‘The Voting Mind’

The Union Leader’s John DiStaso also called psychology professor Elizabeth Ossoff about the Massachusetts senate elections.

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Massachusetts voters were “scared and nervous” about Democrat Martha Coakley, reports John DiStaso, who writes the Granite Status column for the New Hampshire Union Leader.

He interviewed psychology professor Elizabeth Ossoff, Ph.D., who also spoke to WMUR-TV earlier in the week.

“Ossoff said the average voter in Massachusetts ‘didn't know who Martha Coakley and [Republican] Scott Brown is’ and didn't associate Coakley with their local Democratic representatives, who they ‘keep sending back to the State House cycle after cycle,’ ” Mr. DiStaso reported.

In addition to teaching in the psychology department, Dr. Ossoff oversees the four research centers at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics. Until this fall, she was coordinator of the Jeanne D. Smith Center for the Study of American Democracy and Citizenship at the N.H.I.O.P.

- gww