BTW Kudos to Representative Nancy Pelosi

she plotted the democrats comeback in the US House with consummate brilliance, she raised the funds, recruited the candidates, chose the battlegrounds and for the most part stayed off television for the last three weeks before the midterm.
She scotched Bush's plan to privatize social security, she got the ACA thru, she has been speaker, she has been back benched, the lady has experience, and on Tuesday Night after fifteen years, it paid off.
She managed to connect the dots all the way to victory in a degraded representative body that is riddled with the cancer of rotten boroughs, this is a significant achievement in these imperiled times.
There is a movement afoot (headed by our own Seth Moulton sad to say) to put aside Pelosi's leadership and elect someone else speaker next January.  This would be a terrible injustice, the fruits of Pelosi's victory should not be handed to someone else, she put the time in she deserves the sinecure.
Some say Trump has "figured her out" and will do nothing save heap scorn on Speaker Pelosi for the rest of his term. Well what of it? Scorn never killed anyone, and the GOP spent millions on adverts excoriating Nancy Pelosi, none of which stopped her or the democrats from flipping the US House..."bring on the hate" sez Humble Elias.
Moreover I think Pelosi has Trump "figured out" from his weakness for praise, his preference for untrustworthy chiselers for aides and authoritarian "talk" matched with an unsteady "walk".
Besides there is something about having Nancy Pelosi a mere two heartbeats away from the US Presidency that'll send Movement Conservatism into conniptions...and I am a connoisseur of conniptions mah frenz.

As for the Midterms (which I'll ruminate upon in detail in due course)

"I didn't get all that I wanted, but I got enough to work with...."

If I had to speculate...

and what "sarcastic rant driven blowhard" doesn't like to do that?  I'd say that Maura Healey thinks her path to The Corner Office is thru a "Girl Fight Tonight" scenario in 2022 wherein it's the AG versus The Lt Governor, Karyn Polito.
If Healey can get a match up like that, ergo two women on the general election ballot, she can effectively negate the dreaded "girl factor" which posits that a certain increment of voters simply won't vote for a woman for high office and will cast ballots for the male opponent on that basis.
Well, Elizabeth Warren dealt "the girl factor" a very satisfying body blow back in 2012, but it made a robust comeback in 2014 in the Coakley/Baker matchup, so its very much a potential issue in any notional gubernatorial race.
Of course, if it was left up to me, I'd try and talk the AG out of the race entirely, the problem with her particular constitutional office is, no matter how well she executes her duties, its still a job that makes enemies.  If Maura Healey is doing the job right (and it seems like she is) then she is just creating her own personal aggrieved faction that'll happily knife her in the back come October 2022.  On the other hand, Baker's original majority in 2014, was a bare 40,000 votes in a open race, Healey may believe she can close a narrow gap like that in a sufficiently tight race that has no easy gender divide.
Because Believe Me, Maura Healey IS running for Governor, her signs were utterly ubiquitous in Menotomy yesterday, she is clearly assembling a volunteer infrastructure all over the Commonwealth and her seventy percent majority last night may well have topped the entire democratic ticket statewide.
The only other thing that conditions a Healey candidacy for Governor is Charlie "Lumpy" Baker's future plans.  I've long suspected he'd love to run for the US Senate, or he has supporters that'd love to tempt him into such a race. Lumpy's nearest opportunity is running against Ed Markey in 2020, which is smack-dap astride Baker's second term, something that might trigger the Governor's famous anxiety and caution.  Meanwhile Joan Vennochi (remember her???) is conjuring with a "Baker for President in 2020" meme, something I'd discount, Lumpy doesn't have the guts to directly Donald Trump either in the NH Primary or on an Independent ticket.
I'd go deeper into the mechanics of Warren running for President and somehow winning thus opening up another special US senate election and giving Lumpy the opportunity to appoint an interim Senator...but then this was a posting about Maura Healey's ambition...:)

"We Only Lose When We Quit"

Whatever happens tonight and in the days to come, win or lose, remember giving up or getting out, is mere self destruction. "If we are pushed out of the valley, we will fight in the hills". (Okay thats a quote from "Zapata" starring Marlon Brando, but its apt all the same)

Stay Strong, Do Your Duty, remember Churchill's Admonition:

“In War: Resolution,
In Defeat: Defiance,
In Victory: Magnanimity
In Peace: Good Will.”

For the US Senate Tomorrow...

I heartily endorse Elizabeth Warren in tomorrow's contested election for the U.S. Senate. I do so, because she has been more effective than is presented in her publicity, and because Geoff Diehl would be a disaster for the Commonwealth as a US Senator, less a solon, more of a Trump sycophant to put it neatly.
There is word on the street that Warren badly wants to run for President, all the auspices point to a run sad to say, despite Humble Elias' bid to talk her off the ledge.  Nonetheless, if I was willing to take the same risk with Kerry, Dukakis, Tsongas and Kennedy, then I ought to extend the same courtesy to Warren with my vote tomorrow.
But then Massachusetts is a hotbed of ambition, Katherine Clark wants to be Senator, Maura Healey wants to be Governor, the pot is ever boiling.

I also urge a YES vote on Question Three, by voting yes on said ballot measure we collectively affirm our confidence in our state's current transgender rights & protections, in the current national political zeitgeist this is a desperately needed affirmation indeed.

Whatever the outcome tomorrow, do not despair, do not fear, if we are defeated here, we will simply fight elsewhere. It is not necessary to win, it is important to keep fighting no matter what.  We lose only when we quit.

Jay Gonzalez in Menotomy Part II...

I gotta say, Jay Gonzalez remains energetic, and is seemingly resolved to "go down swinging" come what may...

The candidate made a rousing campaign appearance at the Sons of Italy in (Romantic) Arlington flanked by Congressperson Katherine Clark and the Commonwealth's AG Maura Healey...so it was a peppery trio up at the podium to be sure.

And just on a side note, I will say congressperson Clark fairly exudes the heady perfume of senatorial ambition, at the moment our representation seems set in the US Senate but I'm not sure she'd hesitate for more than twelve hours if an opportunity presented itself.
For that fact, you can tell Maura Healey is just waiting out Charlie Baker to make her run for Governor, she has already worked up a good liberal populist pitch that she tried out Friday Night.
And yet, I could eat beans off her head, I can't believe she once played pro basketball, I got sacks of potatoes bigger than Maura Healey.
Health to all their endeavors, sez Humble Elias.
Meanwhile...
I'll go to my grave insisting Jay Gonzalez is the better man for the job of Governor of the Commonwealth. Lumpy touts a record of shallow "successes" and ducks almost all the bigger issues menacing our prosperity & liberties, Gonzalez at least understands there is a matrix out there of dire challenges, the quicker we address them the better our prospects will be in the years to come.

And besides, this republic is on a collision course with a Constitutional Crisis. It is likely unavoidable at this point, among the many things we will need when the final extremity is reached, is State Governors who love our rights and liberties more than they love their careers and their lives.

That ain't Charlie "Lumpy" Baker, believe me. The best we can hope for out of that guy in his second term is more chiseling on behalf of the charter school placebo at the expense of our Public Schools.
In all, a disheartening prospect.

So its with great fanfare that I wholeheartedly endorse the ticket of Jay Gonzalez and Quentin Palfrey for Governor and Lt Governor on Tuesday, I will be working hard for both of them on that day.

Yesterday, The Boston Globe had the temerity to anoint

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker as an "Anti-Trump Republican".

All I can say is with "GOP Opponents" like Lumpy arrayed against him, Trump can look forward to a   Despotism  that'll make Gaius Caligula look like a peevish Scoutmaster.

But then I'm not sure there is really any effective opposition to Trump within the GOP, certainly in the last two years what have they prevented The President from saying or doing?
Exactly nothing,  the GOP "opposition" is largely muted and of a purely rhetorical nature. Moreover said "opposition" is conditioned and corrupted by the need to negotiate with Trump with respect to items like judicial nominations (exp "Kavanaugh") and the only thing the republicans universally worship like pagan idolators...tax cuts.
Onto this battlefield, steps Charlie "Lumpy" Baker, unarmed and unwilling...he rebukes the president, in soft tones but if Trump ever bids on tearing up the US Constitution and ruling with an Iron Hand Our Governor will be the first to run like a rat in a firestorm.
Count On It.