I have to respectfully dissent a bit from Ed Morrissey when he declares that
national GOP and party leaders [have] gone AWOL in Massachusetts, where Scott Brown will battle Martha Coakley for Ted Kennedy’s seat in the Senate.
Should Michael Steele and national GOP leaders who can spare the time get up there and do a fundraising event or rally or two for Brown? Absolutely.
But to illustrate how tough the odds are for Brown, let’s pretend that every registered Republican in the state, as of 2008, shows up and votes for him. And let us pretend that the independents split evenly, and that only one third of the state’s Democrats show up and vote for Coakley.
Under that scenario, Coakley still wins by about 1,045 votes. That’s how steep an uphill battle Brown faces in this race. I’m sure there are a lot of Democrats in Massachusetts who don’t like the health-care bill. I’m sure there are a lot of fired-up Republicans, and maybe Brown will even win independents. But there are just so many more Democrats in this state than Republicans that it will take a not-so-small miracle for Brown to eke out a victory. Everybody on the right ought to be pulling for a Brown upset, and doing what they can, but there’s not much point in spending a lot of resources here when there will be a ton of competitive battlefields in the coming year.