Massachusetts’ Senate race turning negative in final week

Until the last few days, the Massachusetts’ Senate race had remained mostly a positive affair.  Republican candidate Scott Brown has vowed to stick to a positive, issues based campaign.  Martha Coakley simply hasn’t run much of a campaign, assuming that Teddy’s seat was hers as the next appointed, or is it anointed, one.

However, in recent days things have begun to get nasty.  While Scott Brown himself has remained mostly positive and focused on the issues, Coakley and her supporters have gone negative in a big way, from claiming he has made a deal with the devil to being a Bush/Cheney clone.

Newsmax details some of the Democratic attacks:

In a 48-hour span:

• Democrat Martha Coakley, who had been heavily favored, unleashed a TV ad attacking her GOP opponent, Scott Brown, as “in lockstep with Washington Republicans.”
• The national committee charged with electing Senate Democrats rolled out an ad claiming Massachusetts voters know little about Brown and imploring them not to let him “take them for a ride.”
• The Service Employees International Union went on the air with a spot that says Brown “calls himself independent, but voted with Republican leadership 96 percent of the time,” opposes abortion rights and is backed by some of Sarah Palin’s supporters.

The late-game strategy: use Republicans as a foil in a Democratic state to undercut Brown, who has cast himself as an independent and downplayed his conservative credentials.

The onslaught of negative TV ads and arrival of out-of-state operatives underscore Democrats’ worry that their hold on the seat in a solidly Democratic state is in jeopardy — and that they could lose the pivotal 60th Senate vote needed to pass President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul and other legislation.

The Democrats aren’t the only ones that have turned to negative ads.  While Brown has remained above the fray, Republican groups attempting to support Brown have criticized Coakley as a candidate that will support massive spending and big tax increases.

With less than a week to go before Tuesday’s election, the polls show a dead heat in the Senate race.  This has Democrats scrambling to defend what they thought was a sure win, and Republicans trying to steal the upset that they thought was out of reach.