Scott Brown's Magic Number

The Wingers are eagerly awaiting Rasmussen's poll today on the MA Senate race between Republican Scott Brown and Democratic candidate Martha Coakley.  Word is the poll will be around a 10% lead for Coakley.  Republicans argue that Coakley should have a 20%+ lead by now in a solid blue state for ted Kennedy's seat.

The Teabaggers really want to see Brown win, so that he can block 25 million people from getting health insurance.  No really, that's the plan.  Sadly for the America loving Teabaggers (America to them being non-poor, non-brown, non-Democrats) Nate Silver reminds us that Brown doesn't have a serious chance in hell.

Now, maybe the Republican enthusiasm advantage is a little bit larger than what WNEC shows. But I'm suspicious of comparisons with, for instance, Virginia; the reason the turnout swung so much there is partly because Virginia has a lot of swing voters. The turnout demographics didn't change all that much in New Jersey, on the other hand; Jon Corzine lost there because he was a crappy governor. And if New Jersey is less swingy than Virginia, Massachusetts is way less swingy than New Jersey. Also, turnout was pretty decent in the special primary, with 664,195 people voting in the Democratic race versus 162,706 in the Republican one, although the Democratic race was considerably more competitive.

But the basic problem for Brown is -- what happens if Rasmussen or whomever shows the race close and the national parties start throwing some money into the contest? Then you have Democrats playing the Teddy Card and Republicans nationalizing the race and talking about killing a bill that Kennedy fought his whole life for; that's not a winning formula in Massachusetts.

Or to put it another way: if perception has swung so much against the Democrats that they can't win a referendum on Teddy Kennedy's health care bill in Massachusetts, perhaps Brown would be doing them a favor by killing the thing.

Edit/PS. I tend to agree with the Republican bloggers to this extent -- there's more upside than downside in contesting the race, particularly if one acknowledges that the upside consists mostly of making the race close enough to win the GOP a couple of news cycles. But it's a tricky course to navigate because, unless I'm way misreading the landscape, the teabagger message won't play well there. In other words, Brown could use Michael Steele's money, but almost certainly not his message.

Remember, this is Massachusetts, not Utah.  If the teabaggers invade Bah-ston Hah-bah, then they're going to get stomped.  The last thing Brown needs...or wants...is a national Teabagger rally in his name.  But hey...I say the teabaggers need to go for it.  Go all the way.  Make this "Massachusetts gets to decide if Obamacare passes or not".



Please.  So the GOP strategy is Brown has to sneak in to win, he has to be close enough to be within striking distance and motivate Republicans in the Bay State, but not close enough to worry the Democratic machine there.
Scott Brown's looking for a magic number.  Good luck on that.