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MA Politics: Tea Party vs. Cahill
May. 27th, 2010 10:38 amSomething relatively fascinating (the way a worm can be fascinating) is going on here in Massachusetts in our governor's race:
Now, Cahill is "independent" only because his own Democrat backers wouldn't give him the party nod; they'd rather support the current governor, even tho the economy, state budget, health care administration, etc. are pretty darned crappy. Cahill, currently the State Treasurer, felt that he had a solid chance with the governor in such a stew.
Before I continue, I should point out something weird about Massachusetts: despite being just about the bluest of the Blue States, for 16 years we had Republican governors. This started in 1990, right after flaring incompetent governor Michael Dukakis's various shell-games to make the state look good during his 1988 presidential run collapsed, downgrading the state's bond ratings to "junk bond" level (around grade C, IIRC). Bill Weld won that race for the GOP based on two things:
So for four successive gubernatorial elections, profoundly Democrat Massachusetts voters deliberately voted for gridlock. Our economy improved, state spending skyrocketed within revenues, and the road was paved for Mitt Romney to use the Corner Office as a springboard for his own presidential hopes, ham-stringing the state while Bush's administration bollixed the economy.
Now enter Deval Patrick, Democrat. In a dress rehearsal for the 2008 presidential election, an intelligent African-American showed up with a platform of hope and an incompetent opponent. He took office after a substantial win in the 2006 election, stumbled out of the gate, inherited an economic mess from his predecessor, and had Tim Cahill as Treasurer, who managed to screw the state employees' pension fund, turn the lottery (which is a huge revenue source in this state) into a corruption-filled screw-up, and build an army of sycophants for his own run for the governorship.
The Republican, Charlie Baker, is thus far a non-entity, but so was Senator Scott Brown until the final push.
Now here's what's fascinating: the Tea Party (or some money-wielding subset thereof) is flooding TV, radio, Facebook, and any other media that takes paid advertising with smears against...
...Tim Cahill.
<sits/>
All right. The Tea Party is currently not a coherent force; they know that they're mad as hell and aren't going to take "it" anymore, but they have a terribly hard time explaining just what "it" is. The media would have you believe that they're a bunch of reactionary troglodytes, and racist to boot, but in this case, they're aiming at the main candidate who actually is "part of the problem". And it isn't the current sitting governor.
Somebody in there has a modicum of intelligence, and is "putting their money where their mouth is".
In the Suffolk University/WHDH poll of registered voters, 42 percent say they'd vote for Patrick, 29 percent say they'd vote for Republican Charlie Baker, and 14 percent would vote for Independent Tim Cahill.
Now, Cahill is "independent" only because his own Democrat backers wouldn't give him the party nod; they'd rather support the current governor, even tho the economy, state budget, health care administration, etc. are pretty darned crappy. Cahill, currently the State Treasurer, felt that he had a solid chance with the governor in such a stew.
Before I continue, I should point out something weird about Massachusetts: despite being just about the bluest of the Blue States, for 16 years we had Republican governors. This started in 1990, right after flaring incompetent governor Michael Dukakis's various shell-games to make the state look good during his 1988 presidential run collapsed, downgrading the state's bond ratings to "junk bond" level (around grade C, IIRC). Bill Weld won that race for the GOP based on two things:
- He convinced voters that having a governor and the legislature from the same party had led to this mess; and
- His Democrat opponent, John Silber, was demonstrably insane.
So for four successive gubernatorial elections, profoundly Democrat Massachusetts voters deliberately voted for gridlock. Our economy improved, state spending skyrocketed within revenues, and the road was paved for Mitt Romney to use the Corner Office as a springboard for his own presidential hopes, ham-stringing the state while Bush's administration bollixed the economy.
Now enter Deval Patrick, Democrat. In a dress rehearsal for the 2008 presidential election, an intelligent African-American showed up with a platform of hope and an incompetent opponent. He took office after a substantial win in the 2006 election, stumbled out of the gate, inherited an economic mess from his predecessor, and had Tim Cahill as Treasurer, who managed to screw the state employees' pension fund, turn the lottery (which is a huge revenue source in this state) into a corruption-filled screw-up, and build an army of sycophants for his own run for the governorship.
The Republican, Charlie Baker, is thus far a non-entity, but so was Senator Scott Brown until the final push.
Now here's what's fascinating: the Tea Party (or some money-wielding subset thereof) is flooding TV, radio, Facebook, and any other media that takes paid advertising with smears against...
...Tim Cahill.
<sits/>
All right. The Tea Party is currently not a coherent force; they know that they're mad as hell and aren't going to take "it" anymore, but they have a terribly hard time explaining just what "it" is. The media would have you believe that they're a bunch of reactionary troglodytes, and racist to boot, but in this case, they're aiming at the main candidate who actually is "part of the problem". And it isn't the current sitting governor.
Somebody in there has a modicum of intelligence, and is "putting their money where their mouth is".
