Marijuana and the Massachusetts Senate Race
Ben Morris at MPP makes an interesting observation regarding Martha Coakley's high-profile loss in Massachusetts:
The point here isn't that Martha Coakley lost because her anti-marijuana advocacy from 2008 was fresh in everyone's mind as they entered the polls on Tuesday. This campaign wasn't about marijuana at all, and that's the problem.
You see, Coakley's victorious opponent Scott Brown had actually championed a sparsely-publicized effort to re-criminalize certain marijuana offenses in the aftermath of question 2. It went nowhere, of course, and could easily have been wielded against him on the campaign trial, had Brown's challenger for the vacant Senate seat not been a rabid prohibitionist herself. In a state where 65% of voters endorsed decriminalization, a pro-reform message could easily have given some heft to the Democrats failed campaign strategy.
This is advanced pot politics, to be sure, and I certainly wouldn't expect to see such strategies deployed deftly by the major parties in the short term. But as the issue continues to heat up, it's just a matter of time before someone figures out how to use it effectively. And that will be fun as hell to watch.
To state it simply, the Democrats chose a bad candidate. They backed one of the most vocal and public opponents of the MPP-funded ballot initiative, Question 2, which decriminalized marijuana possession in Massachusetts in 2008. Question 2 was more popular than President Obama on Election Day, garnering 65% of the vote compared with the president’s 62%. All but three towns in the state supported the initiative.
The point here isn't that Martha Coakley lost because her anti-marijuana advocacy from 2008 was fresh in everyone's mind as they entered the polls on Tuesday. This campaign wasn't about marijuana at all, and that's the problem.
You see, Coakley's victorious opponent Scott Brown had actually championed a sparsely-publicized effort to re-criminalize certain marijuana offenses in the aftermath of question 2. It went nowhere, of course, and could easily have been wielded against him on the campaign trial, had Brown's challenger for the vacant Senate seat not been a rabid prohibitionist herself. In a state where 65% of voters endorsed decriminalization, a pro-reform message could easily have given some heft to the Democrats failed campaign strategy.
This is advanced pot politics, to be sure, and I certainly wouldn't expect to see such strategies deployed deftly by the major parties in the short term. But as the issue continues to heat up, it's just a matter of time before someone figures out how to use it effectively. And that will be fun as hell to watch.
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