MASSACHUSETTS SENATE – AT 8:06 A.M.. ET:  There are unconfirmed stories flying around that President Obama may plunge headlong into the Massachusetts Senate race this weekend and fly up to campaign for beleaguered Dem candidate Martha Coakley.

Republican candidate Scott Brown, now surging, alluded to that possibility in an interview on Fox News yesterday afternoon. 

The stakes are enormous.  If Brown should slip by Coakley and win, it would be a seismic event in politics.  The line, "The Democrats couldn't even hold on to the Kennedy seat," would be all over the media.  The Dems would lose their 60th seat in the Senate, meaning Republicans could block any piece of legislation through a filibuster.

On the other hand, Obama's putting himself on the line in the bluest of the blue states is almost humiliating.  And if Coakley should then lose, it would be doubly humiliating – much greater than flying to Copenhagen and coming home without the Olympics for Chicago. 

A presidential visit would appear to have one purpose – very frankly, to play the race card, to energize minorities who are lethargic about the veddy white, veddy feminist, veddy upscale Coakley.  Scare tactics work in politics, and if Obama can convince minorities in Boston that a win for Brown would reverse the gains of the Civil War, he might get Coakley through. 

There are no new Massachusetts polls this morning, but we will certainly have some over the weekend, maybe before. 

The Massachusetts drama shows how quickly trends can change in politics.  Who would have thought it, back a year ago, when the political fashionistas were groveling before the Obama deity?

My, how the flighty have fallen.

January 14,  2010