In the weary wicked end...

Charlie Baker may well have gone over the hump because no one on his campaign staff dared to enter his office and tell him that for a lot of reasons, he was the underdog in this race...and it is disaster electoral to be ignorant of that fact.
Governor Patrick on the other hand, strangely bouyed by Scott Brown's victory in January took nothing for granted, spoke of his accomplishments, campaigned incessantly, remained calm and optimistic from the git-go.
Baker?
We seem to know less about him today than when he announced for Governor save that the former Harvard Pilgrim CEO seems to have a very short fuse.
Like Romney, Baker was an amateur in a professional's game, unlike Romney he had no artifice to conceal this crucial weakness and thus went raving and ranting  (mostly about welfare) to his Waterloo.
Apparently the Swampscott Board of Selectmen is no great school for Statesmanshood.
It doesn't help at all that Baker was up against the best retail campaigner this Commonwealth has seen since the Empire Days of Edward Maximus, our Late Senior Senator.
And the three way race certainly kept the political waters appropriately muddied thru the summer and Early Fall, hell at one point Tim Cahill on name recognition alone was polling second to Patrick. That should have set off alarm klaxons in Fortress Baker with respect to Charlie's perception among the voters, instead they got the RGA to buy some nasty adverts and kept staggering alone freeping it up before sparse audiences.
Over and above all that, four factors did Charlie Baker in;
He never opened up a real lead in a single solitary poll all year long, you'd never know it from the way he campaigned though.
A incumbent Governor of Massachusetts has not been denied re-election in a general election since Frank Sargent in 1974.
Relying on voter fury to mask your defficiencies as a campaigner and debater, is a formula for self destruction, just as George Wallace and George McGovern it didn't work for either of them when the Big Job was on the line.
Nobody could figure out just what Charlie Stood For, everything he tasked Governor Patrick with, were measures he himself signed off on back when he was Bill Weld's favorite swank. Was he a freeper? He happily camped it up for the Child Molester's Friend, Jeff Perry and Bill Hudak both scions of the Tea Partei.
Was he a moderate? Sure he nominated the out-n-proud Richard Tisei and then seemingly forgot about the guy.
Maybe he was a pure opportunist like Romney, but sort of awful at it?

The man should have been ten points up last spring given the state of economy alone, forget about Governor Patrick's early mistakes...But no Baker acted this was gonna be a cakewalk and got schooled well and thoroughly.
For all that Patrick campaigned like he was five points down all year long, calm, reasoned but focused...And in the end, like his closest Political Ancestor Harry Truman, the Governor carried the day despite the odds.
Deval Patrick.
Get used to that name, he is the main factor in state politics until 2014.