Bay State Brown-Out

The Republicans couldn't have planned the situation in Massachusetts any better, and given their attack on Susan Rice that prompted her to withdraw herself from consideration as Secretary of State, they probably did. Now that President Obama has named Senator John Kerry to be his next Secretary of State, a special election for Kerry's seat in the Bay State is imminent, and Republican male model Scott Brown is the favorite.  This is despite the fact that he lost his current Senate seat to Elizabeth Warren by a decisive seven percentage points, and it's despite the fact that he was the only incumbent U.S. Senator of either party to lose his bid for re-election.  Why? It all comes down to name recognition. Brown has it, and most of the possible Democratic candidates for Kerry's seat aren't well-known to most of the state's voters.  Brown leads the likeliest Democratic prospects in the polls, and he beats a generic Democrat by about as many points as  he lost to Warren.  Even Governor Deval Partick, who made it clear that he doesn't want to run for Kerry's seat, is, according to the polls, an also-ran in a hypothetical match-up with Brown.

And don't look for a comeback from state Attorney General Martha Coakley; she ruled herself out this past Friday before anyone else could rule her out. She said she enjoys her current job.  Translation: She knows she'll lose the primary, never mind the general election.  It's nice to know that, in a party known for banishing one-time losers, Coakley had the good sense to banish herself.        

That said, it won't be a cakewalk for Brownie this time.  He's a known commodity now, and given what people in Massachusetts now know about him, it appears that they don't like him very much.  Although the obvious joke is that Brown would lose by running unopposed but is lucky enough to be assured a Democratic opponent, President Obama and former President Bill Clinton - and their wives - are expected to campaign and raise funds for the eventual Democratic nominee.  The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has assurances that the White House and the Clintons are on board, and both the Obamas and the Clintons could help raise up to $10 million extra to counter Brown's own formidable backing, including Republican super-PACs.  The biggest down side for the Democrats so far is that the late Senator Edward Kennedy's namesake son ruled himself out as a candidate for Kerry's seat; even though he currently lives in Connecticut, he would have been very formidable if he chose to move back to his home state to run for it.

Scott Brown was a novelty when he first ran for Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in late 2009, and as a former model who had posed nude for Cosmopolitan, he was perceived to be a joke.  But Massachusetts Democrats aren't laughing now.  They take him seriously.  They  weren't laughing when they sought to have him voted out of office this past year.  They only laughed when their desired outcome came to pass.  They can be expected to do their darnedest to keep him out of Kerry's Senate seat before they give themselves a chance to laugh at him once more.

The special election will likely take place this coming June, with the primary in April or May.  Likely Democratic primary candidates so far include Ed Markey, Stephen Lynch, and Michael Capuano, all currently serving as U.S. House members.  Also rumored as a possible candidate is another member  of the  Massachusetts U.S. House delegation, Niki Tsongas - whose late husband, one-time Democratic presidential candidate Paul Tsongas, held this very same U.S. Senate seat from 1979 to 1985.