Voters Amnesia Strikes Again by Howie Carr
today's Herald
As Nicaragua goes, so goes Massachusetts.
After 16 years out of power, the Sandinistas are back, in Boston as well as Managua. For the voters, it was a triumph of hope over experience, or maybe they just don’t remember that wacky “Massachusetts Miracle.”
Let’s hope things work out better this time around. Already you hear the jokes. You think real estate is in the dumper now? Wait until you see next year’s “Deval-uation.”
And how long until the first bumper sticker appears: “Don’t Blame Me - I Voted for Muffy.”
And still no answer to the recurring question - Together we can what?
But we can see the outlines of some of what is going to happen.
Three things that you can now count on going away: a chance to vote on gay “marriage,” Prop 2 and MCAS, at least in their present, meaningful forms.
Three things that won’t be going away: the income-tax surcharge, the Turnpike toll-takers and Bunker Hill Day.
The only Massachusetts Republican who’s happy this morning is Sen. Scott Brown, and that’s just because Kerry Healey didn’t pick him as her running mate.
The lieutenant governor never had a chance. This state just seems to have a problem about electing women as governor. Look at Jane Swift, and Shannon O’Brien. It’s something Martha Coakley will have to ponder some day.
And then there was Mitt Romney. Wasn’t that nice of him to show up last night and take a few bows? Kerry’s served with “very little limelight,” Mitt said, without a trace of irony, as if it wasn’t his fault. What was Mitt even doing there? As Fat Tony Ciulla used to say, you never showed up at my wedding, why would you come to my funeral?
Do you think Darrell Crate will still be working at Sean Healey’s company next year? Mr. Muffy said it was a “fun haul,” but when you’ve just blown close to $11 million, what else can you say?
All in all, it wasn’t much of a year for the filthy rich. Maybe we need a new self-help group, Millionaires Anonymous, for filthy-rich bust-out pols who have hit rock bottom. One dinner for a convention delegate is too many, and a $5 million TV buy is not enough.
“Hi, my name is Kerry . . . my name is Christy . . . my name is Chris . . . my name is Deb.”
Speaking of Christy Mihos, he spent $4 million to go from 20 percent in the polls to 6 percent. He’s just lucky it was a blow-out. If he’d cost Healey the election, Christy would have been well-advised not to return from his upcoming Florida vacation.
As for Deval Patrick, he said last week there are no quid pro quos. Which will come as a big surprise to all the unions who funneled those millions to pay for his stealth attack ads against Healey.
First Deval will have to take care of the teachers, and deep-sixing charter schools is only a beginning. Tomorrow it’ll be the gay-marriage amendment on the chopping block, and later MCAS.
It’ll never get any better than this for Deval. More of the House moonbats follow him than Speaker Sal DiMasi. The next Senate president, Therese Murray, makes Jane Swift look like Miss Congeniality. Deval owns the State House - you might say he broke it, he bought it. But this is a guy who’s a lot like Romney, who never sticks around long.
Let’s see if he likes the State House any more than Mitt did.
But there is a silver lining to this dark cloud of a campaign - namely the fate of John Kerry.
“I thank my friend John Kerry,” Ted Kennedy said. “He’s my friend.”
And after Ted Kennedy’s friend’s “botched joke” last week, finally, at least a few of the moonbats are starting to peel the ancient Kerry-Edwards bumper stickers off their Volvos.
Maybe there is a God.
from Jeff Jacoby's column in today's Globe
...there was a reason Democrats couldn't get elected governor of the bluest state in the land for the last 16 years. Two words: Michael Dukakis.
The last time Massachusetts was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party, the state's economy imploded. Just three years after Dukakis had run for president as the architect of a "Massachusetts miracle," the Bay State was on the verge of fiscal collapse. As revenues slowed to a trickle, red ink drenched Beacon Hill. Taxes and fees were jacked up, and then jacked up again. And still Beacon Hill couldn't balance its books. The state began floating bonds to cover operating expenses. By the time Dukakis departed, Massachusetts's bond rating was the lowest of any state, just one step above "non-investment grade" junk level.
When Democrats last controlled the Massachusetts House, Senate, and governor's office, scandals proliferated. Republicans who spoke out against the one-party mismanagement were derided by those in power. On one memorable occasion -- his State of the State Address of 1989 -- Dukakis slammed those who criticized his record and called for reform as "gutless wonders."
One-party rule, Massachusetts voters discovered, was a disaster. And having been scorched so badly the last time they tried it, they didn't try it again for 16 years.
Now they are ready to try again. Perhaps that is because so many of them find Patrick so appealing. Perhaps it is because Kerry Healey did such an ineffective job of reminding them what the absence of checks and balances can lead to. Perhaps it is because after four terms of Republican governors, voters are simply tired of the GOP. Probably all three.