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BOSTON — Gov. Deval Patrick canceled a speech in Plymouth on Thursday after learning that union members, mostly off-duty police officers, were preparing to greet him with a picket line. About 250 people from the South Shore and elsewhere in the state were waiting outside the Radisson Conference Center, said Jim Barry, spokesman for the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association. Patrick was set to speak at an annual AFL-CIO conference. Before his arrival, the labor group’s executive committee voted to join the police officers outside, Barry said, so Patrick would have encountered not just a picket line, but also an empty...

The Massachusetts secretary of state has delivered certified election results attesting to Scott Brown's U.S. Senate victory, moving him toward his swearing-in. Gov. Deval Patrick is expected to sign the official certification form at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow, allowing Brown to be sworn in as scheduled on Feb. 11. Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray says Brown could be sworn in earlier if U.S. Senate officials agree. The later date gives Brown time to hire a staff and complete preparations for his new job.

My radio station in Boston has been non-stop on the Brown/Coakley race for weeks. Three of our hosts are pro-Brown, two pro-Coakley. We were broadcasting from our own victory rally tonight in Braintree, MA at the very moment Scott Brown got the concession call from Coakley. He joined us on the air almost immediate to share the good news. The crowd of several hundred, packed into a room designed for half their number, exploded. Having not been in Boston when they broke the Curse, I can only speculate, but it must have been a similar moment. The crowd wouldn't let...

Mass Democrats put Kennedy seat at risk themselvesBy Glen Johnson AP Political Writer / January 19, 2010 BOSTON - The special election that risked President Barack Obama's legislative agenda -- and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's dream of a health care overhaul -- would not have occurred if Kennedy and his fellow Democrats never tinkered with Massachusetts election law. In 2004, when Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts was the Democratic presidential nominee, Kennedy and others moved to block then-Gov. Mitt Romney from appointing a fellow Republican to fill the vacancy that would have occurred if Kerry beat the GOP incumbent, President...

While Martha Coakley’s campaign teeters on the brink of becoming the biggest political implosion since that of her predecessor, Tom Reilly, there’s another Bay State Democrat who’s watching the Scott Brown freight train in a state of terror: Gov. Deval Patrick. Patrick insiders say the governor’s campaign people are horrified by Brown’s surge, considering that Patrick is facing a candidate eerily similar to Brown in Republican health-care honcho Charlie Baker, not to mention a well-funded moderate Democrat in independent candidate Treasurer Tim Cahill.

Independent voters have deserted Gov. Deval Patrick, an ominous sign in the first-term incumbent’s quest for re-election this year, according to a new Suffolk University/7News poll. “There’s a void, similar to the void that was filled with Scott Brown, that appears to be opening up with independents in this poll,” said David Paleologos, director of Suffolk University’s Political Research Center. “That certainly leaves the door open for (state Treasurer) Tim Cahill or (GOP candidate) Charlie Baker, given that the independents are fed up with (Patrick.)”

The following post claims that Sgt. Jim Crowley of the Cambridge Police was invited to speak at Randolph Police Academy's graduation but when Governor Deval got wind of the speaking engagement, the invention was rescinded.

Howie thread for the week starting with his Sunday Herald column

Deval Patrick is the canary in the coal mine for Barack Obama in 2012. And Martha Coakley is Deval’s canary. And if I were Deval, right about now I’d be looking for the phone number of Herald veterinarian Dr. John de Jong. The closer Scott Brown comes to winning the special Senate election next week, the worse it is for Deval’s already-dim prospects for re-election. I mean, Martha has but a supporting role in what state Sen. Scott Brown calls “the machine.” As attorney general, Martha is the official custodian of the state broom. Whenever a hack gets in a...

Red Mass Group is reporting that according to the State House News Service, Senator Paul Kirk (D, MA) would continue to serve in the United States Senate in order to insure that he was present to cast the 60th vote for cloture for the Health Care Reform bill in spite of a possible election victory by Republican Scott Brown.

Jennings and the Massachusetts Department of Education knew beforehand what the "sexuality educators" would discuss with children at the "****ing" workshop. The instructor Margot Abels said so herself, and was disappointed when she later became their scapegoat. Jennings, after all, worked hand in hand with the Mass. Department of Education from the beginning, as co-chair of the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth education committee, which set up the statewide program, "Safe Schools for Gay and Lesbian Students" in the DOE. That is the program the ****ing workshop instructors worked for.

Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts refused to appear at the Clover Club, an Irish American group of businessmen and community leaders in Boston over the weekend because it is a men-only club. Deval was dead wrong. I hope he will similarly cancel visits to the National Organization of Women for the same reason.

Governor Deval Patrick canceled at the last minute a speech he was scheduled to give before a little-known but prestigious men’s group, saying the invitation was accepted before he knew of its policy toward women. Patrick withdrew from the speech before the 126-year-old Clover Club about two hours before a dinner was scheduled to begin at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel on Saturday, according to event organizers.

President Obama blows into the bluest state tomorrow facing a cold shoulder from once true-blue admirers, as gay rights activists, anti-war protesters and vexed environmentalists vow to picket a fund-raiser he’s headlining for Gov. Deval Patrick - a marquee event that hasn’t even sold out. As of last night, liberals who once braved frigid temperatures to behold Obama were shunning tickets to the fund-raiser at the posh Westin Copley Place featuring the president, sources told the Herald. And despite campaign denials, Patrick operatives reportedly were pushing the ducats - between $500 and $6,000 - by e-mail up to the last...

Teddymandering is the practice of changing a law to benefit your political party, then reversing the change when your political party will benefit from the original rules to which you objected. Named for former Massachusetts Senator Edward M. "Teddy" Kennedy. Senator Kennedy influenced the Massachusetts state legislature to change the Senatorial succession law during the 2004 election. His reasons were strictly because Senator John Kerry, if elected President, would be replaced by an appointee of (then) Governor Mitt Romney, a Republican. At the time, Kennedy was against any interim appointment until a special election could be held. In 2009, as...

Former Democratic Party chairman Paul G. Kirk Jr. has taken over for the late Edward Kennedy in the Senate. Vice President Joe Biden swore in Kirk on Friday hours after a Massachusetts judge rejected a Republican request to delay it. The GOP had argued that Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick exceeded his constitutional authority by appointing Kirk before a traditional 90-day legislative waiting period had expired. State lawmakers passed a bill this week giving Patrick the power to choose an interim senator. Kirk gives Senate Democrats a filibuster-proof, 60-vote majority with the health care fight at a critical point.

A Suffolk Superior Court judge today denied a motion by state Republicans to delay Gov. Deval Patrick’s appointment of an interim senator by 90 days. Judge Thomas Connolly this afternoon cleared the way for Paul G. Kirk Jr. to be sworn in as an interim U.S. senator today at 3:15 p.m. in Washington, D.C. Developing ...

A Suffolk Superior Court judge will decide by noon on a Republican Party appeal for an emergency injunction to block the appointment of Kennedy family confidant Paul G. Kirk Jr. as interim U.S. senator. The state GOP contends Gov. Deval Patrick overstepped his authority by attaching an emergency preamble to the Senate vacancy law signed yesterday so the legislation would be enacted immediately. The usual waiting period for enactment is 90 days.

A Suffolk Superior Court judge today denied a motion by state Republicans to delay Gov. Deval Patrick’s appointment of an interim senator by 90 days. Judge Thomas Connolly this afternoon cleared the way for Paul G. Kirk Jr. to be sworn in as an interim U.S. senator today at 3:15 p.m. in Washington, D.C. Developing ...

[Judge Napolitano speaking]: "Both houses of the legislature have enacted this law, and once Governor Deval Patrick signs it, and he says that he will, it will become the law, and it will allow him to declare an emergency, and once he declares an emergency, he can authorize non-health care personnel, read that to mean police, to vaccinate people against their will. Now can they force adults to take vaccination? No. They will incarcerate adults without a trial, without charges, without even a search warrant who refuse to be vaccinated; this is what the statute authorizes. The staute also authorizes...