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Howie column ping

Mass. voters to thrill Hill on Moonbat Tues.
By Howie Carr | Sunday, January 27, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com

Hillary Clinton is no Tom Reilly. Can we all agree on that?

Which means the Democratic primary here on Super Tuesday (Feb. 5) is not going to be a replay of the state’s 2006 gubernatorial primary.

Deval Patrick came out of nowhere - well, actually, out of Texaco and Coke and assorted other corporate outposts where he stopped just long enough to pick up a hefty chunk of severance or whatever you want to call it.

Deval, a blank slate, crushed a tired, hapless white hack named Tom Reilly.

Some obvious similarities exist between Deval and Barack Obama. They’re both black, from Chicago, have very little experience, went to Harvard Law School and attract devoted followings of rich, middle-aged, guilt-ridden Baby Boomers.

Of course, in 2006 Reilly was such a complete bust as a candidate (not to mention prosecutor) that a third person jumped into the fight. Can we also stipulate that John Edwards is no Chris Gabrieli? Edwards doesn’t have nearly as much money.

One-on-one, Hillary should win Massachusetts going away. Hillary owns the hacks, after all, plus she has her own smaller cadre of moonbats. All Obama has is what you might call the full-moonbats, the shock troops of Political Correctness.

Generally speaking, the Hillary voter is older, wealthier and more female. Obama’s core is younger, more transient. And as House Speaker Sal DiMasi might say, they don’t learn from their mistakes.

Where will Obama do well? Moving east, he’ll take Berkshire County and Happy Valley naturally. He sweeps Amherst, Northampton and the other college towns, although the wild card there is whether those wacky kids will still be too hung over after the Super Bowl victory parties to get out of bed (or jail) on Super Tuesday.

Obama figures to carry all the suburban towns that tend to vote Republican in the general elections but go very liberal in the Democrat primaries. Bolton comes to mind. And all the lily-white burgs where Niki Tsongas and Jim Marzilli did well in their recent underwhelming special election victories. Obama will also do well in towns where Salvation Army bell-ringers get hassled at Christmas. Think Andover. Obama takes the ACLU vote by almost as large a margin as he carries the trust-fund crowd.

On the other hand, Hillary should sweep the areas where people actually work for a living. They’ll be weighing her votes on the South Shore (except for Deluxebury). The Cape should be a battleground. It’s conservative in November, but the Cape Democrat party is PC to the max, right down to their Priuses.

Hillary’s numbers here could also depend somewhat on the state of the GOP campaign after Florida. Mitt Romney is the favorite son, sort of, but he also left behind a lot of enemies in the wake of his one lackluster term as governor. If Mitt appears to be on the ropes post-Florida, a chance to deliver the coup de grace might draw out the independent remnants of, say, the old Bulger machine in South Boston and the Fat Matt Amorello crowd in Worcester.

We’re talking small numbers here, but they are 100 percent hacks, which means that otherwise they would probably break heavily for Hillary.

And then there’s Mumbles Menino. He, of course, is with Hillary. She’s the institutional choice, like Reilly was in 2006. She’s waited her turn, again like Reilly, and Mumbles, for that matter. Unfortunately for Mumbles, Hillary will probably lose the city, just as Reilly did. Sure, she’ll have her pockets - think Southie, Savin Hill, West Roxbury, Brighton. Ward 11 should be instructive - the lesbians presumably break for Obama, while Hillary takes the Hispanic vote.

My prediction: Hillary wins Massachusetts, 52-40.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1069235