1/15: Great Scott!

There are only a few days left before the MA SEN special election, and the excitement level in the conservative blogosophere is off the charts. The release of yesterday's Suffolk University/7News poll showing state Sen. Scott Brown (R) leading AG Martha Coakley (D) by 4% -- combined with the decision by prognosticators Charlie Cook and Stuart Rothenberg to move the race to the "Toss-Up" category -- has made the rightroots positively giddy. That said, righty bloggers aren't merely rejoicing. Rather, they're staying on offense by doing what they do best: driving unflattering stories about Dems (in this case, Coakley) into the mainstream. They spent most of 1/14 buzzing about an incident in which a Coakley supporter shoved a Weekly Standard reporter, and now they're criticizing Coakley for comments she made to a conservative radio host.

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (Faughnan, Geraghty) are suggesting that Rep. Vic Snyder (D-AR) may retire after the liberal blog Firedoglake commissioned a poll showing Snyder trailing ex-U.S. Atty Tim Griffin (R) by 17%. Meanwhile, lefty blogger Nate Silver criticizes Firedoglake for commissioning this poll, which he thinks could "impress Snyder into not voting for a health care bill at all."
• Liberal bloggers (Lux, Yglesias, Fernholz, Bowers, Chait) don't think Pres. Obama's proposed tax on banks goes far enough, but they're praising it as a step in the right direction. They're also arguing that Brown is making a mistake by opposing Obama's proposal.

MA SEN: Wow, This Is Actually Happening

Conservative bloggers are buzzing about the Suffolk University/7News poll showing Brown surging into the lead:

• Michelle Malkin: "Wowee."
• NRO's Kathryn Jean Lopez: "[I]t's 50–46 for Brown in a new Suffolk U poll. That's shocking. This is for 'Ted Kennedy's seat.' This is in liberal Massachusetts. Taxachusetts. The People's Republic of Massachusetts. (Have I forgotten any?)"
• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "Brown by 4? That perfect storm might be coming together!"
• RedState's Aaron Gardner: "What we are witnessing here it the transformation of a state from solid blue to purple."
• Townhall's John Hanlon: "It is no wonder that this campaign is now a toss-up and that Coakley's supporters are coming out so hard against Mr. Brown."
• Hot Air's Allahpundit: "The difference in favorables is enormous. Coakley? 49/41. Brown? 57/19. Even worse for Coakley, 64 percent of voters think she'll win -- precisely the sort of complacency that has Dems terrified about turnout."

On the left side of the blogosphere, Silver and MyDD's Jerome Armstrong both now consider the race a "toss-up."

Meanwhile, RedState's Erick Erickson explains why the right is enthusiastically supporting Brown despite of his deviations from conservative ideology: "Scott Brown is not a conservative. He makes no pretension of being a conservative. He defends Romneycare, which most conservative have rejected. He is pro-choice. But he is for less government interference in the free market and less spending. Like [ex-Rep.] Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, he is the perfect sort of Republican candidate for New England. [SC Sen.] Jim DeMint's Senate Conservatives Fund is encouraging its members to support and donate to Scott Brown.. [ex-FL House Speaker] Marco Rubio is supporting Scott Brown. RedState is supporting Scott Brown. We, well ... I, suspect he'll give conservatives heart burn as New England Republicans do. But all of us know he is a good, pragmatic fit for Massachusetts. He'll vote against Obamacare and he'd vote against a second stimulus. Conservatives do know, despite media and liberal Republican (called 'moderate' by the media) claims to the contrary, that the GOP needs 51 seats in the Senate to have a majority."

MA SEN II: A Poor Choice Of Words?

Conservative bloggers are arguing that Coakley made a big gaffe yesterday when she told conservative radio show host Ken Pittman that pro-life medical professionals who aren't willing to distribute emergency contraception "shouldn't work in an emergency room":

• Lopez: "It's a good thing for Martha Coakley that there are no Catholics in Massachusetts. Oh. Wait. There are a few, aren't there? [...] Martha Coakley is a terrible candidate."
• Malkin: "Coakley's worst enemy: Her tongue. [...] Is this also her official position as state Attorney General of the Bay State? Catholic medical professionals might want to ask."
• Townhall's Meredith Jessup: "Coakley says devout Catholics 'probably shouldn't work in the emergency room' because laws on mandated abortion coverage are more important than nurses' and doctors' moral objections to the practice. [...] This lady is unbelievable."
• RedState's Leon H. Wolf: "So a private employee of a private company doesn't want to perform a particular duty because of her religious beliefs, and her private employer has no problem accomodating that... and this somehow constitutes a violation of the First Amendment? I suppose it's hypothetically possible that Martha Coakley is stupid enough to actually believe this manifest crap (and as this campaign goes on, it becomes more believable!), but the more likely explanation of course is that she finds the nuns icky and just wants them out of sight where she doesn't have to look at them when she goes out in public. And believe me? Plenty of Massachusetts Catholics are gonna take that last sentence exactly that way."

NRO's Mark Steyn thinks Coakley is a terrible candidate: "Even if you're a Democrat, somewhere deep down you know that Martha Coakley wasn't what your party needed at this stage in the political cycle -- a grim hack career pol embarrassingly stupid and inarticulate on matters domestic (if you're religious, don't work in an emergency room) and foreign (my sister can see the Middle East from her house) who reacts to awkward questions by complaining the press is stalking her and standing by as aides send them crashing to the sidewalk, and whose entire campaign has no rationale other than hereditary entitlement."

Hot Air's Ed Morrissey agrees that Coakley is a bad candidate, but he thinks nat'l issues (namely, health care reform) are contributing to her struggles: "Get ready for the spin: Coakley was a bad candidate -- it has nothing to do with national policy. You'll be hearing that a lot if Brown wins on Tuesday, and it's at least somewhat true. Coakley is a bad candidate. But even bad candidates win elections in Massachusetts, as John Kerry's continued presence in the Senate demonstrates. There's a lot more going on here than Coakley's incompetence, and every Senate Democrat that has to vote on ObamaCare knows it. If ObamaCare gets a Republican elected in Massachusetts, what does that mean for Democrats in Arkansas? Nebraska? Indiana? Pennsylvania? We may not need Brown as the 41st vote against cloture by the time the polls close on Tuesday night."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Strategic Thinking By The Tea Party Movement

The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder:

"Many liberal activists tend to characterize the Tea Party movement as a bunch of knuckle-dragging no-nothings with a penchant for ideological purity. Some Tea Party leaders fit the profile. The original Tea Party candidate, Doug Hoffman, who ran and lost in New York's 23rd district, was a mere facsimile of a credible politician. But there are signs that the Tea Party movement, always more heterogeneous than it has been portrayed, is thinking strategically. Writing in the Examiner, Mark Hemingway points out that Tea Parties in the Northeast have enthusiastically supported a pro-choicer who once posed for Cosmo.

Now -- Scott Brown has run as a conservative candidate, and not a moderate, and isn't terribly popular with the GOP establishment. That makes him all the more attractive to the anti-establishment factions in the TP movement. There are plenty of Tea Partiers who want to buck the two party system, and plenty more who wouldn't support a pro-choicer, but there seem to be more than a bucketful of them who want to leverage their energy into getting Republicans elected to Congress -- Republicans who can be counted on to block the Democratic Party's agenda. The CW in DC is that the Tea Party movement will wind up hurting the GOP in the long-run by pulling its core further to the right. Maybe so. In the short term, though, this robotic monolith is showing signs of sentience. Democrats might want to notice.... "

LEST WE FORGET: I'm With Coco

From Stuff White People Like:

"The recent news that Conan O'Brien will be replaced by Jay Leno has caused white people to erupt with rage and hostility. You might even expect them to lash out and do something about it like take to the streets or write a letter to NBC to voice their dissatisfaction with the network. But no, white people will solve this problem the way that they solved the election crisis in Iran -- through Facebook and Twitter status updates. In 2009, millions of white people took 35 seconds to turn their twitter profiles green, and consequently sent a very powerful message to the leaders of Iran. Their message was that they wanted their friends to know that they would stop at nothing to ensure freedom and democracy for the Iranian people. Thanks in large part to that effort Iran is now completely democratic. With that issue settled, white people are launching a similar campaign for Conan that is sure to have similar results."