Tommy Christopher, Asylum's White House correspondent, explains the story that will rock the media this week.

Aside from the relief effort in Haiti, which will rightly continue to dominate headlines, the big story in the political media this week will be Tuesday's special election to fill the senate seat vacated by the late Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts.

What should have been a turkey shoot for Democratic Attorney General Martha Coakley has turned into a hot contest that has Republican Scott Brown holding a late lead in the polls.

There are a number of reasons why this is a huge story, but chief among them is that the election of Brown would break the Democrats' filibuster-proof 60-vote Senate majority, possibly giving the Republicans the votes they need to defeat health-care reform.

Find out what you need to know about this explosive race.

Why it's a big story:

-- A Republican victory gives them the 41 votes -- potentially enough to defeat health-care reform and any other Democratic legislation -- in the Senate.

-- Ted Kennedy held the seat since 1962, when he won a special election to succeed his brother, John F. Kennedy, whose election as president vacated the seat. Bottom line, this is a very emotional race for Democrats.

-- The Democratic candidate has made a series of missteps, including using a stock photo of the still-standing World Trade Center to symbolize her opponent's association to Wall Street greed.

-- Curt Schilling (and I don't mean a terse antique coin). The Red Sox World Series hero (tiniest subset ever!) was pulled into the race when Coakley accused the Scott Brown supporter of being a Yankees fan.

-- The president initially had no plans to campaign for Coakley, but conditions on the ground necessitated an 11th-hour appearance yesterday, at which he was heckled by anti-choice protesters.

-- Despite Brown's polling lead, a day could make a big difference. In addition to the president's visit, late revelations about the Republican candidate could be exploited to close the slim gap.

-- The media will seize on the results of this election as a bellwether of the November midterms.

How the story will play out:

So far, Coakley has been taking a beating in the press as an inept campaigner. Aside from the Schilling dust-up and the World Trade Center fiasco, Coakley was also hurt by a Democratic Party mailer that dishonestly slammed Brown's position on emergency contraception for rape victims.

However, some recently surfaced video of Brown could sour some soft supporters. In 2008, he questioned the legitimacy of Barack Obama's birth during a TV appearance, a move that puts him uncomfortably within the fringe, wingnut "birther" space. Plus, most average Americans just don't take kindly to the political equivalent of a "yo mama" joke.

Worse than that, though, is this bit of footage from a Scott Brown rally this weekend. A supporter of Brown's suggests Coakley be sodomized with a curling iron, and Brown smiles and says, "We can do this." He may have been responding to the line, or simply continuing his speech, but the juxtaposition is bad for Brown.

Aside from the ugliness of the clip, it left me wondering what kind of rally counts, as a huge laugh line, some guy screaming the word "suicide."

Coakley also scored points by highlighting the fact that Brown, who claims to "believe that all Americans deserve health-care coverage," doesn't provide health benefits to his campaign workers.

Expect lots of coverage of the special election to focus on "man on the street" interviews, as reporters hope to find someone willing to spout something extra-crazy.

Brown has momentum on his side now, and even a close loss will have talking heads calling this a sign of doom for the Democrats' midterm prospects. While the White House is toeing the "Coakley will win" line, expect there to be lots of anonymously sourced stories about the scramble to save the health-care reform bill.

Democrats will spin a Coakley loss as the result of an inept campaign, and if she pulls out the win, they'll still try to manage expectations for the midterms. There's no scenario that has anyone saying the Democrats won't lose seats in Congress.