NYT Blames Coakley's Gender For Her Loss

After Senate Race, Some Say Barrier for Women in Massachusetts Still Stands

Mr. Payne said he believed women had given Ms. Coakley a late push in her primary victory against three male opponents. But he said Ms. Coakley never mentioned her gender or that she would have been the state’s first female United States senator, while Scott Brown, her opponent, ran “a macho, testosterone campaign,” driving around the state in a pickup.

Not mentioned in the laundry list of accusations of "macho" politics: The womanizing and worse committed by the late liberal Sen. Ted Kennedy.