The voters did it to themselves

Unless you are living under a rock, you are aware that Republican Scott Brown beat out Democrat Martha Coakley for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the late Ted Kennedy.  Turnout that the polls was very high, despite the cold, snowy, slushy, icky weather.  Even the precinct where we vote seemed to have a decent turnout.  That’s unusual, because this neighborhood seems to be a throwback to the 80′s…women with bleached blonde big hair, guys with mullets, etc.  Sometimes I wondered if these people thought that Ronald Reagan was still President!

Anyhoo…if you live in Massachusetts, normally vote Democrat, but did not bother to vote in the Democratic primary this past December, the one that got Martha Coakley the candidacy, I do not want to hear One Single Word of complaint out of you.  You lost your bitching rights by not bothering to vote.  I truly believe that if more people cared back then, if more people showed up at the polls, perhaps last night’s outcome could have been different.

There were four Democratic candidates:  Coakley, Congressman Mike Capuano, City Year founder Alan Khazei, and businessman/Boston Celtics co-owner Steve Pagliuca.  Out of the four, I thought that Alan Khazei was the most electable, the one with the best chance of beating Scott Brown.  He ran an excellent grassroots campaign which picked up a lot of momentum at the end, but sadly, it was not enough.

But it was clear that very few people cared about this primary, didn’t realize how very important it was to pick the right person for the job.  Unlike the general election, the primaries got little to no coverage on the national news shows…seemed that “fluff” stories like those about quick weight loss methods got more airtime. Pathetic, isn’t it?

I feel that Coakley got the nomination by default, that if more people had paid attention and gone out to vote, we might have seen Khazei or Capuano, and the headlines today would have been much different.  Coakley ran a lousy campaign, she seemed very out of touch with the people, she seemed to think she was better than the regular people.  She was too sure of herself, and all but handed the election to Brown.  As for Brown, he took full advantage of his opponent’s weaknesses, and ran a much better campaign.  I think a lot of people liked how he came across as a regular guy, more in touch with the people, and not afraid to shake hands with them.  But neither were the other three Dems.  I thought that Khazei and Capuano had the most appeal because they, too, came off as “regular guys”.  Either one would have run an excellent campaign against Brown, either one could have beaten him.

Let this be a lesson to all – next time you decide to skip voting in a primary because it doesn’t seem important enough – think again.  I think these election results are the proof of how important it is to VOTE!