Coakley in Cruise Control

There is a new Globe poll out of likely Democratic Primary Voters. Nothing much has changed and I anticipate unless a major bombshell drops in the next two weeks, that Attorney General Martha Coakley will win by a considerable margin.

Coakley 43%
Capuano 22%
Pagliuca 15%
Khazei 6%
Undecided 14%

Coakley's approval is in the stratosphere with a 71% favorability rating. The only real danger for Coakley is that 50% of voters have yet to firmly settle on a candidate (although many of them indicated a preference, it may yet change). She has run a nearly flawless, if boring campaign and has the ball with a two touchdown lead and about two minutes left in the game. One or two more runs up the middle without a fumble and game over.

At the risk of writing a premature post-mortem on the others in the field...

Capuano who seems to be solidifying a firm grip on second place is handicapped by this not being a two-person race. He simply has not been able to distinguish himself from the rest of the pack. Capuano also badly flubbed his one chance a couple of weeks ago when Coakley announced that she wouldn't vote for a national health reform bill that had the much-discussed abortion language in it. Capuano pounced on this and hammered Coakley for not knowing how to play the inside Washington game...and then reversed himself 24 hours later and for all intensive purposes adopted Coakley's position. The fear these candidates have of incurring the wrath of certain segments of the primary electorate is mind-boggling. Capuano ended-up laming himself in his eagerness to get to the Left as much as possible on this issue and dropping what would have been a good opportunity to play on his perceived strength as a DC insider and knowing how to move legislation.

Capuano does have a lifetime seat in the House, but there are few opportunities to "move up" to the US Senate. John Kerry is in his early sixties, may be another 15 more years before there is another open seat...

Pagliuca's spending may amount to a record number of dollars expended per each vote at the end of the day. I still think he is doing this mainly to prep for a statewide run at some point in the future or to be noticed for an appointed position in the Obama Administration.

I think Kahzei has a future in politics, but he was thinking a bit too big for his initial run at public office.

The nagging issue that nearly half of these voters are not terribly excited by any one candidate speaks to initial name recognition having a major impact in this race much to Coakley's benefit. Primary Day is on December 8...I would camp out and wait the night before, but something tells me turnout is going to be mighty low.

Onwards!

The Prof