From the start, Congressman Mike Capuano has insisted that the race to fill Senator Edward Kennedy’s seat would be a battle to identify one’s vote, to go after it and to bring it out on primary day.
Capuano put his head down and with the energy and abandon of a football half-back, is plowing his way through the opposition, positioning himself for the primary day kill.
He may end up a winner if everything falls into place for him.
Attorney General Martha Coakley may be ahead in the polls taken by the Boston Globe by about 20%, but 50% of those who were polled say they don’t yet know who they are going to vote for.
With Capuano expected to take about 22% of the vote if the election was held tomorrow, there is the likelihood he will do substantially better when all the votes are counted than the polls reveal.
In fact, if he works hard enough and the cards fall right for him, he could steal the election from Coakley, who isn’t exactly turning voters on fire.
Her name may be better known than Capuano’s throughout the state but her public voice is weaker than his. She has no vision. Rather, if she has vision, we have not seen glimpses of it.
Coakley is just another AG trying to elevate herself when she’d probably be better off staying where she is, putting people in jail and suing others on behalf of the people for defrauding others.
This is Capuano’s moment under the sun. This is time to succeed where most others have already guaranteed him he is assuredly going to fail.
To know him is to understand that this is a tough guy who knows the way, who is fighting the good fight according to his plan and his intuition.
Capuano is doing what a young John Kennedy did on his way to the senate. He has thrown up the chips and he is letting them fall where they may.
Women are naturally supposed to be lining up to vote for Coakley.
Polling proves they aren’t.
Only 16% of women polled said they were voting for Coakley because she’s a woman.
This leaves 84% of the women’s vote up for grabs – although one must imagine that women will get out and vote on primary day and that they will give Coakley an edge.
Steve Pagliuca and Allan Khazei are in this – and Pagliuca has shown he knows something about building a campaign from nothing to something – and he holds about 15% of the vote with two weeks left. Khazei is out of it and one wonders why he’s in it in the first place.
In a perfect world, Coakley wins easily. Capuano comes in second. Pagliuca third and Khazei fourth.
But this is not a perfect world.
My money is on Mike Capuano to steal the win from Coakley, but I have been wrong before in my predictions.