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With Obama event hours away, Coakley, Brown campaign hard

E-mail|Link|Comments () January 17, 2010 03:44 PM

Joanne Rathe/Globe Staff

Scott Brown greeted supporters outside the Kenmore Diner in Worcester this afternoon.

By Matt Viser and Eric Moskowitz, Globe Staff

Just hours before a visit by President Obama that she hopes will boost her faltering campaign, Democrat Martha Coakley this morning hopped from a Dorchester church to a Brockton diner, asking for both prayers and votes in her campaign against Republican Scott Brown.

Brown, meanwhile, traveled through central and western Massachusetts, with stops planned in Holyoke, Springfield, and Worcester. At the same time the president is scheduled to address a crowd in Boston, Brown is planning what his campaign has coined “The People’s Rally” in Worcester. Among those expected to join Brown are former Red Sox ace Curt Schilling; Doug Flutie, the former Boston College and NFL quarterback; and John Ratzenberger (“Cliff” from Cheers). Brown's daughter, Ayla, will also attend.

Democrats are trying to rally in what appears to be an extraordinarily close campaign that is drawing national attention because Brown has promised to be the 41st vote against the president's health care reform bill in Washington. Political pundits are saying a victory by Brown could put Obama's agenda in Washington in jeopardy and foreshadow a seismic political shift in Washington toward the GOP.

Obama is planning to speak at 3 p.m. today at Northeastern University. By 1:30 p.m., a line stretching for blocks snaked through the city streets near the university. The crowd was energetic and full of young people. Many waved Coakley signs and some said they had been waiting for hours.

Coakley began the day at Charles Street AME in Dorchester, where about 70 congregants at the largely black church came to hold a prayer service for Haiti. There were men in suits, women wearing their Sunday hats. Coakley sat near the front, between Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Representative Marie St. Fleur.

“They don’t want Barack to be a president who leads this country,” Menino said, to calls from the crowd of “Say it, mayor, say it.” “They want him to be a president who fails. We’re not going to let that happen…We lose this one, we lose the opportunity for Barack Obama and the change agenda to move forward.”

The congregation then sang, “We Are Often Tossed and Driven,” the title of which seems to aptly sum up the state of Coakley’s campaign right now.

Coakley was joined today on the campaign trail by her husband, Tom O’Connor, who has rarely accompanied the attorney general during campaign events.

“We pray for our candidate, sister Martha; God, it’s in your hands,” said associate minister Gracie Redfearn, with an organ and light drums playing softly in the background. “It is the desires of our heart that this lady be our next senator.”

After attending church, Coakley went to Brockton to greet diners at the Stonebridge Cafe.

She bent down and asked a young boy if he was ready for pancakes (he was). She shook hands with some of the kitchen staff, and she posed for photos with a group of carpenters. She was also challenged by one man about her position on emergency contraceptives.

Coakley then went to across the street to the Back Bay Bagel Co., where she shook several more hands, ordered two sliced plain bagels, and then drove to Hyannis where she was planning to campaign with former US Representative Joseph P. Kennedy II, the nephew of the late senator.

Brown held a rally at the Wachusett Mountain Ski Area with former Republican Governor Paul Cellucci.

“Something amazing is happening here in Massachusetts and on Tuesday we are going to send a shock wave to Washington D.C,” Cellucci said as a couple of people in the crowd shouted “Yes, we can.”

Cellucci continued, “'Cause Scott Brown will be elected United State Senator from Massachusetts."

Brown then took the megaphone from Cellucci and stood on a picnic table to address a crowd of more than 100 supporters and skiers. “This is amazing. We have a true opportunity to send a message to Washington that we are not going to have business as usual," he said.

Brown gave his customary stump speech about taxes, spending and national security, highlighting differences between his views and those of Coakley.

Before boarding his "Bold New Leadership Bus," Brown shook hands, posed for dozens of photos, and signed autographs one after the other, putting his name – usually just "Scott" or "Scott # 41" in reference to his desire to end the Democratic supermajority in the Senate – on campaign signs, lift tickets, and even snowboards.

Coakley, the state's attorney general, entered the special election with a huge advantage: Registered Democrats in Massachusetts outnumber Republicans three-to-one, and the GOP hasn’t won a US Senate seat here since 1972. But Brown, until recent months a little-known state senator, has apparently tapped into a discontented electorate and appears to be making headway with the unpredictable independents who make up the majority of the voters.

Martin Finucane of the Globe staff contributed to this report.