While reports show there are no exit polls because as of a few weeks ago it was assumed Coakley would walk away with the election, there is still tons of news being reports.
Coakley's team, it seems, is preemptively blaming the Wite House and washington DSemocrats for not helping enuogh, never mind the fact that she took a month off in the midst of the campaign because she assumed she was a shoe in... nope, the finger pointing has already begun.
The Politico publishes a memo with talking points and excuses regarding how Obama and Democrats failed her, from a Coakley adviser:
National Dems Failed to Aid Coakley Until Too Late
— Coakley campaign provided national Democrats with all poll results since early December
— Coakley campaign noted concerns about "apathy" and failure of national Democrats to contribute early in December. Coakley campaign noted fundraising concerns throughout December and requested national Democratic help.
— DNC and other Dem organizations did not engage until the week before the election, much too late to aid Coakley operation
Brown Capitalized on Concerns About National Democrats
— From the beginning, Brown labeled President Obama's health care and cap and trade plans as tax increases. Polling throughout the race showed this to be the most effective attack on Coakley.
— Coakley's lead dropped significantly after the Senate passed health care reform shortly before Christmas and after the Christmas Eve "bombing" incident. Polling showed significant concerns with the actions of Senator Nelson to hold out for a better deal. Senator Nelson's actions specifically hurt Coakley who was forced to backtrack on her opposition to the abortion restriction amendment.
— Democrats concerns with Obama's Afghanistan plan forced Coakley to oppose the Afghan war in the primary, which hurt her in the general.
Claims about Coakley's Scant Campaigning and Miscues Were Exaggerated
— Because of the failure of national Democrats to support Coakley, she was forced to devote significant time to fundraising in December. She also released a variety of plans in December and had a public event nearly every day.
— Coakley's failure to release television advertisements until 12 days before the election was the result of a fundraising problem that national Democrats failed to resolve. Meanwhile, right-wing groups pumped significant amounts of money into Brown’s campaign, allowing him to go up with ads first, including negative attack ads funded by the Swift Boat and Willie Horton groups.
The Democratic party instantly fired back a response against Coakley's team:
This memo is a pack full of lies and fantasies — The DNC and the DSCC did everything they were asked and have been involved in the race for several weeks, not just the last one.
The campaign failed to recognize this threat, failed to keep Coakley on the campaign trail, failed to create a negative narrative about Brown, failed to stay on the air in December while he was running a brilliant campaign. It's wishful thinking from a pollster, candidate and campaign team that were caught napping and are going to allow one of the worst debacles in American political history to happen on their watch that they are at the 11th hour are going to blame others.
Before the DNC and DSCC got involved there was barely a single piece of paper on what the narrative is on Brown. The candidate in this race and the campaign have been involved in the worst case of political malpractice in memory and they aren't going to be able to spin themselves out of this with a memo full of lies.
The Boston Globe screwed up on a massive scale by prematurely publishing poll results.... 8 hrs before the polls even closed!!!
Boston.com briefly put up this map of the final results of today's election -- some 8 hours before polls closed!
As you can see, over 2 million people voted, with Coakley eking out a 50-49 victory.
The map was fully interactive, so you could roll over and get town-by-town results -- above we show Coakley taking Cohasset 56-43.
They took the map down shortly after I pointed it out on Twitter. But not before we Phoenix troublemakers got the screen shots!
Now, if the final numbers end up matching these, the Republicans may really have reason to question the integrity of the process...
The Globe's excuse?
[Associated Press] was testing an election data feed to its Massachusetts clients. During corresponding tests at our end, the feed of AP's hypothetical test data was inadvertently posted for a few minutes on a single subsection page within ur site. As soon as the error was discovered, it was removed. We regret the mishap.
Other news shows that despite the bad weather, turnout has been high for this special election.
Dem GOTV comes up with upsetting results to their inquiries... upsetting for them that is.
A Democratic operative familiar with the get-out-the-vote push by Martha Coakley's team and boosted late in the game by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, says that outreach workers in and around Boston have been stunned by the number of Democrats and Obama supporters who are waving them off, saying they'll vote for Scott Brown.
Hot Air has a lot of lil tidbits as well listed, the most amusing was that the Coakley campaign filed a complaint about today's election... problem, they forgot to change yesterday's date off of it.
Update VII: The Coakley campaign just held a press conference with candidate Coakley alleging irregularities with ballots. Only problem? The press release they handed out is dated … yesterday.
Head over there to see the screen shot.
Showbizgalore says there were some exit polls and none came out in favor of Coakley.
Early exit polls in the Gardner, Fitchburg and Peabody areas show Brown leading by 14, 17, and 15% points. While too early to call a lock similar continued results by 2 – 3pm should confirm the loss byMartha Coakley.
All three early predictors have Scott Brown gaining over 50% of the states voters in a sweeping come from behind victory.
Just some reading fun for you until the election results come in after the polls close at 8 pm ET.
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