Coakley was a crappy candidate. She assumed she’d coast into the job and didn’t take Brown seriously. Additionally, the Democratic party didn’t help much by capitulating and compromising themselves into irrelevance the last 12 months. The way they’ve handled the HCR debate, the Republicans could have derailed them with only 38 seats in the senate…so it’s not the GOP’s fault they’re in this pickle.

One of two things can happen now:
1. The Democrats can wake up and realize that an 18 seat majority still isn’t the worst thing in the world and go populist (screw the bankers instead of the people, use reconciliation when filibusters are promised, stop being defensive and responding to people like Beck and Palin, etc.), and maybe they can hold onto the majority beyond November.

2. The Democrats can decide that they need to be nicer to the GOP and not pressure them into saying “No.” all the time, and come November, we can get a split Senate and house.