While he may be pretty liberal, Chris Matthews is no dummy and his analysis of the nuts and bolts of electoral politics (especially in the Northeast) is often dead on accurate.
Looking at the numbers he has for key bellweathers he pretty much calls it as hopeless for Coakley.
Three areas had been identified as bellweathers, Gardner, Fitchburg and Peabody. They were chosen because 1) the party registration figures in each is pretty much identical to the statewide numbers and 2) the results in each was virtually identical to the statewide results in the 2006 Senate race (Kennedy’s last campaign).
Brown leads by double digits in all three.