Watching her concession speech, there is certainly some truth to the Democratic spin that Coakley was a horrible candidate. Watching Brown's acceptance speech, he is certainly a talented politician.
On the other hand, Democrats are certainly fooling themselves when they proclaim that results, not process matter to the American people. To blame Coakley for over-confidently taking Christmas off when up by 20 points, is to blissfully ignore what else hit the news then.
While it does seem, from the exit polls, that health care was important to voters, it did not seem central to Brown's messaging. More central was the appeal to Reagan Republicans: "our tax dollars should pay for weapons to stop them and not lawyers to defend them". Brown was even supportive of waterboarding. His competitiveness amongst union members is a big part of the story.
That said, in the end, those who disregard the nationalization of the race, argue Coakley lost because the campaign was slow to respond to Brown's increasing competitiveness. Politico reports, that the DSCC Chairman "learned that the race was tightening... when independent pollsters returned results showing the race much tighter than Democratic polls had been portraying." In other words, the Democrat lost largely because Democratic pollsters saw their job as framing perceptions instead of providing timely and reliable information to their team.
The notion of professional politicians being fooled by their own spin, is off-putting if entirely consistent with the self-destructive path the Congressional majorities have chosen for themselves.
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