OBAMA RESISTING MASSACHUSETTS – AT 7:33 P.M. ET:  We reported this morning that rumors were flying that President Obama would go to Massachusetts to try to boost Dem Senate candidate Martha Coakley.  Now, the White House is denying it:

Coming off stinging election losses in Virginia and New Jersey -- not to mention Copenhagen, where he failed to win the 2018 Olympics for his hometown of Chicago -- President Obama is staying away from what could become another painful loss.

Even though the campaign of Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has been making quiet entreaties, the president has no plans to visit her in the last week of the special election to fill the Senate seat once held by the late Edward M. Kennedy.

"It's not on our schedule to go to next week," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said matter-of-factly.

With Mrs. Coakley flagging in the polls and Republican Scott Brown closing fast -- one recent polls puts him 2 points ahead -- Mr. Obama has decided to keep his fingerprints off a race that would be an embarrassment for Democrats should they lose, given that Mr. Obama won the state in 2008 by a 27 point margin.

COMMENT:  It would be an embarrassment even if Coakley won, but barely.  We'll be watching this weekend's polls.  If Brown's advance continues, he may pull this off.  It's a big "if."  Reports tell us that the Dems are really turning on the money machine in Massachusetts, running one ad after another. 

We'll be blogging this live Tuesday night.

January 14, 2010