People make mistakes all the time. Sometimes, they make mistakes that are well intentioned. Sometimes mistakes happen because of forgetfulness or some other benign cause. On other occasions, mistakes arise from indifference or negligence. Sometimes bad luck is misinterpreted as a mistake. Some mistakes are really bad ones: the kind that hurt other people in personal, often tragic, ways, and those that involve behaving recklessly and dangerously, like texting while conducting a commuter rail train or while driving. Sometimes mistakes happen in the passive voice. “Mistakes were made” has become a way to admit error while pointing the finger of culpability in another direction.

Everyone makes mistakes. Popes and princes make big ones when they make mistakes. Random mistakes are made every day by the mechanic fixing your car, the person auditing your books, your neighbor parking his car and hitting yours, the cashier at Whole Foods double charging you, your spouse leaving the toilet seat up. As Joe E. Lewis famously says at the end of Some Like It Hot, “Nobody’s perfect.”

The question is not whether human beings make mistakes. The question is whether they can be forgiven. I got to thinking about mistakes, and forgiveness, when I read Joan Vennocci’s final column before the gubernatorial primary, where she remarked that Martha Coakley’s 2010 election defeat at the hands of Scott Brown “still hangs around her neck like an ugly Christmas cravat.” MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki has also made Coakley’s 2010 race a topic of his popular weekend show. The conventional wisdom is that Coakley made one of the biggest of political mistakes: she underestimated her opponent. Under this line of thinking, Coakley blew a large lead to succumb to Brown’s pick-up truck charm, in the process causing the good citizens of Massachusetts to “lose” Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat to a Republican committed to being the 60th vote to filibuster Ted’s signature legislative health care initiative. It is easy using the clarity of 20/20 hindsight to identify the many ways Coakley’s 2010 campaign went wrong. She should have known that baseball player’s name. She should have campaigned more vigorously. She should have been more vibrant in the debates. She should have . . .

I think the more important question to ask is: How did Martha Coakley acquit herself after suffering what was unquestionably a humiliating defeat at the polls? Did she lash out against or blame others? Did she walk off the political court? Did she retreat into self-pity? The answer is none of the above. She accepted her loss with singular grace and humility and did not let it defeat her. She ran successfully for another term as attorney general, and she devoted her energies to doing her job. She did not look back; she looked ahead. That says a lot about her character and strength of will, and it is too often overlooked by those who think she can never be punished enough for losing to Scott Brown.

Now she has defeated two capable candidates in the Democratic primary, defeated them soundly and decisively. Take note of this: in 2010, Deval Patrick defeated Charlie Baker by 6 percentage points in a three-person race. Patrick’s victory was hailed as a mandate. In the 2014 primary, Martha Coakley defeated Steve Grossman by 6 percentage points in a three-way race. Coakley’s victory margin – identical to Patrick’s – was treated by a majority of pundits as a disappointment. What more can she do – what more should she do – to erase the memories of the Scott Brown campaign from the minds of voters, pundits, and press?

I doubt that if a man lost to Scott Brown the reaction would be the same as it continues to be for Martha Coakley. Richard Nixon lost the presidency in 1960 and two years later suffered a humiliating defeat when he ran for governor of California. The press wrote him off as finished. But when he ran again for president in 1968, his primary election victory in New Hampshire was all it took to erase his “loser’s image,” and he was on his way to the White House. Mike Dukakis suffered his own humiliating defeat at the hands of Ed King in 1978 – a defeat few saw coming until the weekend before the election. But he was not vilified for losing; he was not dogged by an unrelenting narrative for letting his constituents and supporters down. Yet despite coming back from her defeat and winning re-election by a large margin, despite putting herself back into the electoral fray, Martha Coakley cannot shake off the volcanic ash of the Scott Brown election victory.

Double standard? I think so. Consider this: when, during one of the pre-primary debates, the candidates were asked to identify a new backup quarterback for the Patriots. Don Berwick said “I don’t know.” Coakley then offered up the correct name, causing the male television debate moderator to exclaim, “You’ve been prepped.” His message to Martha, in so many words, was: “Even if you get the answer right you are forever stigmatized by 2010 – so you get no credit for being right.” Would he have said “You’ve been prepped” to a male candidate in an identical situation? The answer is pure speculation, but I have my doubts.

Mistakes are made on the political stage all the time. Gerald Ford paid dearly for announcing with certitude that there was no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe at a critical point in his 1976 debate with Jimmy Carter. Shannon O’Brien made a silly reference to her tattoo in a debate with Mitt Romney that sadly for her became a defining moment, and not in a good way. Texas Gov. Rick Perry had his famous “whoops” moment when he couldn’t remember the third federal agency he was committed to abolishing if elected President. We are human. We forget things. Our jokes sometimes fall flat. We make mistakes. Let’s get over it.

Ultimately, Martha Coakley doesn’t need anyone’s forgiveness for losing to Scott Brown. She need not seek atonement. She needs to do exactly what she has been doing: moving forward, winning elections, making her case. It is for the voters to decide whether her case is more compelling than Charlie Baker’s. If she prevails, she will put to bed for good the ghost of Scott Brown. If she loses, it will be for reasons that have nothing to do with her 2010 Senate campaign.

James Aloisi is a former state transportation secretary and a principal in the Pemberton Square Group.