in that poll.

I am hoping that the media coverage of these late polls will light a fire under Dems who weren't planning to vote.

Any word on early voting statistics? Has Coakley's campaign been banking absentee ballot votes?

I'm really thinking HCR (esp. the Senate Bill) is a liability for Democrats.  Spending nearly a year on health care with unemployment rising to 10% looks completely out of touch.

Pass a big jobs bill (with reconciliation if necessary) in a month, otherwise 2010 will be a bloodbath.

Gotta admit, I am in total defeatist mode.  Since Democratic sites/sponsers are either A.) totally sugar-coated mindless followers or B.) angry anti-democrats, I think I would rather the Republicans were back completely in power.  At least I could hate them in peace.  Now I gotta get sliced and diced by bickering Democrats who are pissed about one thing or another.

However, I doubt we will loose total control.  Just enough to loose all hope of passing any meaningfull legislation, in any fashion, and the total right-wing loonies can be put into power.  That should be a blast. 

All because we cannot just up and elect a total progressive Democratic legislature and enact a left leaning agenda.  So lets hope the country burns down around our ears...I have hot dogs and  a good folding chair.

Man, I hate it when I get like this, but all the negative waves I am getting from the non-corporate Democrats is suffocating.  Too bad, I liked working for the Dems. 

A couple of points to add:

• PPP may have called VA and NJ, but it also predicted Hoffman by 17 in NY-23. There is a history in MA of national democratic candidates polling close or tied, only to see blowout wins. I can think of Kennedy versus Romney in 1994.
• Alarming news such as this presents a paradox for Brown. His key to victory is to catch demcorats sleeping. Polls such as this don't help him to that end. As we see from the Herald poll, likely voter models are key here.
• Brown has nothing to lose. I just cannot fathom why (why?) Martha Coakley has been absent from the race for a month. I feel this has less to do with national issues as it does with just failure to follow basic campaigning.

I hope this lights a fire. She says she raised $100,000. Now spend it.

Coakley is going to win comfortably .

However the election night in November is going to be a long one for democrats unless they can somehow solve jobs , spending and deficits.......

It would be naive to conclude that internal Democratic polling has for weeks shown just the horserace, and not how deep and steady Coakley's and Brown's support has been.  Obama and the DSCC may pretend to be surprised by Brown taking the lead, but their polling techniques are too sophisticated and effective to have missed the current trend.

The DSCC has a healthier bank account than does the RSCC.  If they have chosen to not invest in this race, that is telling.  If Coakley loses, its because Obama and the DSCC wanted her to lose.

Perhaps our Democratic leaders have concluded that having only 59 Senators going into the 2010 election is a better strategy than having the full 60.  A bit more cynical analysis might be that with so many Democratic leaders being among the rich in America, they are concerned about gaining and keeping power, but they don't want the kind of power that would render imperative raising taxes on the rich and dividing our economic pie more fairly.

When Republicans don't care about our poor and unemployed, there is a lot we can do.  When our own Democratic leaders decide that the time is not right to help them, or they also don't really care nearly enough, what is there left for us to do?

The universe is presumably eternal.  As imperfect as our world is, in so many ways, time rushes on into the future and eventually those imperfections will give way to something else.  Humanity will not survive forever.  Neither will the planet.  If there is such a thing as justice, our callous Republican and Democratic leaders will soon enough feel the effect of that callousness.  As unfair as it seems, climate change will probably visit such punishment on their kids and grand kids.

In the final analysis, no one here has a free will (quantum indeterminacy gives you at best a randomness that cannot in any true sense give rise to free will). 

If Obama is willing to lose the Mass. senate seat for greater gains in 2010, great.  We can only hope the strategy is, in fact, the lesser of two evils, and that it succeeds

That Coakley is up 51-35 in the Boston Globe poll, but is only tied 47-47 in people "very interested" in the race.  I don't know if that means likely voters or very, very likely voters or what, but interesting spread. Hopefully, that means that Coakley has nowhere to go but up... I certainly hope so, at least!

This is a three-way race, the third candidate being a libertarian (Liberty Party) (That's what state law said he was eligible to run as).

The polling question gave voters two choices.  It qualifies as a push poll, telling those people who were polled a false list their choices.

The poll should raise concern -- the candidates who were polled could have hoped fora  blowout -- but as a poll in a close race it is not worth the photons coming off your monitor.

Perhaps someone could persuade Nate Silver/FiveTHirtyEight.com to start agiating for minimum competence standards for legitimate polling, e.g., 'when it is known who is on the ballot, the lead polling name list should match the ballot'

The campaign has clearly gone for the 10 day blitz until the election strategy.  Ads were on during all NFL playoff games over the weekend here in Boston.