Republican Sen. Scott Brown got what most politicians would consider terrific news earlier this month when a Suffolk University poll found that as the state's junior senator prepares for re-election in 2012, he appears virtually unbeatable.
Of course, the same thing was said by the pollsters about Attorney General Martha Coakley six weeks before Brown pulled off one of the biggest upsets in Massachusetts' political history.
In the poll, conducted April 3-5 among 500 registered voters, Brown easily dispatched hypothetical candidates Gov. Deval Patrick, Victoria Reggie Kennedy, Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray and U.S. Reps. Michael E. Capuano and Edward Markey.
The strongest challenge, according to the poll, would have come from former U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II. But he, like the others, claims he intends to take a pass on the race.
But should any of those Democrats ultimately decide to join the fray and take the risk of running against the popular, well-financed senator -- or if others not mentioned in the poll do so -- like former gubernatorial candidate Warren Tolman, they may have more fodder for a run against him than some folks think.
There is Brown's continued vagueness on key issues facing the federal government, especially when it comes to where he stands on the budget fight.
While Brown professes cuts to the budget to reduce the deficit, he refuses to offer specifics to either the public or the press as to what or where he'd cut the budget.
As a result of this vagueness, Brown is drawing criticism from both the left and right, although his aides have shrugged it off, noting he's a fiscal conservative who wants to work both sides of the aisle.
It appears to us that Brown is being deliberately foggy on the key issues in an attempt to assuage all sides.
Brown and his handlers know well that in politics it is not what is real that matters, but what is perceived to be real that matters to voters.
A spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said that Brown's decision-making style will be the a major theme of any Democratic campaign leading up to the 2012 election.
Brown's 2010 election was historic in a number of ways, the least of which is that he was able to wrestle a seat that had been firmly in the grasp of a Democrat for several decades: Edward M. Kennedy.
As Brown's constituents and pundits try to decipher what Brown is for and what Brown is against, Kennedy never triggered such speculation or doubt.
The "Liberal Lion's" constituents, colleagues and columnists usually knew where he stood on the issues, regardless of how distasteful some of them may have found Kennedy's stances.
Brown's constituents deserve absolute disclosure of how their senator views the issues, and far less fence-sitting.