Martha Coakley lost in her race for US Senate tonight against Republican Scott Brown.

She ran a terrible campaign, but you can’t blame this loss entirely on that. It’s too early to know for sure whether this loss was because of apathetic or hostile left-wing voters – and it may ultimately end up being impossible to tell whether disappointment with President Obama led to this result – but in a blue state like Massachusetts, I think you can assume the enthusiasm gap between the two parties – because of poor campaigning, a strong challenger, and a Democratic party that doesn’t know how to take advantage of its 60 votes in the Senate – played a role, likely an election-changing role.

Many have argued that Coakley’s loss should be a wake up call to national Democrats, both in Congress and in the White House. I don’t disagree. President Obama has largely failed to live up to the expectations he built during his own campaign. It doesn’t really matter how many wins he gets or how many half-measures he passes. He was swept into office on the expectation of great change, and he hasn’t delivered. As Dr. Drew Westin said, President Obama is proving to have no fight in him, and that apathy or cowardice is hurting Democrats all over the country. It will certainly hurt worse in 2010.

But whether Coakley’s loss should be a wake up call and whether it will are two very different things.

As I’ve argued, I have little doubt that Democrats will learn exactly the wrong message from this loss. Rahm is already pointing fingers at all the wrong people. The White House is renewing its foolish hope of bipartisanship. Joe Lieberman is pushing for "centrism." And the conventional wisdom says the best path for health care reform is for the House to pass the Senate bill unchanged, no fixes in conference.

I’ll be more than happy to eat my words if Democrats do indeed come to realize the way to win elections and legislative battles is to rally the base and convince the middle, not pander to corporations and spit on the base. But if I were a betting man, I wouldn’t put my money on it.

If we’re going to force Democrats to learn the right lessons, we’re going to have to look for new strategies. Voting for the Republican because the Democrat doesn’t live up to expectations reinforces the two-party system that holds back so much progress in this country. It also gives party leaders a convenient excuse by pointing fingers at the opposite party. I don’t blame the voters of Massachusetts for being disappointing in Obama, and I don’t blame them for taking the readily available alternative by voting for Brown. But I certain this vote won’t have the effect the dispirited liberals want it to have.

So what can we do? I don’t have that answer, but I have some ideas. We can reward our friends better, the allies we have in Congress who really do stand up for us. By rewarding them handsomely, we can show that the base helps their own. We can challenge lackluster Democrats before they become the party’s nominee for elected office. We can build our own infrastructure to push our ideas with the same weight the right has in pushing theirs.

Let’s start that conversations. I’m less interested in arguing whether my premise – that Democrats will move right, not left after this loss – is correct or not. We’ll find out soon enough. I’m more interested in what you think we can do to become stronger. Even if I’m wrong – and I’d be very happy to be wrong – we can make ourselves even better in the process.

So, what say you?