Martha Coakley's Unforced Error
Running afoul of local sports fans is one of the cardinal sins of politicking. It's doubly blasphemous in Red Sox Nation. Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley was once considered a lock to win the special election to fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat. But after a stretch of anemic campaigning and missteps, the Democrat went down in defeat at the hands of Tea Party-fueled upstart Scott Brown. The pinnacle of Coakley's bungling came in a January talk-radio interview when, after dismissing Rudy Giuliani as a fan of the New York Yankees (the Sox's archnemesis), she ascribed the same loyalties to legendary MLB pitcher Curt Schilling, another Brown booster. Schilling, he of the bloody sock, hallowed hero of Fenway who led the Sox to their first World Series title since 1918, is anything but a Yankee fan. In a separate interview with the Boston Globe, Coakley scoffed at the notion that she should be devoting more of her campaign to retail politics; "Standing outside Fenway Park? In the Cold? Shaking hands?" she asked incredulously. Those big league whiffs inspired Massachusetts voters to send Coakley to the showers.