It’s not like we didn’t see this coming.

Three weeks ago, the idea of a Brown victory was ludicrous, but by last week, Michael Graham was getting a sinking feeling that Coakley had well and truly blown it.

Several videos showing one of Coakley’s staffers behaving like a garden-variety thug shoving The Weekly Standard's John McCormack to the ground, then shoving him again and again while Coakley breezed on past popped up all over YouTube, and garnering comments such as ’Thank you Marsha [sic] for being so lame and lazy,’ and ‘We can no longer say that John McCain ran the worst campaign in the history of politics, that distinction now belongs to Marsha [sic] Coakley!’

Worse, was where Coakley was at the time – instead of being in Massachusetts and working to get out the vote, as her opponent was doing, she was in Washington DC… at a lobbyist fundraiser, taking money from corporate and pharmaceutical interests.

McCormack had asked Coakley a question on Afghanistan which she simply ignored, asking the crowd of reporters, ‘Does anyone else have a question?’ Either she didn’t have a rehearsed response for such a question or, worse, she didn’t bother formulating one, exposing both an ignorance and an arrogance on a par with Sarah Palin.

I genuinely hate to say this: Coakley so justly deserved to lose this election and the people of Massachusetts are better off without her. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Unfortunately, they’re not better off with what they’ve now got as an alternative.

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(John McCormack - rumored to have thrown up and fainted when told he might be President in 1963)

The opening of the 2nd session of the 87th Congress - January 10, 1962. A pretty busy year. Former speaker of the House Sam Rayburn had suddennly died, leaving the seat open. John McCormack was voted to succeed him. McCormack had the dubious distinction of informing the House on November 22, 1963 that John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. When told there was a rumor Vice-president Lyndon Johnson may also have been assassinated - the thought he may be next in line as President was a bit too much.

In this broadcast, Senators Eugene McCarthy and Leverett Saltonstall are interviewed to discuss upcoming Legislation. Eugene McCarthy was to become a Presidential candidate in 1968 and 1972 and was an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War. Here he talks about the proposed Medicare Bill - one which didn't pass during this congress, but did eventually pass in 1965.

Eugene McCarthy: “ I do expect that we will have a good fight on the Medical Aid question. This would be drawn I suppose, quite clearly on party lines. In my judgment we can pass a bill which is somehow tied to Social Security, which is the kind of bill I think we ought to pass in the Senate. I’m not sure as to what the response will be in the house, but I do think this is a proposition which the Democratic party and certainly the President are both firmly committed and that we should make a total kind of political fight on this one.”

I am always amazed, listening to these old broadcasts, how civilized two people from opposite sides of the aisle could be towards each other.

Or is it just me?