Up until last night, I could not figure out how in the world she could still be trailing a Pick up Truck by five points in her Massachusetts senate race.
I mean it is a nice looking pickup truck, but still.
This is Senator Kennedy's old seat in the last I heard still a fairly blue state.
She's eminently likable, clearly intelligent, clearly gives a shit.
So what gives?
In listening to her speech last night, the one theme she hit several times that made me cringe slightly was her reference to the economic system being "rigged" against the middle class.
Now, for me personally, I agree more with that than disagree. I think Wall Street has gamed things in their favor to an obscene degree.
However, when you hear it being expressed in terms like that, it conveys an extremely negative and even foreboding world view.
Indeed, it can instill a feeling of hopelessness in the listener.
Now, I'm not saying I'm Frank Luntz, I'm just some guy with a computer.
But that's how it resonated with me, and I'm totally with her. So imagine how it's going to register with people that maybe are not so plugged into things.
They are going to think, wow, this lady is really nice, but she's kind of a downer.
I'm not so sure people want to buy into something so doomy and gloomy. Buying into the fact that the whole system is rigged against you is a pretty big leap of faith into a place that you are really not so excited to go in the first place.
I think if she just reworks that theme and gets rid of that "rigged" word, she'll be doing herself and us a big favor.
There is no reason in the world she shouldn't have run that pickup truck off the road already.