Globe Columnist Tees Off on Martha Coakley

Ouch. Brian McGrory is not pulling his punches:

If you're a registered voter in Massachusetts, your friendly Democratic Senate candidate, Martha Coakley, is sticking her thumb in your eye.

Coakley, in exquisitely diva-like form, is refusing all invitations to debate her Republican opponent in the race, Scott Brown, unless a third-party candidate with no apparent credentials is included on the stage. She may also require a crystal bowl of orange-only M&Ms in her dressing room, but we haven't gotten that far yet. Her demands have led to an astonishing result: there will be just one -- that's one -- live televised debate in the Boston media market this general election season.

It gets mushy in the middle, but it ends strong.

If the Globe keeps hammering Coakley, will enough Massachusetts Democrats stay home to give Republican challenger Scott Brown an outside chance of winning Ted Kennedy's old seat? I still find it improbable, but Coakley's ineptitude, a continued withering assault from the typically left-leaning Globe, and the idea that some make use the race as a referendum against the health care rationing scheme seem to be making what should have been Coakley's race to win race more uncertain every day.