Campaign or Vacation

Unless you've been on a remote island with no means of communication then you've probably heard that Democratic candidate Martha Coakley lost the late Ted Kennedy's Senate seat to Republican candidate Scott Brown in a special election.

How could a Republican win in mega-blue state, ultra-Democratic Massachusetts?

In the political campaign play book I don't think going on a week long vacation within 1 month of election day is recommended. Who would GO ON VACATION with an election for a U.S. Senate seat, you're supposedly trying to win, literally only weeks away? Martha Coakley would and did go vacation. Oh by the way, Coakley had a double digit lead in the polls before the ill advised vacation.

Also not found in the political campaign play book is the strategy of bad mouthing an admired statewide sports figure. Who would say that Curt Schilling is a Yankees fan, even if it was intended as a joke? Martha Coakley would and did. Moreover, she also made the Schilling-Yankees joke less than a month before the election. That would be like Kay Bailey Hutchison joking about Roger Staubach being an Eagles fan.

Furthermore, it's probably not a good idea to make fun of your opponent because he decided it would be a good idea to shake hands with voters outside Fenway Park.

So after losing the election what does team Coakley do? What every losing campaign seems to do these days, start pointing fingers at others. In this case the Coakley campaign started blaming the D.C. Democrats and White House for not helping out enough and thus causing the predicted Coakley loss BEFORE ELECTION DAY!

So let me get this straight, candidate Coakley goes on vacation for a week right before the election, makes fun of a local sports hero and lost to a guy that posed nude. Then, her campaign tries to throw the blame for the loss on out-of-town/out-of-state Dems? One definition of vacation is as follows:

vacation : an act or instance of vacating.

Coakley vacated her responsibility as a candidate when she and her campaign believed their own press and looked at the poll numbers and decided that it would be OK for her to take a break from trying to win a seat in the U.S. Senate. Maybe those in glass vacation houses shouldn't throw stones at D.C.