A Republican hasn’t won the Senate race in Massachusetts since 1972 (same as New Jersey, excluding a brief 1982 appointment, and not counting the odious ‘94 Lautenberg-Chuck Haytaian race, which the latter probably won). Even under the most ideal of circumstances, when Reagan carried MA in 1984, we couldn’t get above 45% of the vote (Kerry’s first race against Ray Shamie). Weld couldn’t get as high a percentage of the vote as Shamie did, scoring just slightly below, when he ran in ‘96 (although he got a scant 3,000 more votes than Shamie).
Even against Kennedy, no Republican has reached that 45% mark in all of his runs, and the highest was George Cabot Lodge in 1962 when he scored just below that (like with Kerry, his first run was his lowest %). Romney placed 2nd to Lodge’s % in his ‘94 run in a low turnout election with 41% (he got only 10,000 more votes than future State Treasurer Joe Malone 6 years earlier, but Malone got only 34% of the vote).
I just don’t think it’s possible to win a Senate race in MA now, because we must not forget that the party there is DEAD. There is no real infrastructure, no GOTV, no nothing. We’re not really even in much of a position to exploit the weaknesses of Kerry of DeVal Patrick, because they may be withering on the vine, but there’s still life to them, and live beats dead.
If Romney had won reelection, I think if he decided to take on Kerry next year, he’d still have come up short — and I’ll bet he’d have been lucky to get 40% against him. Kerry’s sole vulnerability comes in the Dem primary, but fortunately for him, no Democrat incumbent Senator in MA has ever been defeated in a primary since popular elections began, and the last time a Dem incumbent Senator was beaten at all was when the liberal RINO Henry Cabot Lodge knocked off the aged Isolationist Catholic (and allegedly gay) FDR foe, Democrat David Walsh in 1946. Lodge was then, of course, in turn beaten by his more Conservative Dem opponent in 1952, a fella named John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
In any event, I think a Zogby special sauce poll showing a near-total unknown trailing Kerry by a few points should be taken with a grain of salt (why would an unknown be doing better than Kerry Healey ? That makes no sense right there).
You’re right that Massachusetts won’t reject the liberal politics of John Kerry. But it’s possible that they could reject John Kerry, the person. Clearly, the public views him as a pompous dilletante. That gives Jeff Beatty an opening.
I suppose the Democrat primary there should be watched closely. He faces a primary challenge from a former Glouchester City Councilman (who is a certified Moonbat and Howard the Dean supporter). If Kerry polls poorly then, than Jeff Beatty will be a contender.