Given the serial fiascoes of the Martha Coakley for Senate campaign – veering from gaffe (her claim that there are no terrorists in Afghanistan) to comedy (misspelling her own state’s name in an attack ad) to ham-handedness (a staffer barrelling over a Weekly Standard reporter trying to ask about the Afghanistan gaffe) to outright panic in her communications with national Democrats, who are now tapping into their House campaign fund to prop her up – you would think, five days before Election Day, that the second coming of Shannon O’Brien has run out of ways to hand Scott Brown an upset victory in the race for what was for decades Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat (but, as Brown has reminded us, remains the people’s seat to do with as they wish).

But no! Coakley has managed, at this late hour, to diss New England’s most hallowed site – Fenway Park itself. And, for bonus points, to do so in the course of explaining why she’s above standing outside in cold weather (as if this is an unusual hardship for New Englanders) to ask for votes, when she could be getting to know connected people who know other connected people. As the Boston Globe reports:

There is a subdued, almost dispassionate quality to her public appearances, which are surprisingly few. Her voice is not hoarse from late-night rallies. Even yesterday, the day after a hard-hitting debate, she had no public campaign appearances in the state.

Coakley bristles at the suggestion that, with so little time left, in an election with such high stakes, she is being too passive.

“As opposed to standing outside Fenway Park? In the cold? Shaking hands?” she fires back, in an apparent reference to a Brown online video of him doing just that. “This is a special election. And I know that I have the support of Kim Driscoll. And I now know the members of the [Salem] School Committee, who know far more people than I could ever meet.”

Brown supporter and Red Sox icon Curt Schilling is apoplectic, and I’ll let him do the honors:

[This statement] shows her elitism and arrogance unbelievably. Aside from the apparent feeling that the seat belongs to her just by virtue of her party, she just admitted that she doesn’t need to bother meeting with constituents because she’s meeting people like Kim Driscoll, and political leaders, and Democrat activists. I guess they’re the ones that matter, huh? I know it’s a “special election” and all, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t need to fight for this seat. Prancing around with this mindset of “Oh, I’m a Democrat, therefore Ted Kennedy’s seat just automatically belongs to me regardless of what the people think,” is idiotic. Acting as if she doesn’t need to give her constituents the time of day is ludicrous. She can make all the snide remarks about Scott Brown shaking hands with people in the cold that she wants, but that’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re trying to get elected. She seems to have forgotten that she’s trying to get elected in Massachusetts, and not in Washington D.C. – if she remembered that, maybe she’d spend more time trying to impress Massachusetts voters and less time rubbing elbows with the Democrat establishment, Big Pharmacy lobbyists, and union leaders. Most normal politicians, Republican or Democrat, do go shake hands with voters. Even if it means standing in the cold outside of Fenway Park.

Maybe Coakley should come back when she has a little blood on her sock.