Byron York of the Washington Examiner reports that Coakley’s fellow Democrats are turning against her. They’re blaming Coakley not only for her “inept campaign,” but also for her aloof personality and poor relationship with the Kennedys and Obama:
Coakley made no secret of her desire to run for Kennedy’s seat well before Kennedy died in August of last year. Kennedy nephew Stephen E. Smith later told the Boston Herald, “She set up a committee six months before my uncle died. There were people on the corner with a huge ‘Coakley for Senate’ sign two days after his funeral.” Coakley formally announced her candidacy a week after Kennedy’s death. One of Coakley’s main rivals for the Democratic nomination, Rep. Michael Capuano, told the Herald, “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t step over someone’s grave.”
Things are looking so dour for the Democrats, that they are already planning the 2012 election to replace Brown with a “more congenial” Democratic candidate. Not that all Dems would be heartbroken to face that possibility after the results come in tonight: “[A] strategist spoke approvingly when he quoted a fellow Democrat who said, ‘I’d rather have Scott Brown for two years than Martha Coakley for the rest of my life.'”
