| We have reached the point of the campaign where Elizabeth Warren, and her supporters, have realized that they can't beat Scott Brown. They have now switched gears to running against a generic Republican, who apparently is the most evil thing imaginable in this blue of blue states. How did we get to this point?
It publicly started over 48 hours ago with a simple tweet from the polling firm, Public Policy Polling. The let the world know that they were going to release a poll showing Scott Brown with a lead over Elizabeth Warren for the "first time since June of 2011". The next day the poll came out and showed Scott not only with a lead, but a commanding one at that.
The poll showed that as voters have gotten to know Elizabeth Warren, they have liked her less and less. It also shows one of the most striking gender gaps in any race this year. Brown has a 21 point lead amongst men, but only a 9 point disadvantage amongst women. And he's almost at his floor amongst women with 41%. 33% of women say that Warren is too liberal. That's only 8 points to the floor.
That is why you have seen the Warren campaign become erratic, changing the focus from Brown, whom they now realize they can't beat to a generic Republican. In a move, cheered by the folks at Blue Mass Group yesterday, Warren started running an ad against Todd Aikin, in Massachusetts. Not against Scott Brown.
The Massachusetts Democratic Party and Martha Coakley tried this tactic in 2010 as a last ditch "Hail-Mary" attempt, and it failed then. Their "Lockstep Republican" ad was a colossal failure as the voters of Massachusetts already met and grew to like Scott Brown.
The same tired tactics aren't going to help this year, but it's all they have left. Elizabeth Warren and the progressive machine have determined that they have lost the race against Scott Brown, they now have one option, that has failed in the past, to make the race about anyone else. |
