A lesson Martha Coakley learned too late

“All politics is local” was Tip O’Neill’s famous phrase. And for years now many Democrats, especially in Massachusetts, have tried to ride the strength of this feel-good slogan into elected office, repeating it ad nauseam.

The problem is that most people actually believe that Tip O’Neill was giving advice on how to govern. Actually, it was only advice on how to campaign.

In 1936, Tip O’Neill ran for the Cambridge City Council. He campaigned everywhere except in the neighborhood where he was born and raised simply because he assumed that he already had those votes in the bag.

After O’Neill lost the race, he reviewed the vote totals by precinct and discovered that he had actually done worse in his own neighborhood. “People like to be asked,” a neighbor lady explained to him.

O’Neill never made that mistake again, and he never lost another election.

 

Are you saying that if Coakley had campaigned in Tip O'Neill's neighborhood, she would have won?

 

no, i'm saying she should move to cambridge and run for city council.

 

But she wasn't born there.

 

Boy,the Liberals really are throwing this poor woman under the bus. I don't think i've ever seen a party throw one of their own under the bus this way. I actually feel bad for the woman. She ran a poor campaign but don't underestimate what a great campaign Scott Brown ran. He ran some of the best campaign ads i have ever seen. They really were pretty moving. All the Liberals could come up with was making fun of the guy's truck. So go ahead and throw Coakley under the bus but give Scott Brown the credit he deserves as well.

 

i did better than give him credit; i gave him time and my vote. my point is that martha felt that campaigning in the flesh was beneath her and that's the main reason she lost.

sure, health care, obama etc played into it, but bottom line is she ran an absolutely horrible campaign.

 

Let's not try to say Scott Brown won only because Coakley ran a poor campaign. Let's call it what it really was - a message to Washington and hopefully a new beginning towards responsible politics by the Congressmen.

 

I really did like the ads he ran. Very few campaign ads can move me. A couple of his ads managed to move me. I agree that Coakley did run a lame campaign but Scott Brown also ran a brilliant campaign. A Liberal running for that seat shouldn't have had to run a brilliant campaign to win. It should have been a gimme. The Liberal running a bad campaign does not guarantee the Conservative Republican would win that seat. It's definitely more than that. Hey just my take anyway.

 

If Obama-care doesn't pass now, it'll be Coakley's fault. Not Obama's, Reid's, Pelosi's... nope, because they are all perfect.

 

there's no doubt scott ran an excellent campaign. my point is that martha blew it by acting like it was a given that she'd be elected. as tip pointed out, people like to be asked and she didn't ask until it was waaaaay too late.