The Angry White Guy Factor

A reader writes:

Lifelong Massachusetts voter here. I've enjoyed your thoughtful coverage of the senate race over the past few days, but now that I've gotten a gander at our local polling place this morning, I think we may have all over-thought this.

I was curious to see who in our small, fairly wealthy town was fired up enough to actually get out there and hold signs for Brown -- turns out, a hockey dad and the assistant Pop Warner football coach, both white guys in their 40s, both small business owners. These guys may possibly have voted for Obama, but that's about as far over on the macho scale as they'd ever be willing to go. Guaranteed they voted for Celtics owner Steve Pagliuca in the primary, or possibly brawlin' Mike Capuano, but when Coakley won, they were out of there.

She's a lawyer and a female DA, so doubly emasculating in their eyes. She didn't help herself after the primary by only relying on the old Hillary base, which is other ball-buster female lawyers. That's a strong enough group to win a four-way primary but no way big enough for the general election.

In that context, all Scott Brown had to do was show up and 1) be white 2) be male and 3) come off as anything other than an elite. Hence the truck and hunting shirts, a brilliant touch on his campaign's part, and one that will probably win him the election.

This race is all about the suburbs -- neither candidate has anything to offer the working poor -- and, very sad to say, even in educated, liberal Massachusetts, many suburban wives still vote as their husbands vote, or, if they don't like his candidate, they just don't vote at all. It'll be interesting to see how the vote breaks down in terms of gender and suburban-urban, but given all this, I think Coakley is toast. Angry white guys for the win.