National Democrats To The Rescue In Massachusetts

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is spending $600,000 on last-minute advertising to shore-up Senate candidate Martha Coakley's position in Massachusetts, Democratic strategists said today. While the DSCC and the White House continue to insist that Coakley has a win "in the bag," they've grown jittery in recent days as Republican-affiliated interest groups have begun to spend money on behalf of State Sen. Scott Brown, the Republican. Coupled with a slew of polls showing a tightening race and the importance of keeping a 60th Senate seat before health care reform has passed, concern about Massachusetts has vaulted to the upper echelons of the Democratic Party. President Obama has signed his name to a fundraising appeal on behalf of Coakley, and it is more likely than not that either Obama or Vice President Biden will record an audio message appealing to Democratic voters.  Yesterday, Brown managed to bag about a million dollars off of a campaign "money bomb," spooking Democrats even more. The likelihood that Brown pulls off a win is still fairly negligible, given the Democratic tilt to the state, Coakley's relatively solid performance as a candidate and the significant field resources that her campaign will deploy on election day. But a close race -- within five points, or even ten -- would generate significant panic among Democrats in other races presumed to be safe. The ad buy is an independent expenditure, produced separately from the campaign wing of the DSCC.