Why I Support Martha Coakley

From 1997-2005, I lived in Boston and slowly learned the ways of the strange political world that is Massachusetts. It is unlike anything we have seen down here in Georgia or anything I had seen growing up in Florida. The state is known for being intensely Democratic, and yet they had 16 years of Republican governors. Granted, many of these "Republican" governors would be considered too liberal to be elected in the South, but they still managed to defeat some Democratic stalwarts to win their seats. Meanwhile, the entire state Congressional delegation was Democratic, and there was little movement into or out of that delegation. Congressional seats were almost never seriously contested, and when they were it was generally in the primary. But still, Massachusetts was not a terribly liberal place. The bulk of the Democrats in the state were old line labor-driven Democrats, many Catholic and staunchly anti-abortion, very resistant to change. Ted Kennedy held his Senate seat for 4 decades not because people loved his views or his votes, but because he was Teddy Kennedy and it would be strange not to vote for him.

But now, Teddy is gone. And running to replace him Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, who is in the throes of a potentially disastrous campaign in which she might actually lose the seat to a Republican state senator. I have watched and admired Martha Coakley for years, and always found her to be intelligent, reasonable, not prone to grandstanding or the easy political play. She made her name as the Middlesex County DA, prosecuting several high profile cases and using that to vault into the AG position. She has been considered by many to be "biding her time" in that seat while waiting for a higher office to open up (MA having a very strange seniority system where the powerbrokers decide who has earned the right to run for an open seat when the rare situation arises), and I predicted last July that she was itching to run for Teddy's seat. Of course, I was hoping Teddy would be able to serve out his term and retire, but within a few months of my post he was gone, and the battle for his seat began. Coakley emerged from the scrum as the anointed one, and nobody really paid any attention until the whole healthcare reform movement came down to having 60 safe votes for passage, and then suddenly Massachusetts had itself a horserace.

Coakley has run a bad campaign, and I'm certainly not excusing her failings as a campaigner. But she is squeaky clean as a politician and public servant, and has taken some very progressive and intellectually risky positions in her time as AG. For starters, she filed the lawsuit against the federal government that sought to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, which she asserts violates traditional separation of powers between the federal government and the states by prohibiting MA residents in legal gay marriages from receiving federal marital benefits. That lawsuit could be the strongest gay rights challenge of the various legal maneuvers the gay rights folks are working through the courts right now, but it has gotten little attention in this election. It is perfectly emblematic of the sort of outside-the-box thinking Coakley has exhibited in her position as AG, and why the people of Massachusetts should support her now. There are many such reasons, but that is mine.

I trust and wholeheartedly endorse Martha Coakley for Senate and hope the good people of Massachusetts return to their senses and send her there.