The Boston Globe reports today that GOP registration has fallen by some 15,000 souls since 2002.
Democratic registration is up slightly although by no means enough to offset the commanding position held by independent/unenrolled voters.
On the surface this makes a mockery of Mitt Romney's reform agenda and his vague plans to "grow" the local GOP. All that fuss and bother and yet 15,000 voters have taken a hike from out his aegis.
Where they have gone though is undoubtedly to the independent and unenrolled column which is an ominous trend for state politics.
I think, as the GOP shrinks in size and grass roots support a tendency will be reinforced to seek "extraordinary" candidates from "outside" the political milieu to run for high office come 2006 and 2010.
These types of candidates tend to be naive' self financing amateurs of the Romney template.
As a practical matter we can look forward too ever richer and dumber men being imported and groomed for statewide races because quite literally the GOP has no local farm team to draw from.
If they can come from as far away as Utah, who is to say they can't be flown in from Alaska or Thailand for that matter?
The slow "nationalization" of gubernatorial campaigns therefore fills a need in the Massachusetts GOP for "instant candidates" of a particular type.
However I have to wonder, just as a technical question can a political party that has an aging declining base long perpetuate itself no matter how well funded?
More and more the Massachusetts GOP resembles a shadowy offshore bank...a few little known guys making a lot of decisions backed by a pile of money.
Not much there in terms of mass democratic politics to speak off I'm afraid.
Well what of it?
The game is to glom onto suburban unenrolled voters, preferably women with kids and a huge Menotomy class mortgage to worry about. Drag them and their anxieties to the voting both and you can rule the Kingdom of Heaven.
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
A Miser's Progress...
Y’know there is no accounting for it…Mitt Romney really is a cheap dickhead.
He has these gruesome mailers his legislative campaign is dropping all over his preferred seventeen target districts.
They are full of the usual rabble rousing piffle…lower taxes, free flapjacks…a placebo called reform.
However this campaign literature has been vetted, designed, written, and printed in Washington DC.
Good Ghod…Decaf won’t even spend any of that mad phat cash he’s been shaking down from the likes of Fidelity Investments on a local printer will he??
Hell its okay to spend OUR money on flattering billboards far off Los Angeles advertising the salubrious business climate in Massachusetts and incidentally pushing Mitt’s loopy smirk.
But spend some of his wad locally?
Never!
The dope is so unfamiliar with Massachusetts that he can’t find a trustworthy production house for his nauseating campaign vomitus.
Otherwise it appears that Mitt hates Massachusetts on some odd visceral level and for pure spite’s sake will deliberately take his business out of state no matter how trivial the issue.
These are the decisions we can expect from a viceregal personality with an itch to make his bones nationally.
Look for more and more of them no matter what happens nationwide or hear at home in November.
He has these gruesome mailers his legislative campaign is dropping all over his preferred seventeen target districts.
They are full of the usual rabble rousing piffle…lower taxes, free flapjacks…a placebo called reform.
However this campaign literature has been vetted, designed, written, and printed in Washington DC.
Good Ghod…Decaf won’t even spend any of that mad phat cash he’s been shaking down from the likes of Fidelity Investments on a local printer will he??
Hell its okay to spend OUR money on flattering billboards far off Los Angeles advertising the salubrious business climate in Massachusetts and incidentally pushing Mitt’s loopy smirk.
But spend some of his wad locally?
Never!
The dope is so unfamiliar with Massachusetts that he can’t find a trustworthy production house for his nauseating campaign vomitus.
Otherwise it appears that Mitt hates Massachusetts on some odd visceral level and for pure spite’s sake will deliberately take his business out of state no matter how trivial the issue.
These are the decisions we can expect from a viceregal personality with an itch to make his bones nationally.
Look for more and more of them no matter what happens nationwide or hear at home in November.
Sunday, October 10, 2004
A week later...
And the Globe is already signaling the all-clear for the admin’s neocons.
That was quick.
This after Peter Canellos and George Will pompously assured the masses that no matter who wins the election Messr’s Feith, Wolfowitz and Libby will be burnishing their resumes come November 3rd.
Try telling that to Michael Ledeen, who (according to Jeet Heer and Dave Wagner) is whispering in karl Rove’s ear pushing for the deposition of the Mullah’s in Iran.
Clearly Mr. Ledeen fears no purge of the neocon tendency within the Bush Admin…”on to Tehran” seems to be his current mantra not “abandon ship”.
Well you know how it is with these guys, they were all once stalwart new leftists who happily turned in their Jesus robes and sandals for a laurel crown and a toga patterned on the American Flag once Ronald Reagan made the scene.
The neocons are a product of a famously self conscious, self worshipping, selfish, and shameless generation.
Therefore these leaps from left to right with no intervening angst or reflection are to be expected.
These guys are always ardently right about everything no matter how total the revision in their views.
The real problem with the neocons isn’t their truculence or smug self satisfaction that whole generation as I said, is sodden with it.
No….there is a inherent and seldom discussed contradiction within their ideology. On the one hand they preach a muscular gospel of “global democratic revolution” one to be ignited and carried through no matter what.
They are hung up on a very narrow and rhetorical definition of democracy the way the SDS and the Weathermen were once obsessed with “peace” and all the violent ways paths to that end.
Yet for all their democratic posturing, the neocons do have an subconscious belief that democracy has entered its early senescence here in America.
These guys have no real faith in democracy in America as our republic has entered a doddering old age and is in desperate need of sharp minds to guide this faltering nation along to a right and glorious end.
Why else would such allegedly smart people trifle with a dope like George Bush if they didn’t truly believe that his corrupt and cowardly self was the best the electorate had to offer?
These selfsame sharp minds are profoundly contemptuous of tradition, law, accepted practice, the congress and the like…what they revere though is pure ideology and means to force all and sundry to conform with its dictates.
This is also why they are all so obsessed with secrecy…they wanna hush up Uncle Sam’s alleged senility before the rest of us catch wise and demand a second opinion from a real M.D. and not some penitent ex-marxist scholar.
And so the Michael Ledeen’s of this world go on poking and prodding…talking up an easy invasion of Iraq, fantasizing about a democratic Iran…all very easy when you have no scruples to speak off and a history of loud truculent fanaticism be it “peace now!” or “on to Damascus!”
Sick
Demented
Typical…
That was quick.
This after Peter Canellos and George Will pompously assured the masses that no matter who wins the election Messr’s Feith, Wolfowitz and Libby will be burnishing their resumes come November 3rd.
Try telling that to Michael Ledeen, who (according to Jeet Heer and Dave Wagner) is whispering in karl Rove’s ear pushing for the deposition of the Mullah’s in Iran.
Clearly Mr. Ledeen fears no purge of the neocon tendency within the Bush Admin…”on to Tehran” seems to be his current mantra not “abandon ship”.
Well you know how it is with these guys, they were all once stalwart new leftists who happily turned in their Jesus robes and sandals for a laurel crown and a toga patterned on the American Flag once Ronald Reagan made the scene.
The neocons are a product of a famously self conscious, self worshipping, selfish, and shameless generation.
Therefore these leaps from left to right with no intervening angst or reflection are to be expected.
These guys are always ardently right about everything no matter how total the revision in their views.
The real problem with the neocons isn’t their truculence or smug self satisfaction that whole generation as I said, is sodden with it.
No….there is a inherent and seldom discussed contradiction within their ideology. On the one hand they preach a muscular gospel of “global democratic revolution” one to be ignited and carried through no matter what.
They are hung up on a very narrow and rhetorical definition of democracy the way the SDS and the Weathermen were once obsessed with “peace” and all the violent ways paths to that end.
Yet for all their democratic posturing, the neocons do have an subconscious belief that democracy has entered its early senescence here in America.
These guys have no real faith in democracy in America as our republic has entered a doddering old age and is in desperate need of sharp minds to guide this faltering nation along to a right and glorious end.
Why else would such allegedly smart people trifle with a dope like George Bush if they didn’t truly believe that his corrupt and cowardly self was the best the electorate had to offer?
These selfsame sharp minds are profoundly contemptuous of tradition, law, accepted practice, the congress and the like…what they revere though is pure ideology and means to force all and sundry to conform with its dictates.
This is also why they are all so obsessed with secrecy…they wanna hush up Uncle Sam’s alleged senility before the rest of us catch wise and demand a second opinion from a real M.D. and not some penitent ex-marxist scholar.
And so the Michael Ledeen’s of this world go on poking and prodding…talking up an easy invasion of Iraq, fantasizing about a democratic Iran…all very easy when you have no scruples to speak off and a history of loud truculent fanaticism be it “peace now!” or “on to Damascus!”
Sick
Demented
Typical…
Thursday, October 07, 2004
The Veep waxes Mendacious...
Dick Cheney’s lies from the late debate are so extensive and pervasive, that it will take scholars several months to catalogue them all.
By then ghod willing, Dick will have fled public life for the salubrious shores of Boesky Island one step ahead of the process servers.
However there are only a few simple points to keep uppermost in mind when contemplating the deceptively complex foreign policy debate.
This war in Iraq was waged on behalf of non-proliferation, democratization, and the annihilation of Al Queda.
As of 7:14pm 10-7-04 “democracy” in Iraq is officially a bitter joke with naught but a collection of bastards, generals, and old sex hating imams waiting in the wings to seize power when the U.S. pulls out.
No amount of money picked out of our pockets and thrown willy-nilly atop the national debt will change that.
Moreover it is now clear that Saddam Hussein had nothing in the way of weapons of mass destruction-and certainly nothing of a biological or nuclear nature.
Everyone involved in the hunt for said weapons has said so, in a rare moment of lucidity our famously truculent Secretary of Defense has even said so.
Saddam may have had atomic intentions and germ-warfare ambitions but as any career officer in the Pentagon can tell you, it is only capabilities that truly matter.
Lastly, Al Queda allegedly the friend of Saddam and his cherished buddy seems to have somehow slipped the dragnet. Could it be that we are looking for him in the wrong place…like Baghdad?
Meanwhile I’m paying 2.00 a gallon for regular at my local service station to cruise Boston like a sick right whale looking for work.
Which is, to my mind a form of private sector taxation in these farcically tax-phobic times.
So really honestly, virtually no aspect of the President’s terrorism policy has worked out…none of it.
Our pockets are being picked as ever by the Oil Sheiks, our troops are blown up and gunned down every day in Iraq while Bin Laden laughs at us and swears in new recruits by the sack load.
This is success?
Bush equates himself in true Leviathan fashion with raw strength. Yet it is raw strength that has failed us here because it has been applied sans wit or reason.
To render it mathematically, Bush=strength yet in Iraq strength= failure.
If that is the case then clearly said strength has to be animated by new and better judgement.
The strength is fine and honed to a sharp edge…it is the people directing it that are dopes, knaves, fanatics and creepy utopians.
I say out with the lot the sooner the better and for god’s sake let us turn over the leadership of the republic to men and women of resolution while there is still time.
By then ghod willing, Dick will have fled public life for the salubrious shores of Boesky Island one step ahead of the process servers.
However there are only a few simple points to keep uppermost in mind when contemplating the deceptively complex foreign policy debate.
This war in Iraq was waged on behalf of non-proliferation, democratization, and the annihilation of Al Queda.
As of 7:14pm 10-7-04 “democracy” in Iraq is officially a bitter joke with naught but a collection of bastards, generals, and old sex hating imams waiting in the wings to seize power when the U.S. pulls out.
No amount of money picked out of our pockets and thrown willy-nilly atop the national debt will change that.
Moreover it is now clear that Saddam Hussein had nothing in the way of weapons of mass destruction-and certainly nothing of a biological or nuclear nature.
Everyone involved in the hunt for said weapons has said so, in a rare moment of lucidity our famously truculent Secretary of Defense has even said so.
Saddam may have had atomic intentions and germ-warfare ambitions but as any career officer in the Pentagon can tell you, it is only capabilities that truly matter.
Lastly, Al Queda allegedly the friend of Saddam and his cherished buddy seems to have somehow slipped the dragnet. Could it be that we are looking for him in the wrong place…like Baghdad?
Meanwhile I’m paying 2.00 a gallon for regular at my local service station to cruise Boston like a sick right whale looking for work.
Which is, to my mind a form of private sector taxation in these farcically tax-phobic times.
So really honestly, virtually no aspect of the President’s terrorism policy has worked out…none of it.
Our pockets are being picked as ever by the Oil Sheiks, our troops are blown up and gunned down every day in Iraq while Bin Laden laughs at us and swears in new recruits by the sack load.
This is success?
Bush equates himself in true Leviathan fashion with raw strength. Yet it is raw strength that has failed us here because it has been applied sans wit or reason.
To render it mathematically, Bush=strength yet in Iraq strength= failure.
If that is the case then clearly said strength has to be animated by new and better judgement.
The strength is fine and honed to a sharp edge…it is the people directing it that are dopes, knaves, fanatics and creepy utopians.
I say out with the lot the sooner the better and for god’s sake let us turn over the leadership of the republic to men and women of resolution while there is still time.
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
RIAF uber alles!
The Romney is a Fraud blog has blown open a kick-ass story detailing the governor's veto of pay raises for the servitors at UMass Amherst at the same time he is putting through a 7% increase in the pay of his closest courtiers, lackeys, and sycophants.
Yup this is business-typegovernance at it's best...if your private sector model is a successful crack house that is.
www.romneyisafraud.blogspot.com
Sorry for the lack of a hot link, I've got some formatting issues that I hope to have resolved before they drag me off to a re-education camp.
Yup this is business-typegovernance at it's best...if your private sector model is a successful crack house that is.
www.romneyisafraud.blogspot.com
Sorry for the lack of a hot link, I've got some formatting issues that I hope to have resolved before they drag me off to a re-education camp.
Monday, October 04, 2004
Did I miss something?
Or did exactly no one notice that North Korea (number one with a bullet on 2001's Axis of Evil charts) announced they have the bomb last week?
You know....the Atomic Bomb?
The one we are all supposed to learn to love or something?
I gotta give Komrade Kim's hellspawn credit, he waited, girt up his loins, and joined the nuclear club right in the middle of a U.S. Presidential Campaign....perfect timing.
And Bush's response?
Sign into law another god damned tax cut thus proving to me once and for all that movement conservatism is afflicted with a kind of gruesome senile dementia...literally the answer to EVERYTHING is a tax cut right up to and including the prospect of regional nuclear conflict in Asia!
My Ghod what is to be done with this new Nero of ours??
The quality of our security guarantee to something like FIVE functioning democracies in the region is degrading by the hour thanks to our passive aggressive policy towards Pyongyang and yet all Bush can do is pass out money in Iowa like he is Eva Peron.
Where will it all end?
I don't know but it will end sooner or later and not in a good way for all of us.
You know....the Atomic Bomb?
The one we are all supposed to learn to love or something?
I gotta give Komrade Kim's hellspawn credit, he waited, girt up his loins, and joined the nuclear club right in the middle of a U.S. Presidential Campaign....perfect timing.
And Bush's response?
Sign into law another god damned tax cut thus proving to me once and for all that movement conservatism is afflicted with a kind of gruesome senile dementia...literally the answer to EVERYTHING is a tax cut right up to and including the prospect of regional nuclear conflict in Asia!
My Ghod what is to be done with this new Nero of ours??
The quality of our security guarantee to something like FIVE functioning democracies in the region is degrading by the hour thanks to our passive aggressive policy towards Pyongyang and yet all Bush can do is pass out money in Iowa like he is Eva Peron.
Where will it all end?
I don't know but it will end sooner or later and not in a good way for all of us.
Friday, October 01, 2004
Air America coming to Boston...
starting Monday the scrappy liberal talk radio network will be broadcasting on AM 1200 out of Medford and AM 1430 out of Framingham. As an experiment I could pull in AM 1200 as far north as Salem New Hampshire this morning...so the coverage will be pretty far reaching so far as I can see.
I don't think Air America is any type of great white hope for embattled local liberals...but as a means to sharpen ideological warfare in this critical presidential race, it is a welcome thing indeed.
Hopefully this will put some pressure on token radio libs like Jim Braude to re-think their toadying in light of competition from Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo.
Hell if this thing gets Jim Braude off the stick it will be all worth it no matter what the outcome.
I don't think Air America is any type of great white hope for embattled local liberals...but as a means to sharpen ideological warfare in this critical presidential race, it is a welcome thing indeed.
Hopefully this will put some pressure on token radio libs like Jim Braude to re-think their toadying in light of competition from Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo.
Hell if this thing gets Jim Braude off the stick it will be all worth it no matter what the outcome.
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