Massachusetts Senate Candidates Push to Finish Line (125 hits)
BOSTON — With the weight of the political universe on their shoulders, the two candidates running for the Senate seat long held by Edward M. Kennedy embarked on a frenzied last day of campaigning on Monday, while outside groups on both sides of the health care debate flooded the state with money, advertisements and ground troops to try to influence the outcome.
It was a frenetic end to a race that many had originally thought would be a cakewalk for Martha Coakley, the Democratic attorney general, since Massachusetts is an overwhelmingly Democratic state. But when polls showed that Scott Brown, the little-known Republican state senator running against her, had closed the gap or pulled ahead, officials from both parties, unions, business groups and others descended on the state.
Ms. Coakley’s organization tried to capitalize on the campaign stop President Obama made for her here on Sunday by using footage of it in a new television commercial, in the hopes that it would help galvanize Democrats to go to the polls Tuesday.
At stake is the fate of the Democratic health care bill, which Mr. Brown has vowed to block as a crucial 41st vote in the Senate, along with much of Mr. Obama’s prestige and the political momentum going into a pivotal midterm election year.
With millions of advertising dollars being spent by the campaigns and outside groups, it was almost impossible to find advertisements for McDonald’s on television; the commercial breaks on some shows consisted entirely of political ads, including ads for Ms. Coakley paid for by labor unions and ads for Mr. Brown paid for by business groups and conservative organizations.
At the same time, automated phone calls — from the campaigns, from unions, from a group opposing same-s*x marriage — were driving voters to distraction.
Both candidates said they were upbeat about their chances. “I feel it, I sense it, we’re going to turn it out,” Ms. Coakley said as she shook hands with voters here this morning at a memorial breakfast for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Mr. Brown told supporters who had stood in the snow and slush for hours to see him in North Andover, a suburb of Boston, “Seeing all of you is energizing, and I’m feeding off your energy.”
The questions now are whether the enthusiasm Mr. Brown has generated on the trail will translate into enough votes, and whether the Democratic establishment and labor unions supporting Ms. Coakley will be able to turn out voters the way they once did. The New England weather added another wrinkle to this unusual January special election: snow fell across much of the state on Monday, and more was forecast for Tuesday, making knocking on doors and standing on street corners a slushy affair.
Ms. Coakley should have the on-the-ground organizational advantage: her supporters were operating some 60 phone banks that have already made nearly 600,000 calls urging people to vote, and they expect to call a million voters by tomorrow. She also has more than 6,000 volunteers working for her election.
Mr. Brown, by contrast, listed 10 phone banks on his campaign Web site. One of them, in Littleton, Mass., had made 10,000 calls by 4:30 p.m., towards its goal of 15,000. Kurt Hages, a volunteer from Boxborough, Mass., said the campaign had been targeting independent voters.
“The strategy for us is to contact voters who might be undecided,” Mr. Hages said. “That 41st vote is getting people motivated.”
A conservative political action committee called Our Country Deserves Better, which has aligned itself with the antitax Tea Party movement, has spent over $348,000 in support of Mr. Brown over the past couple of weeks, federal election records show. The political action committee of the Cooperative of American Physicians — a California-based consortium of doctors concerned with the costs of malpractice lawsuits — has spent at least $35,000 on “prerecorded messages” in support of Mr. Brown.
The Political Action Committee of the National Republican Trust, also supportive of Mr. Brown, reported spending nearly $100,000 on advertising. And on a much smaller scale, the political action committee of a conservative group focused on national security issues called Move America Forward reported spending more than $13,000 on an e-mail blast and other activity supportive of Mr. Brown.
The National Rifle Association and the National Organization for Marriage — which opposes same-s*x marriage — have also run small campaigns intended to get Mr. Brown’s supporters to the polls on Tuesday, federal election records show.
Some of these late efforts appeared to have caught liberal groups off guard. But several of the Democrats’ better financed political action committees have responded by rallying to Ms. Coakley’s defense in recent days, the records show.
The Service Employees International Union has flooded Massachusetts with $685,000 in television and Internet advertisements questioning Mr. Brown’s claims for voting with Republicans 96 percent of the time and noting that he was supported by a group that supported Sarah Palin. The League of Conservation Voters has spent at least $350,000, including on an advertisement attacking Mr. Brown’s record on energy policy, records show. Planned Parenthood reported starting a $10,000 “get out the vote” telephone drive in support of Ms. Coakley, according to the Election Commission Web site.
There were last minute squabbles on the campaign trail. Mr. Brown accused Ms. Coakley of politicizing the King memorial breakfast, while Democrats accused Mr. Brown of smirking after a rowdy supporter at one of his rallies suggested doing something vulgar to Ms. Coakley with a curling iron. (Mr. Brown said that he had not heard the remark.)
Jim Rutenberg contributed reporting from New York.
