Wendy Kaminer contends that identity politics handed Coakley the primary but lost her the election:
Coakley, the only woman currently holding statewide office in Massachusetts, owed her '08 primary win largely to the state's Democratic sisterhood, committed to electing women. In my own informal conversations with politically active women, dating back over a year, Coakley regularly emerged as the Senate favorite, but her policies and politics and her conduct as a prosecutor, (which worried civil libertarians) were rarely if ever discussed. Progressive male candidates were rarely considered.
The Dish 