WEARING THE "KICK ME" SIGN AGAIN

A few thoughts about this:

Scott Brown: Obama not invited to this party

Surging GOP Senate candidate Scott Brown yesterday warned President Obama to "stay away" from the Bay State during his roiling race against Democratic rival Martha Coakley and not to interfere with their intensifying battle in the campaign's final days.

"He should stay away and let Martha and I discuss the issues one on one," Brown said. "The machine is coming out of the woodwork to get her elected. They're bringing in outsiders, and we don't need them."

... Republican consultant Charlie Manning said a visit from a president with tanking ratings would make Coakley look desperate....

This is from the right-wing Boston Herald. The story is accompanied by this graphic:



First of all, how weak is President Obama right now? He's so weak that he's hearing this kind of trash talk in his own party's regional base, for Pete's sake, and from a little pipsqueak upstart in the opposition party. In late November 1994, when Bill Clinton was told that "he'd better have a bodyguard" if he dared to travel to North Carolina, that was seen as a sign of the president's weakness in the wake of devastating midterm elections -- but North Carolina was part of the GOP's Solid South, and the speaker was a powerful old bull of the Republican Party, Jesse Helms. This? Well, imagine if a Democratic challenger in Alabama or Mississippi said in the midst of a tight race a few years ago that President Bush better not show up in the state. The howls of outrage would have been deafening. The Democrat's patriotism would have been questioned. And it would have been political suicide.

But this is just going to be shrugged off.

Beyond that, I see the GOP engaging in furious goalpost-moving. What the Republicans seem to be suggesting is that it would be somehow unfair for a Democratic president to campaign ... for a Democrat! The implication -- and you know we'll hear this from our idiot media if Obama does show up and Coakley wins a less-than-blowout victory -- is that that's cheating, and that a victory partly fueled by a presidential visit doesn't really count. (So does that mean we get do-overs on every vote cast by the Republican Senate that was elected in 2002, given that their victory came in part because George W. Bush and Karl Rove decided to nationalize those midterm elections?)

A last thought: It's not clear that Obama will show up.

Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs said yesterday that the president had no plans to visit Massachusetts, even though he realizes "there's a lot at stake in the election."

But sources said Coakley is pushing for a Sunday event with Obama as the race remains glued to the national spotlight.

OK, fine, Mr. President. Be that way. But if Obama doesn't show up and Coakley loses, I'll have no objection whatsoever if he gets heat for being excessively stingy with his political capital. A Democratic mayoral candidate here in New York nearly upset a gazillionaire who vastly outspent him a couple of months ago, and might have won if Obama had lifted a finger to help. Obama should have shown up. He should show up in the Bay State. And he deserves criticism if he doesn't.

****

Oh, one more thing: It's not "let Martha and I discuss the issues," Scott -- it's "let Martha and me." Objective case. I wouldn't bring up grammar if your side weren't trying to score points against Coakley because of an ad typo.