I'm from upstate New York, so what do I know about the Attorney General of the next state over? That she's running for the Senate for Teddy Kennedy's old seat? That the once shoo-in candidate in a state (or rather, "Commonwealth") with a heavy Democratic majority is now fighting for her political career, because of a suddenly viable campaign of an obscure Republican back bencher?
Of course I know these things: from reading the papers. And of course, her problems are being blamed on Obama's political travails after his first year in office.
But I have a longer memory and an interest in that "elephant in the room" of our shameful and retrograde drug and criminal justice policies, something that mainstream Dems want to frequently avoid. And I remember that AG Coakley was an outspoken opponent of the recent marijuana decriminalization referendum which won with 65% of the vote -- more than Obama's margin! And I recall that after inserting herself in the campaign of local police chiefs against that referendum, she drafted a model local ordinance reinstating the old arrest penalties after the statewide referendum passed, and she then urged local municipalities to adopt that legislation seeking to thwart the outcome of the referendum.
She also opposed efforts to remove minor criminal arrests from an offenders record to aid in job searches.
Now, granted, I follow these things because of personal interest, so these sorts of issues are not noted when the state and national pundits seek to explain why Coakley's lagging in the polls.
But I ask: isn't it equally probable that Coakley's conventional high profile drug warrior politics trying to thwart an overwhelmingly popular referendum is as much of a reason she may be spurned by the voters as dissatisfaction with Obama or Democrats in general?
When are we going to allow our candidates to get on the popular side of issues like marijuana decriminalization rather than doing what Coakley (and Obama) and others do on these social conservative issues, be "safe" and support the knee-jerk conventional wisdom, rather than getting with the times and seeing which way the younger voters are trending....