About ten days ago, as the crow flies

Rep. Charlie Murphy (D-Burlington) had this to say about the mounting corruption scandals at the Probation Department:


“Is there any evidence to suggest that jobs are for sale?’’

To which Humble Elias rhetorically responded (after much ranting and raving):

"Mark my words the Feds will get in on this thing sooner or later and that will not end well for anyone."

And now today, this is the headline in the Boston Globe....I guess Rep Murphy got the answer to his question.

Sometimes my powers of divination appall even me.

***
Nevertheless, there is still time to turn scandal into success, what is needed is a strong commitment to judicial reform, one that increases transparency, removes the prospect of corrupt temptations, keeps the boodlers out and makes the probation process efficient and effective.

Any takers out there?

Anyone prepared to make the counter argument on this basis??

People who have no expectation of ever holding power,

the sort of people who are happy to eschew all responsibility with a gust of derisive snarkage, inevitably write books like this.
Tedious, repetitive, sarcastic...I can't image how author David W. Hedrick missed out on the GOP nomination for congress in Washington State's Third District....Did he admit to cannibalism or Keynesian backsliding or something?
***

MIddlesex County Sheriff

Jim DiPaola apparently committed suicide up in Maine...At the time he was facing various allegations, but of course there are worse ones that are eminently survivable.
***
Peace to his ashes, comfort and succor to his loved ones.

***
Politics is a rough rough game my friends, and sometimes it drives people right off the edge, notable examples being Former Secretary of Defense James Forrestal and the Senator from Wyoming, Lester Hunt both of whom took their own lives in due course.
Frankly given the gruesome and brutal play of the game it is a wonder more elected officials don't take their own lives.
***
Well what of it, his family must be devastated, my heart goes out to them.

"These knuckleheads know We Have The Bomb...."

Right?

Like lots of bombs...More bombs than money at this point quite frankly.

***
Geez does this thing in Korea mean that Barack Obama is Harry S. Truman after all?

***
Well what of it?
 I suspect that Komrade Kim is trying to teach the otherwise anonymous mook he claims is his Son and Heir that some judicious military mayhem always keeps the crackers at a wary distance.
Still I have to laugh, the last remaining cover-to-cover Stalinist State in the Whole World is reduced to the medieval notion of primogeniture to recruit sucessors to the Office of Supreme Swank.
That and the perfect uselessness of the P.R.C. in a crisis, they seem to have less chain to yank in Pyongyang than we do.
An inauspicious omen for a supposed Superpower on the Make.

I did not...

Vote for Obama in 2008 because I thought he could single handedly immanentize the eschaton. I voted for him in order to prevent the Republic from going up in flaming chunks at the hands of a bunch of dangerously delusional utopian fanatics.
Now today that same bunch of fanatics have gotten control of the US House and have all sworn to destroy completely what they cannot govern absolutely.
And so the whole mishaugas plays itself out again, same script a few new actors.
Happy Thanksgiving...if you can keep it.

Ghod help us but...

this has been a soft cushy recession for the super rich.
And thanks to the recent election of a vast horde of witchburners and book worshippers to the US House, it is likely gonna become an even easier recession.
Unfortunately, the incoming congress has a believe in the universal efficacy of huge tax cuts on the rich that is only rivaled by their belief in the sovereign power of moonlit stump water to cure warts.
When it comes to public finance we can look forward to a lot of grotesque magical thinking for at least the next two years.
These are politicians who think that the government ought to fear "the people" as long as they retain their first amendment rights. Of course the ranks of the super-rich laugh at the armed and debt ridden lower classes for as long as their ire is aimed at the NEA and Barack Obama they can look forward to sunny skies now and forever.
It would do us all some good if the overclass went to bed just a bit worried...but trust me, with this congress that ain't gonn happen.

With all due respect...

But is Charlie Murphy Out of his God Damned Mind???

The whole front page of the Globe is given over to perfectly actionable stories of corruption and malfeasance at the Probation Department and all Rep Murphy can say is:
“Is there any evidence to suggest that jobs are for sale?’’
Hey Charlie is yer not sure then  Tommy freakin' Petrolati can allegedly show you the cancelled checks and who they came from and where they worked as well!
What kills me is that Murphy has the gall to say (on the record) “We’re not going to make rash judgments.’’
You've had better than six full months to form all sorts of judgments, rash, measured and ridiculous and the whole of the state legislature has done absolutely nothing.
Quite frankly right now, some rashness would be a welcome thing!
Mark my words the Feds will get in on this thing sooner or later and that will not end well for anyone.

The Probation Department Hammer Drops...

at long last...

Two things have to happen here:

The guilty, democrat, republican, incumbent or whatever need to be hauled into a courtroom soonest. The public rightfully may not have faith in the Probation Department so they must have faith in the strength of the judicial corrective.
That is the "vertical stroke" from above.

The other thing that must happen is that a strong independent movement for reform of the probation department must rise up from below....again soonest.
Otherwise these mooks we got in the state legislature will hide beneath their desks and will only come out for a role call vote on casino gambling.
For that fact the past legislative year is full of extensive debate and action on the issue of gaming in the Commonwealth, but you could grow old pouring over the official record for any mention of the scandal in the Probation Department on the floor of either the House or the Senate.
Well all that has to change starting now.

NBC News has gone to China and

predictably gotten caught up in the PRC's drive to create more and more college graduates. Back in the 1950's there was a similar concern about an "engineering gap" with the USSR. Of course all those hydroelectric engineers did the Soviets no good when push came to shove and it was time to land some mook on the moon and bring him back safely.

There is a sturdy myth among both liberals and conservatives that an active middle class intelligensia (which the PRC's education policy is promoting) is somehow a threat to totalitarian political systems. Nothing could be further from the truth, most dictatorships cut their teeth on keeping intellectuals, weak, divided, terrorized and resolutely co-opted.
The number of successful revolutions peaceful or violent led by intellectuals are very few and far inbetween...And the best example of that would be the Bolsheviks in Russia so take it all with a grain of salt sez Humble Elias.
Mostly the recent college grads in China seem to swarm over the landscape looking for jobs equal to their education. Pretty much like the college grads we see around town here in Boston quite frankly. In China almost none of them seem to be plotting and scheming against the regime, they may not like the Politburo, but they are reconciled to it.
Mind you the active participation of middle class intellectuals is vital for the safety and survival of democracy but a large cohort thereof is no great threat to a reasonably organized dictatorship.
My point is, don't look for change as we understand the term in the PRC anytime soon, the army is united, the working class is quiet, no one is starving and the collegians are all out polishing their resumes.

Just for the record....

(Vis a vis the President's new children's book and the inevitable pseudo controversy ) It is very likely, based on the testimony of the surviving Indian combatants that Sitting Bull was not present on the battlefield at the Little Big Horn.
So calling the Indian Leader Custer's "murderer" is pure hyperbole.

Granted old Sitting Bull was spoiling for a fight and ginnin' up every brave for a show-down within earshot...but did he personally send Colonel Custer for the terminal dirt nap?
No.
And anyway what is all this megillah about?
Sitting Bull's total personal body-count of US Soldiers is miniscule next to the piles of corpses wracked up by that drawling kindly saint on horseback General Robert E. Lee.
There are statues to that man who broke his sworn oath to defend the US Constitution all over the place.
Shit half the newly minted congressmooks in the US House probably regard Lee that traitor, as a hero.

So whats da beef I ask you?

Y'know it is fascinating...

the way today's conservative's (especially the bumptious patriotic types) are willing to pay exactly nothing to ensure the survival and success of liberty.
Shee-it, the next congress has just been crammed with raving blinky dingbats who will go to the mats to preserve deficit-bursting tax cuts.  Apparently nobody on the US Right wants to man up and pay for Bush's wars with dignity.
Hell the Boston Herald Columnists and Tawk Show Hosts of this world won't even sit still for a police style pat down at the airport a month or so after an attempt to place time bombs aboard US bound cargo jets.
Oh but watch how these pampered twits will roar if terrorism rears it's head again on US soil, you can forget about rallying around the flag with this lot, they'll be bellowing for impeachment and mob rule count on it.
And these people call themselves patriots, first and foremost, good ghod!

Granted he is kidding

when Former State Senator Scott Brown sez he is about to hit the re-election hustings with his olde pal Curt Schilling...Nonetheless Brown might wanna think about actually accomplishing something in Washington DC before taking to the stump and Claghorning the Commonwealth once again.
Doesn't have to be a bill that actually benefits the State it can just as easily be a really first class constituent affairs office.
Something...anything.
Otherwise I think it is funny to hear Scott Brown deride the politics of fluff in our nation's capitol when he himself is a sort of VH.1 reality show candidate right down to his suspiciously well cast family and trademark "Average Guy" costumery.
***
Well what of it?
 The Big Game is already afoot there is no denying it.
It bears mentioning that as Scott Brown's victory in January handed Governor Patrick a detailed blueprint on how to win two weeks ago, so too as Patrick's victory served Brown with notice that his position is none too secure with statistics to back it all up as well.
Humble Elias will be curious to see if Scott Brown can "learn again what he first taught" come 2012.

A crude thought experiment...

Lets assume somewhere in Massachusetts there is a Veteran's Affairs Hospital with a Long Term Care geriatric unit.
And on that floor is a "family room" for private visits from loved ones, and in that family room there is a television set.
Now that television set is an old color picture tube model that doesn't work because it never got a digital converter. It still works fine, but no signal due to the recent upgrade thus said TV is useless in it's present state.
What do you suppose is gonna get that TV set fixed or replaced faster?
Filling out a request with attending paperwork and routing thru the Hospital Administration & on up to relevant senior bureaucrats in Washington DC?
OR
Persuading your local congressperson to attach an "earmark" in some pending financial legislation specifically allocating funds to upgrade all the television sets in that Long Term Care Ward and putting them on articulated arms attached to the beds so the elderly vets can watch The Game in their own comfy racks?
I'm thinking, that just possibly the earmark is gonna get the job done quicker.
But that is only a guess...
***
Unfortunately, the carbon footprint of Washington DC is about double from politicians ranting and raving about earmarks. These are the same politicians who were bought and paid for by giant corporations in the last election, sure they are willing to give up earmarks...It is the sort of faux reform that makes pundits piss themselves with happiness. Meanwhile thanks to the Supreme Court all these mooks in Congress have finally got access to the really big money...Who needs earmarks when there are millions waiting out there from Big Oil and Big Mining and Telecom Industries and the Healthcare Giants?
It truly is a Brand New Day for America.

If I had to guess

these stats seem to indicate the possibility of deal at the national level, we get to keep our landmark health care legislation, they get to keep their utterly ill-gotten and undeserved tax cuts.
And our esteemed and honorable progeny get the bill for all of it.
Whether or not said notional deal is one worth taking from the standpoint of either the democrats or the republicans is another debate entirely.
I merely present my thoughts sans adorement.

One man's political pork is another man's

desperately needed meal.
Yes indeed, the GOP wants to ban "earmarks" out of the budget making process as a deficit cutting measure and as a boost in public ethics.
I could almost get behind a notion like this, except this is the national GOP we are talking about, what they lose in showy Federally funded "earmarks" they gain in lobbyist payola or outright corporate monies funneled directly to their campaign coffers.
Trust me, ranting and raving about earmarks is nothing but misdirection, thanks to the Supreme Court billions can now flow unfettered into the campaign process sans oversight or transparency, we don't hear anything from Boehner or McConnell about that little issue now do we?
Ultimately, if the GOP is "getting rid" of earmarks it is only because they've figured out a far more opaque and conservative friendly way to grab off Federal monies...Count on it.

If Joanie Vennochi has an ideology

it is a vaguely spiteful species of "grrrl power", insofar as it applies to the gender hypocrisy of white male liberals.
But lo, in today's column she validates Mike Capuano's back down on Nancy Pelosi on grounds that the House Speaker is a "polarizing presence".
Well SHIT, so was Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and anyone else who wants to DO anything in a democracy. The ranks of the merely non-polarizing begin and end with the likes of Warren Harding and William B. McKinley!
Reading Joanie's column is nothing sort of painful, she routinely contradicts herself on what seems to be purely whimsical grounds. Mostly Joanie just loves it when liberals fall out and if that means she has to throw a sistah under the bus to ramp up the action, so be it.
Sick
Demented
Typical...

For once I am in general agreement with

Brian McGrory insofar as Congressman Capuano's remarks about Speaker Nancy Pelosi are concerned.
But..this bit, towards the end of today's column in the Globe is unintentionally hilarious:
In Massachusetts, this is not a good moment for our politicians, even though every incumbent for statewide and federal office just won. Barney Frank was a bad parody of himself on election night. Governor Patrick lacked the good graces to acknowledge his opponents by name in his victory speech. And Democrats are struggling to muster a credible candidate to run against Scott Brown in 2012.
Shit Brian if these are my only problems, I'll take it any day of the week.
Good grief, does anyone else get the feeling that Brian is deeply disappointed he didn't get to write Governor Patrick and Representative Frank's political obits last week?
Hence the above mealy-mouthed exercise?
All Brian does is wait around for some conservative backlash to take out some liberals so he can moan "I tolja so, next time vote fer a nice moderate republican like Mitt Romney!" in the public prints for the next two years.
Last week he didn't get his backlash so he doesn't know what to write about for the next two years, poor man he is to be pitied.

Note to Mike Capuano

Hubris may be a bad thing congressman, but so is Spite. Taking off on Nancy Pelosi after a setback in the midterms is (in the words of the late Captain James Hook of Eton) "bad form".
I dunno...Mike has all the attributes of a great man, energy, conviction, passion even daring what he lacks is Judgement. He got schooled by Martha Coakley and likely he will be schooled by Nancy Pelosi when the time comes.
And if Mike really wants to run for the US Senate in 2012 he could have thought of a better way to introduce himself to the voters, especially independent women voters (who were large in Deval Patrick's margin of victory last week).
Like I said, judgement...judgement is destiny folks.

A note on Barney Frank

The usual suspects are all aghast at the venom Congressman Barney Frank lobbed at the Boston Herald and the GOP in general during his victory speech last week.
Y'know Barney is a pretty saavy guy, he can probably tell you to the penny how much money has been raised on the Conservative World Domination circuit by invoking his name and his "radical pro-homosexual agenda" nigh these past twenty years.
For that fact likely he has never forgotten Congressman Dick Armey's "Barney Fag" expletive back in 1995, or the squads of Tea partei Members who howled "homo" at him the halls of the US Congress.
And then there is the Boston Herald and it's columnists who live and die by the equation "Homosexual = Corrupt".
Moreover, his worst and most intractable opponents are all convinced (based on their experiences in High School) that gays are prey and thus are enraged when Congressman Frank fights fire with fire.
So if Barney wants to bust a few heads rhetorically speaking, I'm fine with it, the man is seventy and has seen enough of life not to expect gentle treatment from the GOP's sky grifters and reactionary utopians.

I love it when

the Boston Herald starts lifting ideas from Humble Elias.

Hell I've been talking Scott Brown up as a daahk horse candidate for President in 2012 for a while now, nice to see One Herald Square catch up.
BTW who is this Joe Battenfeld character anyway? The article itself is interesting and suggestive (if laced with freeperish bromides) but is it a legal obligation for everyone in the op-ed game at the Herald to write like Howee Cahhhh right down to short zinger at the end?
Just sayin' thass all.
Well be that as it may, I love how the local freeps are all throwing over Romney sans the slightest remorse and hitching their wagon to Scott Brown. That has just got to hurt to the fomer Viceroy...or it would if he gave two hoots in hell about what anyone thought of Willard Mitt Romney in Massachusetts.
Shee-it now I'm starting to write like Howee Cahhhhhh...
Of course, there is one very funny metaphor here, if Scott Brown took a flyer in GOP Presidential politics in 2012 he'd be doing it for the virtually the same reasons Romney did in 2008, "I can't get re-elected in the Bay State, HELLO Presidential campaign headquarters in Concord!"
Still, I'd be intensely interested to see how Brown was polling in New Hampshire, he need not top the list, merely outdo Mitt Romney for the ball to get rolling.
Color me interested...

A last shout out

Once again to the deathless Spartans of Menotomy, I think they actually ramped up their game compared to 2006 & 2008. Certainly they felt that they had something to prove based on Former State Senator Scott Brown's success last January. So out they went holding signs, making phone calls (LOTS of phone calls), knocking on doors (LOTS of doors) , compiling and executing endless lists and task upon task.
And what the hell, it worked.
Granted they had a candidate at the top of the ticket that did not make a single mistake thru out the entire campaign, one who was also blessed with superlative skills at retail politics. But it all of that only works when it is appended to a thorough ground game. The Spartans (and ten thousand other election day volunteers) brought that in spades.
They are amazing pure and simple.
And while I am at it, I take back all the misgivings I had about state democratic chair John Walsh, the man is a veritable "Patton of the Precincts", he read the numbers generated by the special election in January and Deval Patrick reaped the harvest of it all.

Can someone explain to

Humble Elias how Keith Olbermann's political contributions merit his suspension from MSNBC while Howie Carr can blithely host the Plymouth County Republican Unity Breakfast without so much as a by-your-leave?
Am I missing something here?
Okay so Olbermann spent money on candidates that were part and parcel of his reportage (which is on the face of is a breach of ethics) but then Howie Carr books himself as the featured talent at GOP events that ought to be fair game to him as journalism.
So I guess the main diff is, Howie is just more adept at breaching journalistic ethics sans reproof...Or else the powers that be either don't care or are suitably intimidated.

So the democrats lost control of the US House?

To a bunch of raving Tea Partei Crazies? Well...thats bad news, as bad as the news is for the democrats it may turn out to be infinitely worse for John Boehner and the establishment GOP. My thesis here is simple, The GOP cannot survive half Tea Partei and half Free, a house divided against itself cannot stand to quote the First (and best) republican.
Remember this when the back bench in the House votes to abolish the law of gravity and tries to annex the planet Mars via congressional Bill of Attainder.
Meanwhile corrupt power-hungry political insider and Tea Partei activist Dick Armey is quoted as saying the following in the Boston Globe today: “The defining influence electorally in America is we are tired of big-shot insiders taking care of themselves and one another,’’
Nigh perfect hilarity...This would be the same Dick Armey who had his snout so deep in the public trough he was snorting up splinters for his entire career as a boodler and a congressman. Whatever else, this congress will furnish Humble Elias with reams of material going forward.

Idle Conjuration

Just how does one go about "losing Margery Eagan's respect"?
I mean she goes into this drama-queen "disallusioned democrat" act on average twice a week in the pages of the Boston Herald in the lead up to an election.
Tellingly, it when she "gives up on the excesses of a fellow democrat" that she always makes the front page, in a smaller font than Howie Carr's teaser of course.
Today she is "shocked, shocked shocked" to discover Congressman Barney Frank took some pot shots at the Boston Herald in his speech Tuesday night.
I guess she finds it terrifying that a democrat should talk back to a republican or their fellow travelers in the exact same tone of derision that they've come in for these years gone by.
She has done it like twice in the past two weeks fuh ghod's sake.
I am the only person who notices this routine at all?
Anyway...What do I have to do to disallusion poor Margery?
Idly curious.

Idle Conjuration

Just how does one go about "losing Margery Eagan's respect"?
I mean she goes into this drama-queen "disallusioned democrat" act on average twice a week in the pages of the Boston Herald in the lead up to an election.
Tellingly, it when she "gives up on the excesses of a fellow democrat" that she always makes the front page, in a smaller font than Howie Carr's teaser of course.
Today she is "shocked, shocked shocked" to discover Congressman Barney Frank took some pot shots at the Boston Herald in his speech Tuesday night.
I guess she finds it terrifying that a democrat should talk back to a republican or their fellow travelers in the exact same tone of derision that they've come in for these years gone by.
She has done it like twice in the past two weeks fuh ghod's sake.
I am the only person who notices this routine at all?
Anyway...What do I have to do to disallusion poor Margery?
Idly curious.

Passages...

His numbers are still strong, but in an ineffable way, the wind has definitely gone out of Former State Senator Scott Brown's sails.

Maybe it was all that campaigning his did for the GOP congressional candidates in Massachusetts, a matched set of insolent misfits toplined by Jeff Perry (a notorious enabler of child fondling policemen) and Bill Hudak (an insufferable weirdo with a lawn sign fixation). These were one and all, the sort of political freaks guaranteed to give independents the bed spins.
John Kerry couldn't make Shannon O'Brien Governor or Martha Coakley Senator, but then again, Scott Brown couldn't do nuthin' for nobody, especially Charlie Baker.

Food for thought I'd say.

Truly, whatever it is, the victory laps are over.

And Brown returns to a US Senate controlled by democrats, maybe he can gin up his "Scott Brown Republican" cred a bit, but given the partisan divide in DC, we can't expect him to accomplish much except more preening and posing and that is already getting old.
A bunch of crazies and book burners are posed to hit the US House and already Scott is looking like a beaten man and yesterday's news.

Meanwhile ten stalwart democrats in the Massachusetts congressional delegation have just entered minority status with reasonably full campaign coffers and nice fresh voter and volunteer lists. The only question here is, who among them will take the plunge?
Capuano and Lynch are both talking about it...For the others its a three way argument between tenure of office, the indignities of minority status versus the perils and glories of taking a flyer in the democratic senatorial primary.
Governor Patrick did not surge past Brown's special election turn out, but he certainly flipped a lot of independents and dragged every last democrat he could lay hands on to the polls in a GOTV effort executed with Prussian efficiency.
The numbers are some comfort to Brown, the metaphor is not, because in a year when the GOP was ascendant nationally, when the state GOP was on the march from the top down, the state democrats were able to force a favorable decision under immensely unfavorable odds.
And where was Scott Brown in all this? down on the Cape, alibi-ing for Jeff Perry while the winds blew ever colder all around him.
If I was Scott Brown I'd husband that six million large he has in the bank he is gonna need it.

If you wanna read something a little sad

and unintentionally hilarious, check out Howie Carr's hate filled diatribe in Today's Herald. Or you can save a few quarters and get it as fish wrap free in the Haymarket tomorrow morning, I leave it up to you.
Anyhow, when I say "hate filled" I don't mean in the earthy-crunchy "Whole Foods Market-can't distinguish between a difference in opinion and loathing" context, I mean angry old bitter and well humorless.
No shit Howie has lost it, he is soo-ooo angry, like H.L. Mencken's obituary caricature of William Jennings Bryan in Dayton Tennessee, desperate to sink his teeth into someone anyone...ranting and raving his way into the grave.

 Ghod how he hates Obama and Patrick and Nancy Pelosi etc etc...and without a shred of humor or wit or self consciousness at all.
Howie really thinks he is this poor pitiful helpless white man, trapped in his McMansion in Wellesley besieged by Hispanic community organizers, environmental affairs inspectors, the malevolent Stalinist bureaucracy that is OSHA and women's rights advocates.
There is a definite "Captain Queeg on the witness stand" quality to today's column, read it if you don't believe me.
Well...whatever else, in the opinion industry (where I toil in the lowest of strata) there is a definite tendency, given time to believing your own bullshit. And when that happens it is time to board up shop and make for Fort Myers Beach and the occasional movie review for the local shopper.
Trust me, Howie won't be having that sort of revelation anytime soon, he'll just get angrier and more paranoid and less readable as time rolls on.
How many GOP fundraisers did he host this political season? One, two?
The man made a bonfire of his journalistic ethics and still he didn't see Governor Patrick humbled....No wonder he is ready for his straitjacket.

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.

Adlertag in the Commonwealth (or HST = DP)

Two years into a world wide economic recession...


Eleven months after a senatorial special election that ended in disaster for the Democrats of Massachusetts...


In a state where he was polling badly against whooping cough and the Potato blight...


And against a national tide that was dead set against the democratic party...


Deval Patrick, that liberal, has smashed his way thru re-election.
As far as I am concerned the Governor is the very incarnation of Harry S. Truman rated a "gone gosling" in January of 1948 and yet he finished Uber Alles come November.

Say what you like about Patrick, but he kept his head when everyone else was running for the fallout shelters....and victory has been his reward.

Tomorrow I'll try and break it down, but for tonight, let us savor the only thing rarer than a landside and that is an upset...

Whatever else happens today,

remember you are the inheritors of a proud political tradition in the world's oldest and most successful democracy, lets try to live up to that win lose or draw.
As for Massachusetts, lets tuck into them one more time and apply Abraham Lincoln's fabled "last full measure of devotion".
What we do today, what we achieve, it is all for Glory of the Commonwealth!

***
Oh and vote no on Question #5 in Arlington, it is a veiled anti-Israel measure snuck onto the ballot by a bunch of freebooters in Somerville Ma who are desperate for some traction in their publicity campaign.
:D

Y'know...

the last twenty four hours before the polls open reveals a lot about a person when they are running for Governor all out.
Governor Deval Patrick handed out candy to his neighbor's children, praised everyone's costume and deftly parried all last minute accusations from the GOP.
Charlie Baker on the other hand went crashing around the state in a murderous fury snarling about welfare and deficits and illegal immigration and the martians that live under his porch (okay that last one is a joke, but seriously the man is in an Ed Muskie-like fugue state).
Something of Baker's real character is being remorselessly exposed to the voters as this mishaugas plays itself out on the eve of the election. His sense of entitlement and his sheer fury that anyone would dare question said manorial right to high public office.
So on Baker goes ranting and raving like Spiro Agnew...Whether it works or not is up to others, starting at 7am tomorrow morning.

***
And while I am here let me just take a moment to endorse Suzanne Bump for State Auditor she has a long tail and good resume from within and without state government but she is still young enough to infuse the office with enthusiasm and energy. Two thing sorely lacking of late under Joe DeNucci, an able man who has let some vigor slip of late.