Martha Coakley lost the election for governor of Massachusetts.
Some have criticized her as a poor candidate.
Martha Coakley was the Democratic nominee for governor of Massachusetts because she won the primary with about 42% of the vote.
Maybe if someone else were nominated, such as Steve Grossman or Donald Berwick, they would have won the election for Governor.
The party convention gave Grossman 35%, Coakley 23%, and Brewick 22%.
However, it was those who voted in the primary who gave the nomination to Coakley.
(I voted for Berwick in the primary.)
This is the way the democratic process works, you end up with the nominee from those who choose to run selected by those party members who come out to vote in the primary. Sometimes this results in choosing a candidate who is less likely to win the general election. This has certainly happened to Republicans in various states.
While it is far from perfect, I think this system of choosing nominees is better than the alternatives.