[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/01/20/brown.newspaper.art.jpg caption="Republican Scott Brown shows off a headline touting his win Tuesday night."]

Boston, Massachusetts (CNN) - Even before the polls closed on Tuesday night, Democrats were distancing themselves from Democrat Martha Coakley and blaming her lackluster campaign for her stunning loss in the U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts.

A top adviser to President Obama rejected assertions that Tuesday's vote was a referendum on the president or Democratic policies and instead took a shot at Coakley: "Campaigns and candidates matter."

For weeks, Scott Brown had been the underdog candidate, running behind in the race to finish out the late Sen. Ted Kennedy's term.

Trailing by double digits a little more than a week ago, Brown had edged ahead of Coakley, campaigning as the pickup truck-driving candidate, capitalizing on voter frustrations and vowing to send Obama's health care bill "back to its drawing board."

Coakley, the state's attorney general, had been considered a shoo-in in heavily Democratic Massachusetts, which hadn't elected a Republican to the Senate in 38 years.

But as Brown gained momentum and Coakley's numbers fell, Democrats rushed big guns to campaign for her, including Obama and former President Bill Clinton.

In the hours after Coakley's concession speech, though, Coakley's pollster Celinda Lake fired back at criticism that she ran a weak and misguided campaign and failed to recognize Brown's surge until it was too late.

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By Carol Costello and Bob Ruff

One full year after a President's inauguration is always a good time to take stock and ask, "How's he doing?"

By all accounts, the inauguration of the nation's first African American president was historic. We asked presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, who wrote biographies of Jimmy Carter and Franklin Roosevelt, to assess what it was like at the start of the President Obama's term.

"He had a bit of a roll for a few months," says Brinkley, "…(and) had a crucial rubicon to overcome, to cross, and that was high expectations in the spring. He had run on change and "yes we can", and there was a feeling that this progressive movement was going to sweep into Washington, D.C."

As we know all too well, it hasn't worked out exactly that way so far.

The love and joy of the inauguration fell prey to federal bailouts, rising unemployment, and tea parties and rancor over health reform.

Jesse Jackson, founder and President of Rainbow/PUSH Coalition,told us "we thought that we were at a new moment and going to a new place, but the level of resistance has been historical and ugly and very divisive."

A leading voice of dissent, radio host Rush Limbaugh, who told a cheering CPAC gathering in late February : "What is so strange about being honest and saying I want Barack Obama to fail if his mission is to restructure and reform this country's so that capitalism and individual liberty are not its foundation? Why would I want that to succeed?"

Drew Westen, Emory University political psychologist and the author of "The Political Brain", was an Obama supporter during the campaign. Now he is critical of much of the President's performance, especially in his dealings with the Republican opposition.

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