Following Tuesday’s primary election to replace late U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, Massachusetts voters elected Democrat Martha Coakley to be the Democratic candidate that will face off with Republican Scott Brown in the final elections in January. Coakley’s advancement practically guarantees the state’s very first female U.S. senator, considering Brown will likely not be elected due to the state’s affinity for Democrats. Though Coakley did represent the most well-rounded and levelheaded candidate in the race and deserves her pass into the final election and her inevitable election into the Senate, her victory, disappointingly, does not necessarily denote that the majority of Massachusetts, because voter turnout was strikingly low Tuesday.
Lack of voter esteem, particularly during this especially notable election to replace Kennedy, speaks volumes about the negative aspects of Massachusetts’s politics. Known for its voters’ tendencies to keep elected officials in office for extended periods of time, it’s obvious that it isn’t easy to establish a change at the polls in this state. When only a fraction of the registered voters turn out to cast ballots, and when it’s always the same people who do, those who do not show up virtually promise a stagnant set of governmental representatives election after election. Coakley is a safe and viable choice, but just because she won the primary doesn’t mean she will accurately represent Massachusetts if she should end up in the Senate because not much of Massachusetts voted for her or for any candidate yesterday.
If and when Coakley does succeed in defeating Brown in the January election, she’ll head to the Senate to carry Kennedy’s torch. And based on her campaign compared to those of her former opponents, Coakley will likely do a good job there. But there will still be thousands of Massachusetts voters left unrepresented ‘-‘- by their own fault. And during this most tumultuous time for Congress, the last thing any American voter can afford to be is unrepresented.
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