Handicapping....

A teensy announcement in the Boston Metro today notes that Suffolk Downs is cancelling this year's Masscap horse race due to the usual recessionary pressures and stresses.
This is a cultural setback for the Commonwealth, two weeks ago some yokel hummed a rock through the Tri Town Drive's Omnipotent outdoor screen, last week it was the North Shore Music Theater's closure now the Masscap has gone for the terminal dirt nap.
Someone must stand athwart this steady degradation and cry "halt!".

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Thus it falls to Humble Elias to do some handicapping of his own, horses being off the books for the moment lets take a quick look at the 2010 gubernatorial line up:

Crazy Christy Mihos (GOP), on paper Christy ought to be formidable, he is rich, talkative and he can credibly be named a gubernatorial kingmaker when former Governor Mitt Romney is concerned. However Mihos' third party bid for the corner office in 2006 lost him many friends in the GOP base and yet was not enough of a vote getter to stake any claim to a constituency within the party. Then again there is Christy's lack of an "indoor voice" and a strange tendency to nervously giggle like Cesar Romero's old "Joker" routine on the Batman TV show. Odds to nominate: 50-50, Odds to win 60-40.

Charlie Baker (GOP) A former Weld admin functionary, a wealthy HMO tycoon a formidable fundraiser and a potential darling of the punditariat, the day he announces the Globe's Scot LeHigh will fall over in an ecstatic swoon. And yet no one has heard anything from him that indicates that he truly wants the job...everyone bides their time in their own way but does Baker have the fire in da belly? His name keeps cropping up, but he never says anything...there is a Mario Cuomo quality to Baker one wonders if he wavers a tad too much. Moreover, how well will an HMO CEO wear on the electorate at a time when people are losing healthcare all over town?
Odds to nominate 60-40, odds to win to
50-50

State Senator Scott Brown (GOP) He is nicely mannered, telegenic, unthreatening, his daughter turned in a credible performance on "American Idol"...other than that does anyone know anything about the guy?
Well, maybe that is something in Brown's favor a good dark horse has a short record and all that. You have to wonder though, how is he gonna make the fundraising leap from the State Senate (a 100K investment every two years) to the multimillion dollar gubernatorial ranks?
Moreover does he really wanna give up a sure thing in the state senate especially when the GOP ranks therein are so attentuated?
Odds to nominate, 70-30, Odds to win, 60-40

The Claims Stakes:
Reed Hillman, Nobody has heard squat out of Scary Kerry Healey's Lt Governor nominee in four years and his fundraising reach is nil and his barracks mentality won't go far in an election. But he is available and not given to seizures.

Scary Kerry Healey I put her on the list simply because she is just enough of a lightweight to think she can win the second time around. odds are, she won't be able to raise the scratch and even her husband's coffers aren't limitless.

Andy Card the Former courtier for La Famiglia Arbusto gets a guberatorial mention in this state every four years, who am I to break with that tradition?