in saying “they were just doing their job”.  After all – the all-white juries they tried cases in front of would (and did) convict every time.  Juries often sustain verdicts simply on the basis that there appears to have been a wrong and someone must be punished.  In truth, a prosecutor is an agent of the government and should only seek a conviction for a crime they actually believe occurred.  When charges are increased (or, for that matter, decreased) in an attempt to avoid the “inconvenience” of a trial the system is compromised.  Is a certain amount of this necessary or acceptable?  Probably so, but, as numerous commentators point out, and as the Woodward case so amply demonstrated, things have gotten completely out of control.  Overcharging (and its close accomplices, mandatory sentences and asset forfeiture) are geared towards steering people away from their constitutional right to a fair trial.  That is, in the big picture, not a good thing.
    
   But it certainly was a good thing for Martha Coakley.  The Woodward trial, as embarrassing to justice as it may have been, was the making of Martha.  She was in front of cameras all the time, raised her profile enormously, and, because the judge quickly put the improper verdict aside the DA’s office avoided the kind of scrutiny one would have expected.  Out of disaster grew a career.

This then was the candidate that the Massachusetts Democratic party chose to put forward as its nominee for the seat vacated by the late Senator Edward Kennedy.  A person who, it could be argued, kept innocent people in prison, who ignored the suffering of victims when it suited her purposes, whose best known case was an advertisement for the greatest flaws in the criminal justice system.  Coakley would, of course, resist these characterizations, but should this person have been the standard bearer for the hopes of the electorate not just in Massachusetts but throughout the country?

Of course not.  But thus is it ever in Massachusetts Democratic politics.  What was so completely overlooked in the run up to the special Senate election was the fact that, in statewide races with perceived national importance (putting aside AG, Auditor, Secretary of State, etc), Democrats get fairly regularly beaten in Massachusetts.  Correction – party machine Democrats get fairly regularly beaten.  The Deval Patricks and Elizabeth Warrens of the world show that less traditional choices do OK.  This is because the nominees in those losing races are consistently drafted from the barrel of candidates who are closely tied to the power structure.  The Mark Roosevelts (lost to Bill Weld), the Scott Harshbargers (lost to Paul Celluci) and Shannon O’Brien’s (lost to Mitt Romney) of the world should have tipped everyone off that dipping in to the Middlesex County machine to dredge out Martha Coakley wasn’t that smart a move.  Nonetheless – Coakley received overwhelming traditional support in her campaign and was sent off to do battle under the widespread impression that there was no way she could screw things up.

 

She screwed things up.

 

It is pointless to go through the litany of gaffes Coakley committed in that campaign.  Suffice to say that if you misspell your own state’s name in your campaign literature, if you publicly prefer a fundraiser in Washington to greeting voters at Fenway Park (you’re a candidate in Boston for crying out loud!), if you take a week’s vacation less than three weeks before the most important election of your life – you can’t expect to be elected.  You can expect to fumble away the single safest seat in the United States Senate – and that is exactly what happened.

 

So why would anyone countenance turning the gubernatorial nomination over to Coakley?  There are already warning signs that trouble is stirring.  Coakley was defeated at the State Convention by national figure Steven Grossman.  Grassroots voters once again sent the message that they prefer this type of candidate to the long time state based figure.  Deval Patrick – two time winner of the Governor’s seat – had no history of holding elective office in Massachusetts.  Elizabeth Warren was the same – she was a national figure rather than a party hack.  Massachusetts is a place where long time lower office holders are more closely associated with going to jail than with higher office.  Coakley may not be criminal but she certainly isn’t an outsider when it comes to Massachusetts politics.  Still, in statewide polls the numbers show Coakley winning a plurality of the votes, mainly on the back of party loyalists.  If she wins, and the Republicans muster a competent candidate, things could get very sticky.

 

But, most importantly, even if she were to somehow win the election – is this the person that you want in the Governor's office?  The reason for Coakley’s continuing power lies in the stubbornness of the Democratic machine.  She was their candidate in 2010 and they still can’t believe they were that wrong.  So, again, large factions of the party wish to anoint Coakley Governor.  The problem, as before, is that candidates must be elected, and Coakley seems to have trouble pulling that act off on the big stage.  Perhaps the best solution is not to place her on that stage again.




Postscript - Hate to be an "I told you so" but... Since this article was originally posted Coakley did indeed go on to scrape through the primary and emerge as the Democratic nominee for governor.  She has, as of this date (24 October), managed to parlay this position as the lead Democrat in arguably the most Democratic state in the nation into a nine point deficit in the most recent polls.  Despite this consistent and unending evidence that Coakley is a bad candidate not suited to this type office party regulars, including the presumptive nominee for the Presidency, row in behind her because she's "one of us".  Look folks - she's really "one of them", the hangers on, the hacks, the coat carriers.  Let's face facts - every once in a while a candidate with a "D" after their name comes along that should be assigned that designation as a grade, not as your choice for high office.  In Martha's case it should probably be an "F".  Can she still win?  Maybe.  Should she? 


C'mon.