Brown, Coakley to face off for Senate seat

By Justin A. Rice

BOSTON — The only woman running to replace the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in the US Senate survived muted controversy and criticism in the run up to Tuesday’s special primary to advance to next month’s general election.

“I’m honored and humbled to have the opportunity to follow Senator Ted Kennedy, he who did ‘Dream the Impossible Dream,’” Martha Coakley said in a ballroom at the Sheraton Boston Hotel after receiving 47 percent of the vote and being introduced by Sen. John Kerry. “You know, the first phone call I received after I won the Democratic Party for Middlesex District Attorney was from Ted Kennedy.

“The first phone call I received this morning after I voted was Vicki Kennedy to wish me well with her trademark grace and warmth.”

The attorney general’s opponents US Representative Michael E. Capuano (28 percent of the vote), City Year cofounder Alan Khazei (13 percent), and Celtics co-owner Stephen G. Pagliuca (12 percent) were reluctant to attack the Coakley directly. Her opponents only pounced on the race’s front-runner after she volunteered that she would not vote for a national healthcare bill that included restrictions on abortion.

But a day after jumping on Coakley for her statements on abortion, Capuano shifted his position, saying he only voted on the bill in congress to push it through to the Senate. He said he ultimately would not approve anything with anti abortion language.

“I want to congratulate the next senator of Massachusetts Martha Coakley,” Capuano said when he took the stage to concede victory at 9:23 p.m. “She ran a good campaign and it was a good clean campaign. I want to congratulate her. I want to be there in January to make her the next senator.” “The attorney general was a good candidate. She didn’t make any slipups and we couldn’t narrow the gap.”

In the Jan. 19 special election Coakley will face Republican state Senator Scott Brown to once and for all determine who will fill the seat

Kennedy held for nearly 47 years until his death in August.

Brown defeated Duxbury businessman Jack. E. Robinson and independent candidate, Joseph L. Kennedy of Dedham. Brown was projected the winner by the Associated Press at 8:29 p.m., collecting about 89 percent of the vote compared to Robinson’s 11 percent.

With about 600,000 people out of 4.1 million eligible to cast ballots heading out to the poles to vote, turnout was probably low due to the off-season timing of the primary and cold temperatures.

“It was, it was really light,” Teia Searcy, 27, of Roxbury, said after a day of campaigning for Coakley. “I was worried for a minute. But I had great hope because I knew she was the best candidate.”

On paper, Coakley did not seem to win any category, from endorsements to spending. She was even knocked down in the grassroots. The only problem was that other candidates split those categories amongst themselves.

Capuano racked up the bulk of the endorsements, snagging former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, US Rep. Barney Frank and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. He also got the Boston Herald’s vote of confidence and all nine Boston city councilors.

Pagliuca spent at least $7.6 million of his own personal fortune and Khazei was hailed for being an ingenuous grassroots leader, who also did pretty well on the endorsement front.

He was endorsed by Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter, the Boston Globe, Worcester Telegram & Gazette, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, Gen. Wesley Clark. Vicki Strauss Kennedy endorsed Khazei in a in a Huffington Post piece.

“Well you know there were plenty of skeptics out there,” Coakley said. “They said, how could an attorney general win? We believed it was quite possible! How could she raise the money? But we believed it was quite possible. They said women don’t have much luck in Massachusetts politics — we believed, that it was quite possible that that luck was about to change.”

Coakley did not do too shabby with endorsements either. She had state Senate President Therese Murray on her side all along and at the last moment President Bill Clinton rode to the rescue.

“I think this was a close call for many voters,” Alex MacDonald of Cambridge, a Coakley supporter said just before the race was called in Coakley’s favor. “These are three talented, very admirable, very progressive candidates and I would predict that each would one if they won the seat would probably 98 percent of the time vote the same.

“But the fact is Martha possesses some special attributes that will put her in the Senate.”

MacDonald said he knows most of the candidates well but was involved in Coakley’s first campaign and already pledge his support to her, even though others asked for his help.

“In a very close call a father of three daughters is the feather that tips the scales,” he said. “I voted or Coakley for a lot of reasons most of which because I known her and always liked her but I also did it for my daughters.” Searcy, who also attended Coakley’s party, was also confident a woman will finally represent Massachusetts in the senate.

“Women make a lot of changes, a lot of wise changes,” Searcy said. “I’m happy to hear a woman is in the House. Women are the rebirth of things.”

Coakley, however, was not counting her eggs before they hatched. “Following in the steps of so many men and women who have broken barriers and cracked ceilings as well as those who have worked at the bottom of the ladder,” Coakley concluded, “it is my hope that as this is one small step for women, you will help me take the much larger steps we need to take to make those words of the Declaration of Independence truly inclusive."