BOSTON — Do you remember when Democratic Massachusetts attorney general and U.S. Senate candidate Martha Coakley marched in Selma? When he stared down Bull Connor and his police dogs? When she broke the backs of the defenders of Jim Crow segregating city buses and lunch counters?

No? Well, Martha Coakley does. Either that or she believes her largely pedestrian career has a similar legacy. Speaking at the MLK Day Breakfast in Boston, Coakley repeatedly linked her floundering campaign to Dr. King’s historic work on civil rights. Specifically, Coakley said, “”if Dr. King were here today, he’s be standing with us.” Worse, she continued, “”We remember the dream tomorrow [Election Day] and we will act on the dream tomorrow.”

Republican Scott Brown attended the breakfast but was not one of the speakers. Afterward he had this to say: “I certainly did not realize that this was a rally for Martha and I thought it was inapropriate that she starting asking for people’s votes when we are trying to remember Martin Luther King Jr.”

Now, Martin Luther King Jr. was politically a leftist, so he may well have voted for Martha Coakley. And King’s son, Martin Luther King III, participated in this politicking by saying, “The eyes of the nation are watching Massachusetts. ” But King is honored not for his views on national health care — or even the Vietnam War — but rather for his efforts to tear down an unjust racial caste system that sat uneasily alongside our country’s promises dating back to the Declaration of Independence. In other words, something a little more edifying than a last-minute Democratic campaign rally.