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Last night in Boston, President Obama faced a half-empty hotel ballroom at a fundraiser for his pal, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, who is unpopular and facing a difficult re-election campaign. Instead of confidence, he actually expressed doubt: "There really should be no doubt that this guy gets a second term. But let's be honest. This is going to be a tough race ... " Jules Crittenden has a hilarious blog post on the dismal portents for Obama and Patrick, titled "Maybe we can't," delving into the event and the press reaction. A sample: Boston Globe helpfully plays down and buries five long graphs...

BOSTON – President Barack Obama lent his popularity and cash-raising abilities to embattled fellow Democrats on Friday, defending White House allies whose losses would be an embarrassment for the president. Obama began a day of politicking with a quick "official" event at Cambridge's Massachusetts Institute of Technology to challenge the nation to lead the global economy in clean energy. But even as he stood in front of the seal of the presidency, Obama didn't forget politics. He praised Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick's "leadership and vision," saying he has endeavored to make his state "a clean energy leader" — remarks sure...

Richmond, Mass. (AP) - Gov. Deval Patrick said Friday that President Barack Obama had personally talked to him about changing the Senate succession law in Massachusetts, and White House aides were pushing for him to gain the power to temporarily replace the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy amid the administration's health care push. A month after a White House spokesman labeled the issue a state matter, Patrick said he and Obama spoke about changing the law as they both attended Kennedy's funeral in Boston last month. He also said White House aides have been in contact frequently ever since and...

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, chosen by the legislature thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. ~Article I, Section 3 of the United States Constitution ~ Through the chance of history and some political maneuvering, the fate of ObamaCare could fall upon the decision of a single man who has never been elected to national office. If the circumstances weren't so serious it would be a comedy of errors that leads us to where we are today. On Monday, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick announced that on...

More grim news for Obama from the Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll. The Net Approval (strongly approve minus strongly disapprove) index is minus 11. Overall, only 46% of the likely voters polled strongly or somewhat approve of Obama. AT political director Richard Baehr calls the chart below a "shockingly fast decline. It suggests this guy got elected because the stars were aligned, that plus 3/4 of a billion dollars and billions in free positive media coverage." News editor Ed Lasky passes along this article by Jim McTague of Barrons, noting the damage that liberal Massachusetts is about the inflict on...

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick announced Monday that the special election to fill the Sen. Edward Kennedy's seat will be held in January, but said he wants to make an interim appointment before then. Patrick set the general election for Jan. 19. A source close to the proceeding said the primary will be held Dec. 8. Under state law, the election must be 145 to 160 days after a vacancy. But Patrick said he will also push to change state law so that he can name an interim senator in the run-up to the election. Lawmakers have scheduled a public hearing...

As speculation swirls about which politicians will vie for the first open Massachusetts Senate seat in 25 years, the process of determining a successor for the late Sen. Edward Kennedy will hinge on the actions of the state Legislature. Current law provides for a special election to fill an open seat five months after a vacancy, a provision enacted by Democrats in 2004 during the presidential election, when Sen. John Kerry was running for president. The law would have prevented then-Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, from appointing a successor to the seat. Just days before his death, Kennedy sent a...

President Obama's aides were so furious that Gov. Paterson dragged him into a rant about racism that they sent a message sharply criticizing the governor's comments just hours after he made them, The Post has learned. Aides to Obama were angered by Paterson's tirade on liberal talk-radio station WWRL on Friday, sources said. Paterson blamed his political woes on racially slanted coverage and predicted the president would be the next "victim" of biased media. Obama's team delivered a pointed message to Paterson within hours of the morning broadcast, multiple sources said. It came in a call from White House political...

For sufferers of pancreatic cancer there is often little hope. With 7,600 diagnoses each year - three per cent of all cancer cases - it is the UK's fifth most common cause of cancer death. Prognosis is usually poor: only about 13 per cent survive longer than a year after diagnosis, and only three per cent beyond five years. When Dirty Dancing star Patrick Swayze was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in early 2008, many predicted he would not survive 12 months. Shocking pictures taken in April showed the former Hollywood heart-throb looking frail and gaunt, prompting fears he was dying....

Governor Deval Patrick, fresh off signing a major tax increase and still battling through a historic budget crisis, has seen a huge drop in his standing among Massachusetts voters and faces a tough road to a second term, according to a new Boston Globe poll.

BOSTON – A crowd of hundreds of local Muslims inaugurated a large new mosque last week in Roxbury Crossing. The 68,000 sq foot Islamic Cultural Center in the heart of Boston, designed by Dr. Sami Angawi, and pioneered by board member Dr. Walid Fitaihi, Dr. Osama Kandeel and others, celebrated its inauguration with the historic attendance of the first Muslim in the United States Congress, Keith Ellison, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino. This new Islamic cultural center in America is tremendously significant as it resides 5 minutes from the heart of downtown Boston and less than...

Supporters say the white policeman who arrested renowned black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his home is a principled police officer and family man who is being unfairly described as racist. Friends and fellow officers — black and white — say Sgt. James Crowley, who was hand-picked by a black police commissioner to teach recruits about avoiding racial profiling, is calm and reliable.

Gov. Deval Patrick has only himself to blame for an embarrassing poll showing a narrow win for Republican rival Christy Mihos, opposing strategists and potential challengers charged yesterday. “Patrick right now is running against himself - and losing,” said political strategist and author Dick Morris, a former top adviser to President Clinton who is working for Mihos. “It shows there’s tremendous vulnerability.”

The consultant who helped Bill Clinton win the Arkansas governorship has joined the Christy Mihos campaign. Dick Morris, a Fox News contributor and veteran of several campaigns, including former Massachusetts governors Bill Weld and Ed King, will oversee strategy, polling and advertising for Mihos, the first announced Republican candidate to challenge Gov. Deval Patrick.

Squeezed between dismal poll numbers and Beacon Hill’s fiscal crisis, Gov. Deval Patrick is facing new speculation he might bolt the Corner Office for a seat on the nation’s highest bench. Aides to the governor scrambled to douse rumors that he is on the short list to replace Supreme Court Justice David Souter, but Patrick did not shut the door. “I’m 120 percent focused on doing this job right now, and we’ve got a lot to do, and I’m going to stay focused on that,” he said. Asked if his commitment to his current job carried through next fall, when...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Danica Patrick's season got off to a tough start after she crashed out early in the season-opening Honda Grand Prix. She was running ninth in the 22-car field on Sunday when rookie Raphael Matos tried to pass as the two went into one of the tightest turns on the 1.8-mile, 14-turn temporary street circuit.

Gov. Deval Patrick has stashed four staffers in big-bucks jobs at several of the quasi-public agencies he is now vowing to reform - including one post worth a jaw-dropping $190,000 a year, the Herald has learned. Patrick ordered up a probe of salaries at quasi-public agencies last week as taxpayer outrage peaked over his tapping of Sen. Marian Walsh for a long-vacant $175,000-a-year post with the Massachusetts Health and Educational Facilities Authority. But four Patrick administration staffers have landed at quasi-public agencies:

THE SPECIAL COMMISSION on Pension Reform, which convened for the first time yesterday - specified under Massachusetts law - comprises nine public employees, one retired public employee, three officials from the public-employee retirement systems, and two economists from private universities. By my reckoning, that makes 13 commission members from the public sector and two from the private sector, which calls to mind the old jape about democracy being two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. It's an amusing quip, assuming you're not a sheep. The special commission is only the latest group to cast a...

Contradicting a series of steadfast denials, internal e-mails show that Governor Deval Patrick's top aides controlled the appointment of state Senator Marian Walsh to a high-paying job at a state authority, from setting her salary to crafting her job description. They also provided the agency's talking points for the news media in an attempt to quell a public uproar. "I'm going to send you a proposed job description from [Patrick chief of staff Doug Rubin] soon," Patrick senior adviser Jay Gonzalez told the two top officials at the Massachusetts Health and Education Facilities Authority in a March 11 e-mail.

Seeking to quell the “tsunami” of outrage over her plum post, state Sen. Marian Walsh (D-West Roxbury) said today she won’t take a $120,000-a-year position that had been vacant for 12 years. “I feel I have become the issue,” an emotional Walsh said in a hastily called press conference outside Gov. Deval Patrick’s office. “This is my decision. I think it’s best and I still think I can be helpful.” Patrick, while calling Walsh highly capable, said he wished he handled the appointment differently, adding he is relieved by her decision.

The campaign tactic of labeling any and all opposition to Barack Obama as "hate" has now come full circle. The Democrat Party has, from it's very origins, used black people. Before as physical property, and now as their political property. As they believe they own the black vote, they use that vote to their advantage, and have perfected their latest political strategy. In 2006 Massachusetts elected Deval Patrick her first black governor. His campaign guru was none other than David Axerod. The Chicago pair came into The Bay State with a campaign labeled, "Together We Can". Aside from working in...

Contradicting a series of steadfast denials, internal e-mails show that Governor Deval Patrick's top aides controlled the appointment of state Senator Marian Walsh to a high-paying job at a state authority, from setting her salary to crafting her job description. They also provided the agency's talking points for the news media in an attempt to quell a public uproar. "I'm going to send you a proposed job description from [Patrick chief of staff Doug Rubin] soon," Patrick senior adviser Jay Gonzalez told the two top officials at the Massachusetts Health and Education Facilities Authority in a March 11 e-mail. As...

There’s a good reason to be a little disturbed by the results of a recent 7News/Suffolk University poll concerning Massachusetts politics. According to the poll, 35 percent of Bay State voters do not know that Tim Murray is the state’s lieutenant governor. Also, 34 percent are unfamiliar with Chris Gabrieli (despite the fact that he ran for Governor in 2006, Lieutenant Governor in 2002 and Congress in 1998), 30 percent are unfamiliar with State Auditor Joseph DeNucci, 23 percent have no knowledge of Secretary of State Bill Galvin or State Treasurer Tim Cahill, 33 percent are unfamiliar with 2006 gubernatorial...

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is taking a beating politically as the state’s economy sags and the media reports about patronage hirings on Beacon Hill. Some 47 percent said someone else deserves to be elected next year, and 51 percent said Massachusetts is headed on the wrong track. A potential head-to-head matchup shows Patrick losing to Treasurer Timothy Cahill ...

Gov. Deval Patrick’s ratings appear to have taken a serious nosedive following months of tax hike announcements, but one politico said the new SurveyUSA poll might not be reliable. Roughly 68 percent of the 600 people questioned in the poll say they are dissatisfied with Patrick’s job as governor. That’s up 21 points from a poll in January. “I think the poll vastly exaggerates the level of dissatisfaction with Gov. Patrick,” said Tufts political professor Jeff Berry. “SurveyUSA polls are very primitive and you’d have to do a lot more searching questions to really accurately access the level of support.”...

Patrick, Frank tour blighted New Bedford neighborhoodOfficials launch new program to rehab foreclosed homes By Steve Urbon March 16, 2009 1:07 PM NEW BEDFORD — A statewide response to part of the national; housing crisis was unveiled late this morning in a blighted neighborhood in the near North End by U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., Gov. Deval Patrick and Mayor Scott Lang. Accompanied by the city’s state legislators, the three took a 45-minute tour of the area of Beetle, Tallman and North Front streets, eyeing abandoned or foreclosed property as city officials detailed the difficulties involved in turning the situation...

Governor Deval Patrick has awarded one of his earliest political supporters, State Senator Marian Walsh, a $175,000 job as an assistant director at a state bonding authority, despite declaring in the past that he would not honor patronage appointment requests from lawmakers.

Patrick weighs 27 cent gas tax hike BOSTON -- Gov. Deval Patrick is considering asking the Legislature to raise the Massachusetts gasoline tax by 27 cents per gallon as part of a comprehensive package aimed at solving lingering state transportation problems, The Associated Press learned Monday. Such an increase would stave off a doubling of Massachusetts Turnpike tolls planned for this spring, and finance a wholesale change in the way state runs its transporation system, but leave it with the highest gasoline tax in the nation at 50.5 cents. And the plan calls for increasing that tax annually, based on...

I'm Battling Cancer. How About Some Help, Congress?By Patrick Swayze Sunday, February 8, 2009; Page B04 For me, fighting cancer is personal. Ever since I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in January 2008, I've been waging an intense, often hellacious battle. It's me (with a lot of love and medical support) against my disease. **SNIP** Our individual battles should also be national ones. With Congress about to decide how much money to include for medical research as part of the economic stimulus package, the time has come to take my personal fight to a larger stage. My message to our...

Are the rumors true? Is there really a Massachusetts governor on the short list to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services? The Washington Post’s political blogger Chris Cillizza says Deval Patrick could be the next head of HHS. If so, my suggestion is that President Barack Obama is on the right track, but he’s one governor off. Pick Mitt Romney instead. I will admit that I am operating under the belief - or perhaps it’s a delusion - that Obama actually wants to reform America’s health-care system in some meaningful way. Maybe I’m naive, maybe Obama is...

<p>Racecar driver Danica Patrick was pulled over for speeding earlier this month in north Scottsdale.</p> <p>The popular Indy car racer was pulled over Dec. 9 in a gold 2007 Mercedes near 14700 N. 100th St. for going 54 mph in a 35 mph zone, police said.</p>

Angry police union members chased away MWRA workers in Everett and Revere today citing safety concerns in the first test of the state’s new rules on road details. In Everett, union members and reporters and cameramen surrounded a two-person crew from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority that showed up to perform routine maintenance inside a manhole at 11:30 a.m. After several conversations with union members, the MWRA crew left without doing any work. (continued)

Danica Patrick Fight Video With Buxom Milka Duno: Practice at Honda Indy 200 By Jon Shanks Jul 21, 2008 Danica Patrick is at it again. The spicy Indy race car driver usually makes more noise off the track with her racy photos for maxim or her Go Daddy commercials with gals like Candice Michelle. She now has a cat fight to add to her resume, this one with the busty Milka Duno, a fellow female race car driver that turns heads off the track as well.

Lexington, Ohio — Danica Patrick finished 12th in the Honda Indy 200 IRL race Sunday, a day after a confrontation with the other female driver in the race. Patrick felt Milka Duno cut her off and got in her way several times during Saturday's practice and approached her in the pit area. Video showed Duno twice throw a white towel in Patrick's face. Patrick was also shown repeatedly telling Duno, "I just want to talk to you about it!" only to have Duno repeatedly tell her to "go away". Eventually, Patrick walked away from the area. Patrick, who has previously...

Despite a slumping economy and looming budget crunch, Gov. Deval Patrick has hiked his office budget by an astonishing 80 percent, adding questionable new staff positions like “director of grassroots governance” and pumping millions into an extravagant “civic engagement” program. “We know the governor had a goal of creating 100,000 new jobs in his first term, we just didn’t know he was going to create them all in the Corner Office,” said Sen. Michael Knapik (R-Westfield). Added State Sen. Scott Brown (R-Wrentham): “People in my district are asking, ‘What is this guy doing?’ They get 1 to 2 percent increases...

Governor Deval Patrick has decided against taking action to allow illegal immigrants to pay resident tuition and fees at state colleges and universities this fall, an administration official said yesterday, crushing advocates who were counting on the governor to deliver on a pledge to support the students. Earlier this year, Patrick said he was considering ways to offer illegal immigrants in-state rates, such as issuing a regulation, adding that it would be "the right thing to do." The governor declined to comment yesterday, but an administration source who spoke on condition of anonymity said Patrick decided that there were "significant...

Danica Patrick used a fuel gamble to take a historic victory in the delayed Motegi round of the IRL IndyCar Series. The Andretti Green Racing driver took the lead with just two laps to go as the rest of the front-runners had to pit for fuel and became the first woman to win a major American open-wheel race. Patrick had run towards the foot of the top ten for most of the race, as Ganassi's Scott Dixon and Penske's Helio Castroneves dominated the event. But AGR's decision to bring Patrick in for an additional fuel top-up at the end of...

Governor Deval Patrick isn't merely penning his memoirs. The book proposal he submitted to publishers reads like the roadmap for a self-help manual, one in which he will celebrate optimism, rail against cynicism, and seek to inspire a nation with his own life story. The 65-page pitch letter that led to his $1.35 million advance last week from a Random House imprint reveals, in its overflowing optimism and aggressive marketing plan, just how high the freshman governor is aiming when the book is published in 2010. It details a strategy to sell at least 150,000 copies through a "vigorous media...

NYT THURSDAY: New Massachusetts Governor 'On The Ropes'... Developing...

Apostle of Ireland, born at Kilpatrick, near Dumbarton, in Scotland, in the year 387; died at Saul, Downpatrick, Ireland, 17 March, 493. [Some sources say 460 or 461. --Ed.] He had for his parents Calphurnius and Conchessa. The former belonged to a Roman family of high rank and held the office of decurio in Gaul or Britain. Conchessa was a near relative of the great patron of Gaul, St. Martin of Tours. Kilpatrick still retains many memorials of Saint Patrick, and frequent pilgrimages continued far into the Middle Ages to perpetuate there the fame of his sanctity and miracles.

The charismatic, brilliant, inspiring black politician came to the stage to address the latest attack from his white female opponent. "Her dismissive point, and I hear it a lot from her staff, is all I have to offer is words," he said. "Just words. "'We holds these truths to be self-evident,'" he continued as the crowd began to cheer and applaud, "'that all men are created equal' -- just words. Just words." The applause increased. "'We have nothing to fear but fear itself,'" the pol said. "Just words. 'Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you...

BOSTON — Gov. Deval Patrick is releasing a state budget Wednesday amidst the gloomiest financial outlook Massachusetts government has seen since deep budget cuts earlier this decade. Even so, there are early indications that Gov. Patrick will pursue an aggressive agenda as he begins his second year in office. He has already revealed the budget will include a $368 million increase for public education and an 8.3 percent increase in beaches and parks funding, to $100 million. How he proposes to increase spending in targeted areas, while closing a potential $1.3 billion shortfall and dealing with a slowing economy, will...

There are plenty of stakeholders with plans riding on Gov. Deval Patrick's proposed $1 billion state investment in life sciences -- from the people for whom life-saving innovation is being developed to the scientists, educators, entrepreneurs and businesses depending on state support to thrive and commercialize. Yet for all of the political wrangling, public discussion and media attention since Patrick introduced the bill in May, the bill has yet to move through the state Legislature, receive funding or prompt state officials to name a new executive director to the agency slated to manage the bulk of funding associated with the...

From about 1989 to 1992 we pretty much figured that we had it made. The Iron Curtain fell, peace was breaking out all over. Francis Fukiyama rather unilaterally claimed victory for Liberal Democracy in his instant classic The End of History and the Last Man. His primary thesis went as follows. "What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the...

Governor Deval Patrick plans to propose as early as tomorrow that the state sell licenses for three full-scale resort casinos in Massachusetts, citing their potential to spur economic growth, create jobs, and generate new government revenue, according to State House officials who have been briefed on his plan. Patrick will recommend that the casinos be licensed in three regions: Southeastern Massachusetts, Western Massachusetts, and an area that includes Boston and points north, the officials said... All three licenses would be put up for competitive bid, in a process that is expected to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in immediate...

If only Osama bin Laden had been hugged more as a child. If only the 19 wild-eyed jihadists who hijacked our airplanes and murdered 3,000 of our brothers and sisters six years ago had some kind of “human understanding” of the people they set out to systematically torture and kill. Then, Gov. Deval Patrick, would we all be sitting around together sipping tea? We’d like to believe that a few of Patrick’s lines at yesterday’s 9/11 memorial ceremony at the State House were the product of first-time jitters, or perhaps a truly clueless speechwriter. Unfortunately, the governor’s fuzzy recollection of...

Gov. Deval Patrick’s vast expansion of a program allowing state workers to take up to a dozen taxpayer-funded days off per year to volunteer has critics raising questions about oversight, administrative costs and potential conflicts. Under the program, 50,000 state workers can get paid one day per month to volunteer at senior centers, hospitals or non-profits, serve on committees or chaperone school field trips. But some pols say the perk is ripe for abuse and will lead to costly red tape. “Essentially we’re paying people to do this volunteer effort on the taxpayer dime,” said House GOP leader Rep. Bradley...

Governor Deval Patrick plans to unveil a proposal today to make Massachusetts' community colleges, among the priciest in the nation, free to all high school graduates in the state by the year 2015, according to documents obtained by the Globe. The proposal is the centerpiece of Patrick's vision for a "cradle to career" education system that would dramatically expand the concept of public education in Massachusetts. The plan, which he will outline during commencement at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, would also provide preschool for all children, extend the school day and year, and guarantee two years of community...

When it comes to being sexy, Victoria’s Secret writes the book, or at least takes the pictures for the book. So now, to go along with their book they have published their list of “what’s sexy. “ Monica Mitro, a spokeswoman for the intimate apparel company, says it’s not just how a person looks that creates sex appeal, USA Today reported on Thursday. “(Sexy) is about how you are as a person, “ Mitro said. The sexiest female athlete is Indy Racing League’s Danica Patrick. The speedy brunette has turned a lot of heads both on and off the track...

BOSTON -- Setting the stage for a new fight over the rights of illegal immigrants in Massachusetts, the state Board of Higher Education looked at whether illegal immigrant students should be entitled to in-state tuition rates if they go to a state university. NewsCenter 5's Amalia Barreda reported that the Massachusetts Taxpayers Association said between 400 and 600 illegal immigrants would go on to higher learning if the Legislature approved a bill making them eligible for in-state tuition at state schools. The issue was on the agenda at Thursday morning's meeting of the Board of Higher Education, which has supported...