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Coakley criticizes challenger for 'lack of direction'

Print | Comments () Posted by Martin Finucane October 12, 2010 03:00 PM

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By Noah Bierman, Globe Staff

Attorney General Martha Coakley, although she faces a little-known candidate, went on the offensive in her reelection bid today, in a sign that she will leave nothing to chance this time after her stunning loss in the January special election for US Senate.

Coakley said her Republican opponent James P. McKenna has shown an “utter lack of direction” in outlining his vision for public safety, protecting residents from the economic crisis, reducing the cost of health care, and other core issues.

“He has not said a word about how he would keep people in their homes or how he would hold those responsible accountable” for the housing crisis, she said.

McKenna shot back that Coakley had "taken the voters for granted."

Coakley, in a Faneuil Hall speech that served as an unofficial kickoff to her campaign, contrasted her long record as a prosecutor with her opponent's record, as a group of district attorneys, crime victims, and police unions endorsed her.

“These are my priorities,” she said. “It’s what I’ve been doing my entire career.”

Coakley said she learned her lesson following her loss to Scott Brown, now the junior senator in Washington. She said she has been campaigning for attorney general since February, even though she did not yet have an opponent, because she wanted to regain whatever confidence voters may have lost in her following that election.

McKenna, who made it onto the ballot after receiving the minimum number of votes as a write-in candidate in the primary, has attacked Coakley as soft on enforcing illegal immigration, prosecuting political corruption, and protecting consumers.

He said in a statement that Coakley "wants a ‘do-over’ now that there is a choice in November."

"She can change her shoes, her campaign methods, and her message but she can’t change the fact that she has taken the voters for granted," he said.

Speakers at the event today included the mother of Matthew Eappen, the baby boy who was shaken to death by his nanny, Louise Woodward, in the case a dozen years ago that first brought Coakley into the public eye. Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley and Middlesex District Attorney Gerard T. Leone Jr. (who worked with Coakley on the 1997 Woodward case), also attended.