It’s already begun. The Brown-Coakley contest, say E. J. Dionne and Joan Vennocchi of the Boston Globe, is really about local issues. Heck, Massachusetts isn’t even all that much of a Democratic state! Bay State voters really have a “love-hate” relationship with the Democratic party.

I’m sure we can get back to such claims later.

But for the time being, when you hear someone making these or similar arguments, just imagine if you had asked them two, three, or six months ago:

“Would you at least agree that it would be a pretty big deal if an unknown Republican state senator closed a 30-point gap with the anointed successor for Ted Kennedy’s seat (an — allegedly — tough-on-crime female attorney general, no less) and ended up winning only after he made the election a referendum on whether his “41st vote” should kill Obamacare, and after Obama himself tried to nationalize the race?”

Anyone who claims that they would have said, “Oh, it will boil down to local issues” has a serious credibility problem.

And, following up on Jay’s post below, I agree that winning is much better than losing. But for the same reasons I suggest here, it would still be a really, really big deal if Brown is even close. The “moral victory” wouldn’t purely be some abstract debater’s point. Moderate Democrats are watching what’s happening. Even a close race sends a message from Massachusetts!