Coakley or Brown?

I was going to write up a blog post pithily summarizing the myriad gaffes of Martha Coakley and offering up my guess as to who will win, but it seems that Jim Treacher beat me to it. Bastard. So go read his post on the various failings of Coakley then come back. I’ll wait.

*tapping toes*

Done? Funny stuff, right? OK, so, who’s going to win? Despite the fact that people I respect like Stu Rothenberg and Charlie Cook think the Republican Scott Brown is edging into the lead, I still find it hard to believe that a Republican will win a Senate seat in a special election in Massachusetts when the fate of health care reform is on the line. If anything, I think this polling and national attention will rally the Democratic base and get them to turn out in higher-than-average numbers (for a special, anyway). I’d love to see Brown win — as E.D. Kain points out, he’s my kind of Republican — but I just can’t really see it happening. It’s a gut reaction, not an analytical one.

So yeah: Official prediction is Coakley over Brown, 51-49. Prove me wrong, Massachusetts! Prove, me, wrong!