Shaheen Outpolls Brown by 10 Points

Good news for NH Democrats published Friday (1/31/2014).  According to The WMUR Granite State Poll conducted by The University of New Hampshire Survey Center: "In a matchup between Shaheen and Brown, 47% of likely voters say they would vote for Shaheen if the election were held today, 37% would vote for Brown, 3% support someone else, and 14% are undecided."

That's not to say that this thing is a done deal.  According to the poll, only 10% of voters are firmly committed, and we're going to hear a lot of Shaheen bashing before too long.  That'll have an effect.

But the effect can very much be one that boomerangs back to the bashers.  Remember Karl Rove and his "Crossroads GPS" political action committee's TV ad against Elizabeth Warren in 2011, trying to tie her to the Occupy Wall Street movement as some kind of sinister link?  That one was pulled off the air quickly because it was helping Warren to generate sympathy by making her a victim.  During the 2012 election campaign, the Brown team didn't help themselves too much, either, when they publicly mocked Warren's family story of Native American lineage with war whoops, warpath dancing and tomahawk-chop gestures.  Those kinds of things, when overemphasized, make the opposition look like it's running on empty with no positive agenda for themselves.

The worst of the Obamacare rollout is over.  By the time election day rolls around in November, that narrative will have been played to exhaustion, and other competing narratives have already emerged.  We're going to be hearing a lot more about the upsides to Obamacare and the success stories because we Democrats can't run away from it.  We have to embrace it and defend it or else look like hypocrites, and I think Senator Shaheen will do just that.

Besides, Scott Brown can't attack her too vigorously over Obamacare because he's not out to destroy it.  He'd only work on reform if he was elected, and it would still be Obamacare after he was done.

Word to the wise: A vote for Brown is still a vote for the Obamacare status quo.  "He's a moderate," remember?  Yup.  With or without Scott Brown, the GOP is screwed.