Taylor Armerding

By Taylor Armerding
CNHI News Service

I know elections are supposed to be all about the issues.

But I know, and you know, that they aren't. Elections are more about what candidates can do for you, or what they make you believe they can do for you. Which means they are about self-interest and personality.

And by that measure, neither Democrat Martha Coakley nor Republican Scott Brown are worthy to fill the U.S. Senate seat occupied, sometimes rather amply, by the late Ted Kennedy.

I am no Kennedy fan. I think we are a weaker, less independent, less solvent country, thanks to his profligate "generosity" with other people's money. But I've got to hand one thing to him: He had charisma. He had presence.

It wasn't his money or his legislative skill that made women's hearts flutter even when he was well into middle age. It wasn't his wealth that gave him the power to charm enough members of the other party into cosponsoring legislation with him that was not only against their interests, but against the broader interests of the country.

The so-called "Kennedy magic" wasn't about brains either. It was about human warmth and charm. He connected with people so well that they gave him a pass not only on his train wreck of a personal life, but his political contradictions. He was one of the wealthiest members of the Senate, whose residence on Cape Cod was so lavish it was called a "compound." Yet he could rail against "the rich" and nobody would raise an eyebrow.

Coakley and Brown are robots — automatons — by comparison. They need charisma transplants. The pitiful turnout in the preliminary election was testament to that.

And all you had to do was watch their performance on preliminary election night Nov. 8 for confirmation that neither is likely to be rising through the senatorial ranks anytime soon.

Brown, making his victory speech, displayed the uninspiring monotone for which he is becoming known. I'm starting to think he's afraid of inflection. It makes you realize that Ayla, his American Idol contestant daughter, had to get her vocal chops from mom.

He has some good stuff to say. The rampant corruption of Democratic-controlled Massachusetts ought to give him a chance, even for "Ted's seat" (Did you know that Senate seat belongs to the Kennedys, and not the people of the state?). But when he does use inflection, it seems to take him as much by surprise as it does the rest of us.

At one point, he had been droning on with his laundry list of talking points — why he would be an independent voice in Washington rather than the rubber stamp his opponent would be — and he apparently realized he had about a half a sentence left in that paragraph. Suddenly his voice jumped several levels in pitch and volume.

It stayed there for the rest of the sentence — just a louder, higher monotone. And then, after the dutiful applause and cheering from his equally robotic supporters, he settled back into the quieter, lower monotone.

Coakley is even worse. People made fun of former Gov. Mitt Romney for being wooden, for being so perfect that he looked like a Ken doll. Coakley is more Mitt than Mitt. Every gesture is planned, and therefore mechanical. Every hair has been instructed where to lie. She moves like a wind-up doll. When she smiled, it looked like a puppeteer had abruptly yanked up the corners of her mouth. Or maybe, as one friend suggested, she read "Smile here" on her TelePrompTer. Otherwise, she is more expressionless than an avatar.

Same for the voice. She has a way of dragging out her vowels that is interesting for 30 seconds or so, but it rapidly becomes even more dull than listening to Brown. It sounds almost like it has been computer-generated. I half expected her to say, at the end of every paragraph, "Press 1 for more options." She would be a better candidate for the voice on your GPS than for the Senate.

But, one of them will be headed for Washington in January — probably Coakley because not only is she a Democrat, she is a woman. Therefore, she will allegedly bring "diversity" to the all-male state congressional delegation. Not that diversity in Massachusetts has anything to do with thought or philosophy, of course. Everybody has to think the same way — they just need to look a bit different.

Probably Coakley's best line of the night came when she declared that her victory meant that voters wanted a "new kind of leadership" in Washington. This, while having run on the declaration that she would continue in the footsteps of the revered Ted Kennedy. This, while flanked by dinosaur Sen. John Kerry and rubber stamp Congresswoman Niki Tsongas.

At least she can tell a joke, even if she didn't realize it was a joke.

Taylor Armerding writes for The Eagle-Tribune in North Andover, Mass. He may be reached at 978-946-2213 or at tarmerding@eagletribune.com. Read him daily at The Soapbox, the Eagle-Tribune blog at blogs.eagletribune.com/soapbox. CNHI News Service distributes his column.