massachusetts 2010

[Dan the Roman]

i dont think i could vote for either of these clowns in the primary.  im not a townie or a yuppie.  nor am i a gay.  so i fail to see what either candidate offers someone like me.

i hope to god there is a republican running in the fall.

With Somerville in the district a Republican doesn't have a chance. Trane is a marginal improvement over Sciortino in my view solely in that he pisses off the "progressives". Anyway, the GOP is running a spectacular 29 candidates for 160 seats in the state house.

As for Patrick, I sincerely doubt he is going to run again. If he does, his problem in the primary will less be the fact that he is unpopular with democrats(he maintains enough liberal support to survive that) than the fact that he will almost certainly lose the general election to Charlie Baker, the current head of Harvard Pilgrim Health who looks likely to be the 2010 GOP candidate.

Patrick has national ambitions as demonstrated by his poorly timed book deal - those ambitions would be poorly served by losing reelection.

[Dan the Roman]

so far as i know, gays have the same amount of rights in this state as i do.

Thanks to the votes of Carl himself.  It's not as if opponents of gay rights don't constantly bring up bills in the legislature to undo all the slow gains of the past couple decades.

i actually agree with carl on gay rights.

but he seems to be a bit of a one trick pony

I agree with him as well, but I wish he would spend more time schmoozing with the leadership. Ciampa might have been a jackass, but he was close to Finneran and got a lot of money for the town. Carl has a sort of above it all approach, which is actually one reason I suspect Trane might be an improvement, at least in that respect.

[Dan the Roman]

Any chances of an independent run in between the Republicans and Democrats? Cause let's face it, the Massachusetts Republican Party has as much chance at winning as the Libertarians or Greens.

1990, 1994, 1998, and 2002 not withstanding, I presume.

Fixed Yes. Cause northeastern liberal Republicans are a dead species. And pretty much any person that the Republicans nominate has to convince the electorate he's not Jesse Helms or George W. Bush, southern Republicans always associate local Democrats running for office with Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton. Is it true? Of course not, but it gets the GOP a few more votes. Plus, Mitt Romney did the Massachusetts Republican Party absolutely no favors with his "I'm taking my ball and going home" routine his last two years running the state.

Face it, the Republican Party on a statewide level is essentially dead. What few liberal/moderate Republicans that are left need to join up with the more centrist-minded Democrats while leaving the state Republican Party to wallow in the 3-5% range as a strictly conservative party if you want to have a competitive governor or senate election within the next 10 years.

Speaking of Carla Howell, can someone tell me how one time she got 12% of the vote against Ted Kennedy and the Republican candidate got only 13%?

And as far as heavy Massachusetts spending, how did Paul Tsongas ever come from this state?

Fixed. In Federal elections yes, but in state elections this is complete bs. The entire electorate is completely different. Let me give you an example of my town, Winchester which is by any means a democratic stronghold in federal races. it went to Kerry by 22 points, Gore by 28, and Clinton by the same margin. Yet in state elections its voted Republican every single election since 1990(combining the Mihos and Healey votes in 2006.

Or take my parents who have not voted GOP federally for anything since the 70s, but voted GOP in 1990, 1994, and 1998, and plan to do so again for whoever runs against Patrick. I would in fact argue right now that whoever the generic republican is in 2010 easily starts at forty percent and If he is halfway decent is probably at least a tossup against Patrick.

As for spending I wish people would stop repeating the lie about high Massachusetts taxes. We have the lowest taxes in the Northeast, with average tax burden almost identical with NH, and the twelfth lowest in the country. I don't see why we still get tarred with the Massachusetts's thing.

http://bluemassgroup.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=11649

[Dan the Roman]

so far as i know, gays have the same amount of rights in this state as i do.

Thanks to the votes of Carl himself.  It's not as if opponents of gay rights don't constantly bring up bills in the legislature to undo all the slow gains of the past couple decades.

i actually agree with carl on gay rights.

but he seems to be a bit of a one trick pony

I agree with him as well, but I wish he would spend more time schmoozing with the leadership. Ciampa might have been a jackass, but he was close to Finneran and got a lot of money for the town. Carl has a sort of above it all approach, which is actually one reason I suspect Trane might be an improvement, at least in that respect.

Carl has emphasized constitutent services. His work is one reason the Green Line got into the budget, finally.

Yeah but Medford got screwed in the last round of local aid revisions. I guess I am looking at it from a Medford townie perspective, but thats the point. You make the mistake of electing someone from Somerville in district and they think the entire district is Somerville.