a political event that has receded to the very stern of everyone's mind, active measures must be taken repeatedly to remind the electorate to vote.
The last time there was a contested Massachusetts Primary with some impact on the larger outcome was quite literally in 1976 when George Wallace decided to make his last stand against Jimmy Carter's Milk of Moderation in Boston of all places.
Since then, our Primary has become a sort of guilty afterthought, one gets the impression that the lack of press attention it garners is an embarrassment to the Commonwealth's democrats and republicans alike.
The reasons for this are fairly obvious, the State's moderate to liberal politics are anathema are a political schism unto themselves when seen in a national context. More importantly, the Commonwealth has harvested a bumper crop of unsuccessful presidential aspirants these past twenty five years, all of whom can be relied upon to make sure the fix is in when the Primary Rolls around.
For a few minutes in 2008 it looked like the primary might have some impact on the democratic race, Obama did some campaigning, Clinton did some campaigning, Gallup called it for Obama and Hilary ended up clearing the boards.
A surprise outcome however is no great treatment for what amounts to decades of neglect...And soon enough the whole mishaugas was back to being an unloved chore.
Sad really.
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