Really? In spite of all those MA bumper stickers I saw in '88 -- "Elect Dukakis (get him outof Massachusetts!)"? LOL
I'm in Boston, and I'm not really up on the suburbs, but my impression from Howie Carr is that that district was weirdly gerrymandered (Eldridge's spirit lives on in his home state!) to give McQ the best chance possible; in fact, a couple of callers from affected towns were confused about whether their part of the town was in that district. One would think a normal district would include whole towns to reduce confusion. But Dems love confusion -- that's why historically our referendum questions (MassPIRG funding being the poster child) are so confusing that lots of voters vote against what they want.
There must be conservatives here or WRKO wouldn't have continued over 10 years with Rush noon to 3:00 and Howie Carr 3:00-7:00. In fact, last year, after some floundering, they now have a local conservative on 9:00 a.m. to noon. The Dems, though, have had a stranglehold on the election process (see referendum questions above).