Taegan Goddard's Political Wire

Worth Clicking: Blasts from the past wound Romney


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January 20, 2010

Who's to Blame?

Nate Silver tries to explain the 31-point swing in the Massachusetts vote: from Barack Obama's 26-point victory in the 2008 presidential election to Martha Coakley's 5-point loss last night.

He blames 10 points on the national environment, citing generic ballot tests that show "the Democrats' position has worsened by a net of 10 points since November 2008."

Another 11 points of blame "should be assigned to Coakley. That represents the difference between the 58 percent of vote that she received at her high-water mark in the polls to the 47 percent she received on Election Day."

The remaining 10 points are spread out "as evenly as possible, giving 3 more points to Coakley, 3 more points to the national environment, and 4 to Massachusetts-specific special contingencies."

Conclusion: "If you follow through on the math, this would suggest that Coakley would have won by about 8 points, rather than losing by 5, had the national environment not deteriorated so significantly for Democrats. It suggests that the Democrats would have won by 9 points, rather than losing by 5, had the candidate been someone other than Coakley."

Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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