Brown's Perfect Ambush

With the Democrats paying little attention in early December, Scott Brown's supporters reached out to Tea Party groups like FreedomWorks to see if their organizers would lend a hand in helping the Republican win the Massachusetts Senate seat. At the same time, Martha Coakley, the Democratic candidate, was mostly quiet, eschewing most campaigning. On Dec. 16, a national Republican group conducted a poll, showing Brown was down only three points. The Coakley camp did not catch on until another poll showed Brown up a point on Jan. 9. By that point, it was too late. “It was a classic case of everybody getting caught napping,” David Axelrod told The New York Times.