Kerry fav/unfav in latest poll (51-31)

[Mass]

http://www.scribd.com/doc/81496971/WBUR-Statewide-Poll-02-14-2012

Brown (50-29)
Warren (39-29)
Patrick (55-30)
Obama (60-30)

(and, because I have seen some people in GD imagine Romney can win MA - Romney: 39-46)

So, not too bad for somebody that nobody likes.

I just hope that Liz Warren will be able to get her favs up as she meets people outside the Democratic circles (MA has more than 50% unenrolled).

[protect our future]

1. I'm surprised by the Brown/Warren results.

What do you think are the reasons for this other than just name recognition? (btw Kerry is my hero)

[Mass]

3. Brown is well liked, included by one quarter of Dems.

Warren has fairly safely stayed inside Democratic activists groups until now, which means that the vast majority of unenrolled do not know enough about her to have an opinion on her and the specific issues they care about. She had a meeting in my town, but the meeting was an organizational meeting for Democrats. At the same time, she very quickly reached the negs that seasoned pols like Kerry have because of very RW people in the state. She needs to get out of her comfort zone and speak to people who are not necessarily active in the Democratic party.

[karynnj]

2. That poll was done from February 2 - 4

February 2 is when the Insider Trading bill passed - which the Boston Globe down listed as Brown's bill. (Ignoring that all he really did was to have the political savvy to edit the House bill and introduce it in the Senate - and Gillibrand, with 25 sponsors to Brown's 8, did the same thing, although she had the grace to mention Louise Slaughter.

There was also his grandstanding with Obama, demanding Obama support "his bill" - even though Obama already had. Those 3 days were filled with praise for Brown - at least as seen through google.

I agree that Kerry's numbers are not bad - and in his case, there has not been a lot of positive press and there was some negative press - from the dishonest Schweitzer attack and the super committee failing.

What is disconcerting is that Warren has really not raised her favorables as much as could have been hoped for - though maybe the general election will do that.

[Mass]

4. Not really disconcerting.

Democrats in general like her, but the state has more than 50% unenrolled, and for them, all they know is that she is a Harvard liberal and worked for the Obama administration, plus a few sentences about how she cares about the middle class. I think that, as the organizing phase stops and she really starts running and speaking to people outside the Democratic circles, her numbers should improve (and hopefully some of these negs will change)

Further down in the poll, there are numbers on who represents better the middle class. It is pretty much a toss up, with many middle class people saying that both do.

[protect our future]

5. Sound like she could use more supporters

involved in her campaign and sounds like many are apathetic right now. And, she is already burdened with that preconceived opinion. I hope she will soon speak at events where the media is obligated to be present and to report fairly. Does she have a decent campaign manager? Volunteers can always provide input and I hope you guys are involved; capable people are so valuable in leadership positions, and it seems this is the campaign to focus on due to its importance. We here in flyoverland may lose our Dem senator and we need to have that canceled out by your pickup, lol. And now to go clean my kitchen. Ugh.

[karynnj]

6. Here is an article on her campaign manager

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/senate-races/192969-warren-campaign-brings-on-campaign-manager (From google, I know nothing about her.)

The man who ran Kerry's 2008 campaign (and the Hillary Clinton MA primary), Roger Lau is working for her as well as political director. Before joining the Warren campaign, he was a MA staffer for Kerry.

[protect our future]

13. Sounds excellent. nt

[beachmom]

7. That's strange that they don't know her

After all, she was on The Daily Show a lot as well as other shows. I have heard of her and like her, and I don't watch MSNBC regularly. I don't live in Mass. either.

Based on this poll, hate to say it but it looks very good for Brown. Being over 50 usually means re-election.

[Mass]

8. I agree that these numbers are not that great.

Brown stays high (even if he declines), and her negatives are high. But what surprised me more is that she does not do better than Brown when we talk about representing the middle class, while this is all she has been talking for the last 4 months, to the exclusion of everything else, and this should be a no brainer because of Brown's votes.

[karynnj]

9. That's on approval, not favorability

The two can be quite different - and favorable tends to be higher than approval. What it does mean is that she needs her favorables to improve. Assume that Patrick had decided to run for the Senate seat. Both would be 50 or over - and nothing in the favorable score will say how they would do head to head. (The same would be true of approval.)

Not to mention, it was three days with a lot of good Brown press - especially on "his" insider trading bill. I would bet that his Blunt amendment, Constitutional Budget amendment and his opposing the Buffet tax - all after the poll, should have a negative impact.

[beachmom]

10. I doubt it, Karen.

Face it: Brown is well liked in Mass. Such wonky stuff won't change people's opinions. He's kind of like Bill Weld except he's the incumbent, making it even harder to unseat him.

I'm puzzled by the Warren numbers because I find her to be a very likable figure. It seems that the Right has been successful in tying her with the Occupy crowd, for which based on FB posts from Mass. friends of mine is very unpopular. You know, just because we like someone who appears on TV and how they performed a job for a White House, it doesn't mean they are going to be a good candidate running for political office. Kerry was able to successfully "humanize" himself in a pinch (plus the excellent attack ads linking Weld with Gingrich), but I think this speaks to his political talents which contrary to the CW Kerry has that most don't.

Roger Lau did a great job for Kerry in '08, but that was a pretty easy one. This one is going to be a tough slog, and frankly, since super PACs are the reality, I think it foolish to eliminate possible weapons in a protracted battle. If I had to place my bet now, it doesn't look good for Warren. It's early days, though, so maybe something will change.

[karynnj]

11. I'll take the Weld analogy

and point out that he lost in spite of having favorables in the 70s. I suspect that Warren will link Brown to McConnell/Boehner et al. I agree that it is not completely parallel, but Weld was far more liberal and there are votes to point to where Brown did not vote as the majority of Massachusetts wants. Both Weld and Brown were loved by the MA media.

I agree that 2008 was very easy. Tay Tay helped me do a small amount of phone banking in the primary when I was concerned. She said that they were calling only Democrats. I was surprised that people referred to him as "John" and were very happy to vote for him. I agree that this will be far tougher. Brown is the incumbent and he is well liked by the media.

I don't think it looks bad for Warren, as she has polled ahead of him in every poll since December. I DON'T think this is because Warren is a fantastic super candidate. I think it was clear she was going to be the Democratic nominee - and the vote is really based primarily on party. Brown won the special election with about the votes that McCain lost by. The Democrats lost that election by not voting. Brown needs to get considerably more voters than last time.

I think the "intellectual basis of Occupy" was a HUGE unforced error - and I hope she understands that. I posted in GD way back in October that I thought OWS would ultimately be a negative - even though it did an incredible job in September changing the topic to the 1%. Many politicians had used this - whether Cuomo in the 1980s or John Edwards in the 2000s or nearly every Democratic leader to one degree or another - and they did better in breaking through. The reason I saw it as ultimately negative was there was no "exit strategy". So, they would stay forever - becoming less novel and more just annoying as towns coped with them - or the end story was that they were evicted. Neither a positive story. As they insisted they had no leader, there was no strategy.

I think that Warren in person would be a likable person, but I don't get that from the best loved rants that went viral. I did get that from teh ad she did to introduce herself. The one thing I worry about is that some on the left who really really like her might do to her what the Deaniacs did to Dean. Dean, in reality was a moderate governor of Vermont. He had progressives running against in most elections. They did provide a lot of energy and money, but they may have hurt him when they flocked to Iowa.

Most of the good politicians - both in terms of the issue and in terms of having a clue about politics, played it far better. Speaking of the issue and saying they understood the frustration, but not stepping over the line to be identified with it. Only on DU and similar boards would OWS be uncritically praised. Unfortunately, that comment both linked her to people seen as somewhat extreme, while making her Harvard professor credential more obvious.

The only "MA" people I really know are liberal friends of a daughter who went to school there and everyone I met through DU JK - neither is useful in knowing how genuinely non-partisan people will respond. I do think that the MA people here are pretty positive.

[Mass]

12. coakley's favs were high during the 2010 elections, in fact higher than Brown.

Last edited Thu Feb 16, 2012, 09:21 AM - Edit history (2)

However, this poll shows that Warren has not had her message communicated to people in MA, in particular the unenrolled. For all the questions concerning the middle class (her trademark), Brown is ahead or tied, and this despite Brown's votes. It is fairly clear that Brown gets not only the GOP, but a majority of the unenrolled and way too many of the dems (there are many conservative dems in MA). And he creams her on " has deep roots in MA": she has only be married with her husband for 20 years.

Now, I expect she will catch up when she will actually campaign, but what we see here is the result of the lack of primary, which would have introduced her to the public at large. Because you are known by the DSCC crowd and liberal circles does not make you known to all. In addition, once again, a fairly moderate candidate has been mischaracterized by our own side.

An other interesting tidbits from David Berstein, that I respect a lot for his knowledge of Massachusetts politics:
http://blog.thephoenix.com/BLOGS/talkingpolitics/archive/2012/02/15/scotto-s-no-dummy.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PHXTalkingPolitics+%28Talking+Politics%29

It seems that a lot of Massachusetts Democrats are convinced that Senator Scotto has done serious harm to his re-election chances by co-sponsoring a bill that wildly overreacts to the recent birth-control coverage controversy. They might be right, but I'd caution that Brown is no political dummy.
...
Indeed, Brown is well familiar with the tye of Democratic-identifying crossover voters who he's needed to win in Massachusetts, for state senate or US Senate. They are, in very large part, white, discontented, blue-collar, Irish-American Catholics.

This move checks off the Catholic box. His current push for an Irish immigration bill checks off the Irish-American box. His recent sponsorship of a bill to ban Congressional insider trading checks off the discontented box.

Go ahead and underestimate Scott Brown's political skills. He's used to that. And, he's Senator and you're not.

[protect our future]

14. After reading all the thoughtful replies here,

Let me say I feel Brown's sponsorship of the "birth control is a sin" amendment will hurt him and help Warren. Maybe it will help Claire McCaskill as well since our Senator Blunt is the chief instigator for this amendment. I wonder if Brown got involved due to lagging support from the teapartiers, and if so let's watch it backfire as so many of their efforts do these days (lol).

[protect our future]

15. Warren on Rachel Maddow's show

discussing this as I type! (Go get 'em, Liz!)

[JI7]

16. this is disappointing

[Mass]

17. As this thread has become about Warren, I may as well post the latest poll

Suffolk Brown:49-Warren 40.

favs/unfavs about the same.

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2012/02/17/brown_leads_warren_in_massachusetts.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PoliticalWire+%28Political+Wire%29

Not all good news for Brown as only 45% say he deserves to be reelected, but it is clear that Warren has not yet been properly introduced to people in MA outside the Democratic circles. Time for her to go and campaign, particularly now that she has rejected the help of outside groups to show Brown for what he is.

Note: While Suffolk is not necessarily great outside MA, they have been spot on in the two last elections in 2010 (Brown and Patrick). It is still early, but it is clear that the Warren campaign has to do better.

Key point here: The poll found that Warren led 69 percent to 19 percent among Democrats, but trailed 86 percent to 7 percent among Republicans and 60 percent to 28 percent among independents.

[karynnj]

18. This is depressing

Last edited Sat Feb 18, 2012, 09:20 AM - Edit history (1)

60% said that MA having some Republican and some Democratic representation could help the state. That question were asked after the ballot question, so it did not influence it. A question not asked was whether if it would make the difference between Republican control of the Senate. (here are the questions asked and the marginals - http://www.suffolk.edu/images/content/THURSDAY_FINAL_MA_Statewide_Marginals_Feb_16_2012.pdf Some of the results are currently embargoed.

I think that Warren still has no overriding message. It can't just be fighting the financial corruption and the middle class. She also needs to be able to speak of it succinctly and in a personal way. I also hope that she begins to be seen on places not just considered her base - it is way too easy to get fooled by the praise from left wing side of the party.

The National Journal, which I have always seen as leaning right, says that this poll is not all positive for Brown - http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2012/02/suffolk-poll-is.php the poll was taken Feb. 11-15 - http://www.suffolk.edu/50647.html

Before he jumped on the Blunt amendment, his position likely could have sounded like Kennedy (as he insists) or Kerry - but I am reasonably certain that Kennedy would be one of the strongest voices on the Senate floor saying that amendment would gut healthcare. So, the timing is important - Brown got an extreme amount of praise for the insider trading bill - which really had Lieberman's name on it - and Brown and Gillibrand just edited the House bill introduced in 2006 by a Washington and a NY representative - both Democrats. Yet Glenn Johnson even gave Brown credit for getting it passed in the House!

Edited to add, two bad things in the details - the low percent (40%) who think she is qualified to be Senator and the percent who think he is a leader in the Senate. Together, they are particularly not good.