Apparently, there are people who are shocked by this:

According to a Kimball Political Consulting survey of registered voters in Massachusetts, Senator Scott Brown has a 6 point lead over Democrat Elizabeth Warren (49 percent to 43 percent) with 9 percent undecided. The figure is just within the survey’s 4 percent margin of error.

President Obama continues to hold a double digit lead over former Massachusetts Mitt Romney (52 percent to 41 percent) with 7 percent undecided. Poll results are based on a sample of respondents most likely to vote in November.

…mind you, Legal Insurrection’s William A Jacobson is not one of those people, and neither am I. We’re both quite aware – even if progressives themselves weren’t – that Massachusetts is a Democratic state, not necessarily a progressive one. Oh, sure, Boston’s liberal (not as liberal as other Blue cities, but pretty liberal); but Boston is not the state. The state elected Brown in the first place, largely because he was a good retail politician that made it clear what Brown was and was not going to do once he was Senator. Coakley ran (and Warren is running) on ideology: Brown is running on constituent service (there’s a reason why Brown retained some of Kennedy’s staff, and that had nothing to do with ideology). I think that there are some Democrats out there who wish it were the other way around.

Besides, what the Democrats really need to worry about is that 51/42 Obama/Romney number. You see, in 2008 Obama beat McCain 62/36; and if you assume that undecideds will break against the incumbent then you are looking at a squeaker, in MA terms. That isn’t as much a harbinger of potential disaster for the Democrats on national terms as it would be in, say, Minnesota; after all, Romney is a former MA governor, so he’s probably going to over-perform McCain in that state (heck, in every state). But it does suggest that Massachusetts Democrats may find Obama problematical on the state level in November…

Moe Lane