Charlie Baker

The subtitle of a Globe article last week caught my eye. It was “Martha Coakley dragged down by national trends.” In the article, the Globe’s Jim O’Sullivan explains that “a new Globe poll shows that national political conditions may be hobbling [Coakley’s] chances for victory.” Say what!?!

Charlie Baker’s “sweetheart” gaffe was a campaign turning point, a bombshell, a Baker Shocker. It called down the scorn of women’s groups, the Democratic Party, activists, bloggers, tweeters; columnists condemned, cartoonists guffawed, pollsters polled. It’s a game changer alright.

Don’t believe the game changer part. Baker’s bumble won’t matter much at all.

Charlie Baker’s effort to deflect tough questions by cozying up to the press is S.O.P., but the value of his “sweetheart” slip up to his critics and opponents is partly due to his campaign’s strategy of making the race about Charlie Baker and Martha Coakley, rather than about Democratic and Republican ideas about governance.

For the past four months I have been arguing that the contest for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination between the sitting State Attorney General and State Treasurer was much closer than the pollsters would have us believe. Now that the results on Election Day seem to support my conclusion, the pollsters who saw a 40-plus point Coakley lead in the Spring and a 20 or more point lead three days before the polls opened, need to figure out where they went wrong.