Martha Coakley apparently doing everything possible to lose Mass. special election

By Michael J.W. Stickings

On a local Boston radio show hosted by Dan Rea, Democratic candidate Martha Coakley actually called Curt Schilling, the former Red Sox pitching great, a Yankee fan. Which, of course, is ridiculous, given that Schilling spent much of his career trying to destroy New York.

In response, Schilling, a loud-mouthed Republican and prominent supporter of Coakley's opponent, Scott Brown, blogged this:

I've been called a lot of things... But never, and I mean never, could anyone ever make the mistake of calling me a Yankee fan. Well, check that, if you didn't know what the hell is going on in your own state maybe you could...

I can think of many things to call Schilling, whom I disliked as a player and now dislike even more now, but it's tough to find fault with him here. Whatever the reality, the perception is that Coakley is clueless, and she walked right into this one, further undermining her own credibility. Her campaign called her comment a "very, very deadpan" joke, a joke on which she "whiffed," but it didn't seem like she was making a joke -- and she was rather taken aback when Rea, astonished, challenged her: ""Curt Schilling? The Red Sox great pitcher of the bloody sock?"

Seriously, if you're from Massachusetts, or anywhere in New England, and you don't remember the bloody sock game of the 2004 ALCS, you're just asking for trouble. Okay, maybe Coakley doesn't know anything about sports, but how far will such ignorance get you in Massachusetts? Next thing you know she'll say she's never heard of Bobby Orr or ask if that Larry Bird guy ever played in the NBA.

Look, I don't want to make too much of this -- every politician says embarrassing things -- but, with the straws accumulating on the camel's back, it's no wonder the Democrats are struggling to hold on to Ted Kennedy's seat, a supposedly safe seat in an overwhelmingly safe state.