Pop that popcorn! From Politico:
The Coakley campaign is bridling at finger-pointing from the White House and Washington Democrats, and outside adviser to the campaign has provided to POLITICO a memo aimed at rebutting the charge that Coakley failed, and making the case that national Democrats failed her.
The adviser, who made the case to my colleague Jonathan Martin on the condition of anonymity in response, he said, to “the current leaking coming out of the White House and the DNC that is chalking all of this up to a “bad candidate”.
The memo states, among other things:
National Dems Failed to Aid Coakley Until Too Late
—Coakley campaign provided national Democrats with all poll results since early December
—Coakley campaign noted concerns about “apathy” and failure of national Democrats to contribute early in December. Coakley campaign noted fundraising concerns throughout December and requested national Democratic help.
—DNC and other Dem organizations did not engage until the week before the election, much too late to aid Coakley operation
Brown Capitalized on Concerns About National Democrats
—From the beginning, Brown labeled President Obama’s health care and cap and trade plans as tax increases. Polling throughout the race showed this to be the most effective attack on Coakley.
From the beginning Scott Brown dared to actually talk about the dirty little “secrets” in the Cap’n Trade (arrrgh!) and fauxcare bills! FOR SHAME.
To be fair, it’s both their faults. They both assumed that they could ride Kennedy’s posthumous coattails as the president has shown that he lacks any (New Jersey, Virginia).
I said many months ago on air that what we have is the proverbial frog-and-the-pot-of-water story. A frog will jump out of a boiling pot of water; place him in cool water and gradually increase the heat and you can boil him alive without him noticing. What this administration has done is blow decades of the latter strategy that has brought liberalism to this point by embracing the former strategy; New Jersey and Virginia were the first and second indications of this, Massachusetts the third.
