Martha Coakley is Massachusetts' next Senator

That was the line Capuano was trying to push.

Until some time ago (8 years, I think), Coakley endorsed the death penalty in two very specific cases -- when someone who is already a convicted murderer kills someone in prison, and when someone is convicted of first-degree murder of a police officer. She changed her mind saying that she's now convinced that the death penalty doesn't deter crime in any circumstances.

She was active in opposing Mitt Romney's efforts to establish the death penalty in Mass in 2005. TFor that and other anti-death penalty advocacy, he Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty awarded Martha their big annual award in 2008.

If there was an Obama-like player in this campaign, it was not Coakley, but Capuano. A Representative for 12 years, he's done little more than vote the right way on the right issues. Actually, I take that back -- he has brought a fair amount of federal money back to his district, that's two things. If Martha had not been in the race, I wouldn't have had many qualms voting for him based on his votes. But despite his reputation as a 'street fighter', he doesn't really fight for legislation or to push the Overton window anywhere in particular. Like Obama, he gives good talk. Coakely's a doer.

And while it's not dispositive, Capuano was strongly supported by the Obama "progressives" faction within Mass., while Coakley's support lined up right closely with Clinton's. (well, Clinton plus, really, since she beat Capuano by a much wider margin). One mistake I thought Capuano made was forgetting that this was a statewide race and 2/3 of Massachusetts, while generally liberal, is NOT the same set of lWhole Foods Nation liberals as in his district. A great deal of the state is working class people with whom Capuano didn't really try to connect with on a practical level in terms of the economy, jobs and health care. His message was very attractive to the super-progs in his district (which he already had in the bag, natch) and a few demographically similar towns. Mass. is very liberal overall, but much of the state falls more along the lines of (to steal Anglachel's formulation) FDR liberals rather than Stevensonian. Capuano's the latter, like Obama, and his message didn't really adjust to appeal to the whole state. There's a lot of lunch-bucket Dems outside of 128; they're the ones who voted for Clinton in the primaries.

There's really no comparison of Coakley to Obama on any inexperience grounds, she's been in public service forever, and certainly not on any of the rock-star qualities pushed by the OFB.