Suburbs put Brown over the top; gets strong showing in Neponset
By Gintautas Dumcius
Contributing Editor
Jan. 19, 2010
Recently-elected Boston City Councillor At-Large Ayanna
Pressley, that body’s first African-American woman, watched
in shock Tuesday night at Martha Coakley’s campaign
gathering at the Sheraton Boston as the disappointing vote
counts flowed in. “It’s going to take a while,” she said. “I feel
very disconnected from the reality of it. It’s going to take a
while for it to sink in. I believed until the very end we would
pull it out.”
She didn’t, of course. Coakley lost to State Sen. Scott Brown
of Wrentham, 52 percent to 47 percent, in an election of
significant note nationally that was defined by the surge of
independent suburban voters into Brown’s camp as the
campaign wound down to election day.
Four precincts in Dorchester’s Neponset enclave said “yes” to
Brown: Ward 16, Precinct 7 (St. Ann’s School), by 49-48,
Precinct 9 (Kenny School), by 59.3 to 39.1, Precinct 10 (St.
Ann’s), by 54.4 to 44.6, and Precinct 12 (Florian Hall) by 55-
43.
The winner will be sworn into office presently and he will take
the seat held by Edward M. Kennedy from 1963 until last
summer and by interim Sen. Paul Kirk for the last few months.
The last Republican elected to the U.S. Senate by
Massachusetts voters was Edward W. Brooke in 1972.
Brown’s upset came despite the dominance of the Democratic
Party at nearly every level of Massachusetts politics, and a last
minute fly-in to support Coakley by President Barack Obama.
The Democratic candidate had stopped by the Eire Pub, a
legendary political water hole, on Monday night, election eve,
just about a month after Brown walked in the Stenson
establishment after a rally at the old Dorchester Post next door.
Bar patrons interviewed that night were split between Coakley
and Brown, though the area is a stronghold for a number of
conservatives who are also known as Reagan Democrats.
“They come here because it’s a good crowd,” said Paul Elwell,
vice president of sales and promotion at Beantown Toys and
an Eire Pub regular. “I was thrilled to see her come in here,”
he said, but added that he is a political independent voting for
Brown.
“This is a Catholic neighborhood,” with conservative views on
abortion and gay marriage, said Brendan Price of South
Boston. “I’ve seen Democrats representing Massachusetts for
15 years,” he said, referring to the all-Democratic
Congressional delegation. “To me, there should be a little bit of
balance.”
Others said they were supporting Coakley. John Martin, a
South Boston sheet metal worker who is unemployed, said,
“We’re a blue city and we’re going to vote for Democrats. We’
re not going to forget that tomorrow.”
Like Coakley, he was dismissive of recent polls that showed a
statistical dead heat or Brown ahead. “It happened in New
Hampshire” when he campaigned for Hillary Clinton in 2008,
Martin said. “She was down 10 points. I’ve seen it before. It
doesn’t scare me.”
Martin was right on one point: that Boston would go for
Coakley. She won the city 68.6 percent to Brown’s 30.2
percent. Joseph Kennedy, who is unrelated to the famous
Kennedy clan, received under one percent, almost mirroring
his statewide showing. Roughly 153,460 Bostonians went to
the polls.
Brown’s win, which many will surely see as a harbinger of
great change in the national arena, ended an energetic
campaign that some in the Democratic camp complained
dwarfed a weak run by the state’s attorney general.
“I think it’s been a terribly run campaign,” said City Councillor
John Tobin, a West Roxbury Democrat who was among many
in the Boston political delegation who supported Capuano in the
Democratic primary. “This is not sour grapes,” he added.
Tobin pointed to Kennedy, who had held the Senate seat for 47
years and “brought passion and energy to the position. “I think
we need a little bit more passion. That’s why I was with
Michael Capuano in the first place,” he said.
Indeed, on Election Day, one website started hawking t-shirts
that read, “I voted for Mike Capuano – So don’t blame me.”
Hours after the polls closed, a group formed on the social
networking site Facebook called “Draft Mike Capuano for
Senate in 2012,” a reference to when Brown, who is filling out
the remainder of Kennedy’s term, is up for re-election.
Brown’s victory didn’t come as a complete surprise to political
operatives. “She’s cratering.” That was the simple but brutal
note Republican operative Eric Fehrnstrom posted on the social
networking site Twitter, six days before the voting.
Running on a national defense platform and as a vote against
Democratic plans for national health care reform, Brown
rocketed past Coakley during the short special election
campaign. On Jan. 11, a Boston Globe poll showed Brown 15
points behind Coakley.
To hear Democrats tell it the day after the voting, hope was
supplanted by rage. “People are just angry,” said former state
Democratic Party chair Philip Johnston. “They see homes
being foreclosed, millions of people losing their jobs, and Wall
Street thieves making more money than ever. It’s a very non-
partisan consensus that people feel. And I think Brown caught
that wave. I don’t think Martha could’ve done much to avoid
being swamped by it.”
It was a humiliating loss for Coakley, who had been on a
winning streak since coming in fourth place in a 1997 special
election for state representative in Dorchester. Born in North
Adams and for several years a Dorchester resident, she had
served as Middlesex district attorney and attorney general and
had handily beat Capuano and two others in a December
primary. She was widely expected to beat Brown, potentially
setting off a statewide electoral domino effect if she were to
win and vacate the attorney general’s office.
The anger Democrats repeatedly pointed to wasn’t limited to
middle class voters. Recriminations – most of them stated
privately – started to roll in over the weekend on television and
in national newspapers even before Obama joined Coakley on a
stage at Northeastern University on Sunday, and they only
grew in harshness.
Many pointed to the Coakley campaign brushing aside offers
of help from Democratic operatives after she cruised to a win
in the December primary. She was also lambasted among
pundits for not campaigning enough, leaving Brown to fill the
vacuum.
And then there were her widely noted gaffes: Calling Red Sox
legend Curt Schilling a “Yankee” fan, reportedly mocking the
shaking of voters’ hands in the cold outside Fenway Park as
Brown had done and stating that terrorists had left
Afghanistan, among others.
Before the election results started coming in Tuesday night,
one local Democratic operative said grimly through a text
message: “Off to the mass suicide at the Sheraton. Martha
Coakley just destroyed America. Sweet.”
Asked about the unhappiness among some Democrats, Senate
President Therese Murray, one of Coakley’s top supporters
and a Dorchester native, dismissed it as “Monday morning
quarterbacking.” Asked about Tobin’s comments, Murray (D-
Plymouth) said, “Well you know what? Maybe John should
just work harder and keep those comments to himself. I don’t
know how much work he did on the campaign. I really haven’
t seen him around a lot.”
Johnston, the former state Democratic Party chair, said Brown’
s win should be a “wake-up call” for Democrats. Ahead are
the November elections, with Gov. Deval Patrick running for
another term along with lawmakers in the state House of
Representatives and the state Senate.
“The Democrats have to go back to our roots of economic
populism and defending working families,” Johnston told the
Reporter. “I think we’ve been adrift the last couple of years.”
A few feet away, firefighters union president Robert McCarthy
watched the election returns in a daze. “He caught lightning in
a bottle,” he said of Brown. “A month ago no one could have
predicted this.”
More articles are available at the Reporter's website.
By Gintautas Dumcius
Contributing Editor
Jan. 19, 2010
Recently-elected Boston City Councillor At-Large Ayanna
Pressley, that body’s first African-American woman, watched
in shock Tuesday night at Martha Coakley’s campaign
gathering at the Sheraton Boston as the disappointing vote
counts flowed in. “It’s going to take a while,” she said. “I feel
very disconnected from the reality of it. It’s going to take a
while for it to sink in. I believed until the very end we would
pull it out.”
She didn’t, of course. Coakley lost to State Sen. Scott Brown
of Wrentham, 52 percent to 47 percent, in an election of
significant note nationally that was defined by the surge of
independent suburban voters into Brown’s camp as the
campaign wound down to election day.
Four precincts in Dorchester’s Neponset enclave said “yes” to
Brown: Ward 16, Precinct 7 (St. Ann’s School), by 49-48,
Precinct 9 (Kenny School), by 59.3 to 39.1, Precinct 10 (St.
Ann’s), by 54.4 to 44.6, and Precinct 12 (Florian Hall) by 55-
43.
The winner will be sworn into office presently and he will take
the seat held by Edward M. Kennedy from 1963 until last
summer and by interim Sen. Paul Kirk for the last few months.
The last Republican elected to the U.S. Senate by
Massachusetts voters was Edward W. Brooke in 1972.
Brown’s upset came despite the dominance of the Democratic
Party at nearly every level of Massachusetts politics, and a last
minute fly-in to support Coakley by President Barack Obama.
The Democratic candidate had stopped by the Eire Pub, a
legendary political water hole, on Monday night, election eve,
just about a month after Brown walked in the Stenson
establishment after a rally at the old Dorchester Post next door.
Bar patrons interviewed that night were split between Coakley
and Brown, though the area is a stronghold for a number of
conservatives who are also known as Reagan Democrats.
“They come here because it’s a good crowd,” said Paul Elwell,
vice president of sales and promotion at Beantown Toys and
an Eire Pub regular. “I was thrilled to see her come in here,”
he said, but added that he is a political independent voting for
Brown.
“This is a Catholic neighborhood,” with conservative views on
abortion and gay marriage, said Brendan Price of South
Boston. “I’ve seen Democrats representing Massachusetts for
15 years,” he said, referring to the all-Democratic
Congressional delegation. “To me, there should be a little bit of
balance.”
Others said they were supporting Coakley. John Martin, a
South Boston sheet metal worker who is unemployed, said,
“We’re a blue city and we’re going to vote for Democrats. We’
re not going to forget that tomorrow.”
Like Coakley, he was dismissive of recent polls that showed a
statistical dead heat or Brown ahead. “It happened in New
Hampshire” when he campaigned for Hillary Clinton in 2008,
Martin said. “She was down 10 points. I’ve seen it before. It
doesn’t scare me.”
Martin was right on one point: that Boston would go for
Coakley. She won the city 68.6 percent to Brown’s 30.2
percent. Joseph Kennedy, who is unrelated to the famous
Kennedy clan, received under one percent, almost mirroring
his statewide showing. Roughly 153,460 Bostonians went to
the polls.
Brown’s win, which many will surely see as a harbinger of
great change in the national arena, ended an energetic
campaign that some in the Democratic camp complained
dwarfed a weak run by the state’s attorney general.
“I think it’s been a terribly run campaign,” said City Councillor
John Tobin, a West Roxbury Democrat who was among many
in the Boston political delegation who supported Capuano in the
Democratic primary. “This is not sour grapes,” he added.
Tobin pointed to Kennedy, who had held the Senate seat for 47
years and “brought passion and energy to the position. “I think
we need a little bit more passion. That’s why I was with
Michael Capuano in the first place,” he said.
Indeed, on Election Day, one website started hawking t-shirts
that read, “I voted for Mike Capuano – So don’t blame me.”
Hours after the polls closed, a group formed on the social
networking site Facebook called “Draft Mike Capuano for
Senate in 2012,” a reference to when Brown, who is filling out
the remainder of Kennedy’s term, is up for re-election.
Brown’s victory didn’t come as a complete surprise to political
operatives. “She’s cratering.” That was the simple but brutal
note Republican operative Eric Fehrnstrom posted on the social
networking site Twitter, six days before the voting.
Running on a national defense platform and as a vote against
Democratic plans for national health care reform, Brown
rocketed past Coakley during the short special election
campaign. On Jan. 11, a Boston Globe poll showed Brown 15
points behind Coakley.
To hear Democrats tell it the day after the voting, hope was
supplanted by rage. “People are just angry,” said former state
Democratic Party chair Philip Johnston. “They see homes
being foreclosed, millions of people losing their jobs, and Wall
Street thieves making more money than ever. It’s a very non-
partisan consensus that people feel. And I think Brown caught
that wave. I don’t think Martha could’ve done much to avoid
being swamped by it.”
It was a humiliating loss for Coakley, who had been on a
winning streak since coming in fourth place in a 1997 special
election for state representative in Dorchester. Born in North
Adams and for several years a Dorchester resident, she had
served as Middlesex district attorney and attorney general and
had handily beat Capuano and two others in a December
primary. She was widely expected to beat Brown, potentially
setting off a statewide electoral domino effect if she were to
win and vacate the attorney general’s office.
The anger Democrats repeatedly pointed to wasn’t limited to
middle class voters. Recriminations – most of them stated
privately – started to roll in over the weekend on television and
in national newspapers even before Obama joined Coakley on a
stage at Northeastern University on Sunday, and they only
grew in harshness.
Many pointed to the Coakley campaign brushing aside offers
of help from Democratic operatives after she cruised to a win
in the December primary. She was also lambasted among
pundits for not campaigning enough, leaving Brown to fill the
vacuum.
And then there were her widely noted gaffes: Calling Red Sox
legend Curt Schilling a “Yankee” fan, reportedly mocking the
shaking of voters’ hands in the cold outside Fenway Park as
Brown had done and stating that terrorists had left
Afghanistan, among others.
Before the election results started coming in Tuesday night,
one local Democratic operative said grimly through a text
message: “Off to the mass suicide at the Sheraton. Martha
Coakley just destroyed America. Sweet.”
Asked about the unhappiness among some Democrats, Senate
President Therese Murray, one of Coakley’s top supporters
and a Dorchester native, dismissed it as “Monday morning
quarterbacking.” Asked about Tobin’s comments, Murray (D-
Plymouth) said, “Well you know what? Maybe John should
just work harder and keep those comments to himself. I don’t
know how much work he did on the campaign. I really haven’
t seen him around a lot.”
Johnston, the former state Democratic Party chair, said Brown’
s win should be a “wake-up call” for Democrats. Ahead are
the November elections, with Gov. Deval Patrick running for
another term along with lawmakers in the state House of
Representatives and the state Senate.
“The Democrats have to go back to our roots of economic
populism and defending working families,” Johnston told the
Reporter. “I think we’ve been adrift the last couple of years.”
A few feet away, firefighters union president Robert McCarthy
watched the election returns in a daze. “He caught lightning in
a bottle,” he said of Brown. “A month ago no one could have
predicted this.”
More articles are available at the Reporter's website.
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