Despite getting urged by many conservative supporters to run for Lieutenant Governor in a primary against Richard Tisei, it is becoming cleared by the day that Polito will make no such move and is considering a strong run for the position of Treasurer. A facebook group popped up today and its become quite apparent the the die has been cast.
So why should Polito run for Treasurer instead of LG? Let me count the ways! She's got a bright future and can hold her own as a state-wide candidate, she probably doesn't think much of Baker after he declined to take her seriously, Baker doesn't think much of her and would marginalize her role as LG, she couldn't be guaranteed a primary win with Baker strongly pulling for Tisei and in a party that seldom bucks the establishment ticket, and she doesn't want to wade into the chaos of a three way race that doesn't have a clear path to victory in a merely supporting cast role. If I'm her, its a no-brainer. That said, I desperately wish someone would run against Tisei and that some of our elected conservative Republicans would demonstrate a little leadership and at least decline to pathetically shill for Tisei who on most issues is to the left of Obama.
That said Karyn is a rockstar in the party and more than stands her own as a statewide candidate. A good fundraiser, an articulate speaker, and committed conservative, Polito deserves the strong support of any Republican out there. Check out her facebook page and show her some support! http://www.facebook.com/group....
The Reading School Committee just approved the budget for the upcoming fiscal year, up by $350,000 over last year even though a level-funded budget was called for. It will be incorporated into an overall town budget to be voted on at the end of April by Town Meeting Members. There are local elections taking place at the beginning of April for 8 representatives from all 8 precincts to Town Meeting. This is a chance to directly impact our property taxes more than Coupe Deval ever could because Town Meeting Members vote up or down on the budget. The more fiscal conservatives serving as Town Meeting Members the greater the chance of forcing the town manager, department heads and employees to get their spending house in order. No more automatic pay raises. No more lavish benefits packages for town employees. No more over-budgeting certain slush fund line items. No more coming back to the well (taxpayers) when other revenues dry up. Time to explore revenue streams other than the property owners like advertising at school fields and field naming rights fees, leasing town land for cell towers, leasing billboard space along Rt 93. One of our Republican Selectmen brought up these issues. He's running for re-election this year. So far unopposed. Local elections are important too.
While we all still feel a little like kids on Christmas morning after Scott Brown (R-MA)'s swearing in, we have a very serious issue confronting us that we need to stay focused on.
Namely, our state legislature is at risk of becoming even less transparent than it already is.
Right now, only 16 out of 160 State Reps are Republicans. Exactly the 10% needed to force a roll call vote based on House rules. As it is, we need everyone to be in attendance and not tied up in meetings, hearings, etc. when votes occur, just to force a roll call.
Here's where things get scary.
If NO new Republicans are elected to State Rep seats, we are in some serious trouble.
Bob Hargraves has already announced his retirement. So we've got 15 seats.
Lew Evangelidis is running for Worcester County Sheriff. Make that 14 seats.
Richard Ross is running for the seat vacated by Scott Brown. Make that 13 seats.
Jeff Perry is running for Congress. Now we're looking at 12 seats.
Karyn Polito may be considering a run for higher office as well, bringing us down to 11 seats.
And I may have missed someone else, but even if I didn't, we've got some serious challenges ahead of us. (More below...)
The Boston Herald is reporting that Karyn Polito is "seriously considering" a run for State Treasurer.
Republican State Rep. Karyn Polito is seriously considering running for state treasurer, potentially rounding out a fast-growing field of candidates for the open seat.
"There is a real need for fiscal conservatives," said Polito, 43, of Shrewsbury. "I haven't made any hard decisions, but I've been in the Legislature for 10 years and I feel I'd bring well-rounded experience."
Polito is finishing out her fifth term in the state legislature. Before serving in the legislature Polito was a member of the Shrewsbury Board of Selectmen and a member of the State Lottery Commission.
Well, that was fast. One day after Patrick Kennedy's tasteless remarks about fifty-year-old National Guardsman Sen. Scott Brown's election and he's got his own fifty-year-old National Guardsman to contend with, who just happens to have hired two of Browns top campaign strategists. From the Boston Herald:
The WPRI-12 poll showed the Rhode Island Democrat with a 56 percent unfavorability rating in his district - a negative that grows to 62 percent statewide.
Only 35 percent of voters in Kennedy’s district said they would vote to re-elect him. Another 31 percent said they’d consider a different candidate and 28 percent said they would vote to replace him, according to the poll.
WPRI-12 pollster Joe Fleming said, “This is the best-financed challenger he’s faced since the first time he ran, and his favorability numbers are way down. “Congressman Kennedy could have a very competitive race.”
Loughlin, a 50-year-old National Guardsman, is hoping to ride the same wave that swept Brown to victory. He got a head start by hiring Eric Fehrnstrom and Peter Flaherty, two of Brown’s top consultants.
State Representative Jeff Perry and State Senator Bob Hedlund would both like to be the next Congressman from the Massachusetts 10th Congressional district. There are others, including former state treasurer Joe Malone also eyeing the seat. They will not be a part of this analysis, done for the purposes of the primary itself and not the general election.
Jeff Perry represents the cape towns of Barnsable, Bourne, Mashpee and Sandwich. Bob Hedlund represents the towns of Duxbury, Hingham, Hull, Marshfield, Norwell and Scituate, Cohasset and Weymouth. They both bring all of their towns into the 10th congressional district, and Senator Hedlund's district is roughly 4 times as large in total population.
When we analyze Republican primary turnout as a percentage of the congressional district we see a much closer result. The "Cape & Island" towns were 49.2% and the "South Shore" towns were 50.8% of the Republican primary turnout in the 2009/2010 Senate primary. The highest turnout for a city or town was not Quincy or Weymouth, but Barnstable.
The following is a true story: When Bill Delahunt launched his campaign for Congress in 1996 he suggested to his campaign staff that he purchase a full page spread in the Cape Cod Times to introduce himself. He was advised against it and choose an even worse strategy: he rented a small Chatham house and lounged through the summer months on a light schedule, low lighted by an appearance at the Brewster Beer Run.
Bill's thinking: "Hey, I’ll rent a house, fly the flag, no worries, Quincy is going to win me this race. Gerry and his DC staff are with me. What, me worry? Anyways, how could these little towns cause me any trouble?"
Meanwhile Phil Johnston, staked out the far left of the party, and gathered a dedicated band of diehard supporters, what many would now call: moonbats. These moonbats, lead by Dick Bigos of the Community Action Committee, played upon Delahunt's hubris and knocked him off in the primary, with the help of strong results on Cape Cod. The result was overturned at the last moment, by a friendly judge, in a hanging chad recount, four years before Bush/Gore: Delahunt the winner.
What does this mean for the 10th CD race in 2010?
1)Bill Delahunt learned a hard political lesson not to underestimate the margins that can be run up in these small Cape and Island towns, it would be foolish to believe he'd make the same mistake twice.
2) At 68, fourteen years after his lazy hazy summer, does Delahunt have the stamina to compete with the likes of Jeff Perry or Bob Hedlund? He's never been in this because he is a true believer, like Studds. There is no there, there.
3) Republican primary candidates would be wise to observe and learn from the 1996 example [See Gerry Studds elections for additional proof]. The Cape has it's own regional identity which far surpasses that of say, the South Shore, and in some instances can contribute to margins in excess of 75% for the preferred Cape candidate. The identity is supported by a separate media market (daily newspaper and talk radio), whoever can pitch themselves best, as the true Cape Cod candidate, can have a distinct advantage in the upcoming Republican primary.
Tim Cahill has been battling accusations of impropriety in the awarding of Lottery contracts for months. In December we learned that, "Cahill and his lottery director have racked up $393,000 in publicly funded legal costs over the last seven months and are on track to spend another $500,000 as they use two elite law firms to defend themselves in a lawsuit accusing them of rigging contracts in exchange for campaign donations."
According to today's Wall Street Journal the pay to play allegations now extend to the public employee pension system.
Tensions over the confluence of politics and lawsuits are on show at the $40 billion Massachusetts state pension fund, which in recent years has sued companies including Bear Stearns, Schering Plough and Fannie Mae...The state pension board's most recent hiring of securities litigators came in 2005. Mr. Travaglini says the board issued an RFP, mostly at the behest of its chairman, Massachusetts Treasurer Tim Cahill. While the RFP was pending, Mr. Cahill received $10,000 in $500 donations from people associated with Labaton Sucharow. It was one of four firms later selected. Bernstein Liebhard lawyers and family members contributed $5,500 to Mr. Cahill in the weeks after that firm, too, was selected.
A disturbing trend is happening in the Treasurer's office under Cahill. Pay to play seems to be the norm, not the exception. It is exactly this type of backdoor politics that the voters rejected two short weeks ago with the election of Scott Brown to the United States Senate.
There has been a lot of talk on Red Mass Group over the past week about whether or not Tim Cahill is a viable conservative alternative, or is he the same Democratic hack he was in 2006?
According to State House News Service, Cahill told the AFL-CIO breakfast the following yesterday.
Charging Gov. Deval Patrick with scapegoating public employees, Treasurer Timothy Cahill told labor unions Thursday he would defend the state's public pension system from proposals to scale back benefits for current workers and said Patrick and Republican gubernatorial candidate Charles Baker were hunting for headlines with their pension reform plans. "I think the governor and Baker are just looking for some cheap headlines, and they're getting them," Cahill told reporters after addressing the state AFL-CIO annual conference in Plymouth."
Tim Cahill is defending run away pension abuse. That doesn't seem like a strong fiscally conservative position. That seems like a hack opinion.
Charlie Baker had the following to say about Cahill's position, "By defending our broken and out-of-control pension system, Tim Cahill revealed his true stripes as an out-of-touch Beacon Hill insider who places special interests before the interests of taxpayers. Defending a bloated pension system that rewards political insiders sends a clear message to voters that Tim Cahill believes there are two different standards - one for the well-connected, and another for everybody else. My pension reform plan will reform the pension system, end abuse, and make it fair to the taxpayers and to pensioners. Let's put an outsider in charge of Beacon Hill"
The fiscal "wiz-kid" Charlie Baker is suddenly seeming a lot more like the architect of the Big Dig. This past week the Baker campaign gave itself a big pat on the back for their January fundraising haul of 318K. It was an impressive enough showing, except until the information came out today that detailed their expenses. The Baker campaign showed a MASSIVE 327K total for expenses, meaning this past January they actually LOST about 10K. Based on their lavish kickoff though, it seems like they haven't learned their lesson as this campaign is simply hemorrhaging cash without gaining any name ID or stockpiling cash for the fall battle. Meanwhile Tim Cahill announced today, he'll be putting up a ad to be run during the Superbowl.
Friends, this campaign is bleeding cash one Dixie-land Band at a time and is not going to be able to compete in November. The only thing that Republicans could get excited about with the Baker campaign is it's fundraising, but we're quickly learning that the emperor has no clothes. His name ID is nil, the base will not accept him, and his parlor tricks with fundraising show he's not going to be able to compete down the stretch. Baker obviously pushed off expenses for the past few months in order to have a big splash with early fundraising in December, and is hoping nobody will notice this. If this is any indication as to what we can expect from this campaign, I shudder to imagine whats going to be on February's expenses. Its Charlie's Big Dig all over again: hide expenses over the long term in bonding and deferred maintenance, and PRAY nobody's paying attention when its time to pay up.
National stories rarely appear in Your Daily Good News but the 40+ minute Jon Stewart appearance on The O'Reilly Factor is noteworthy enough to find a place on this list. Drink everytime O'Reilly says "folks" or "pinhead."
Fox News
Channel Five contacted 54 state legislators about their tax returns and the travel deduction. Only nine responded. Two admitted that they have paid no income tax in recent years because of the deduction.
WCVB
The special election dates for Galluccio's seat and Brown's seat are April 13th and May 11th.
The Capitol View
Adam Reilly, who famously said RMG would only last three months, writes that the conservative dominance of talk radio will doom Democrats in 2010.
Boston Phoenix
The Orleans board of selectmen vote against new meals and lodging taxes. "Selectman Margie Fulcher joined Selectmen Mark Carron and David Dunford in opposing the new taxes. Selectmen Sims McGrath and Jon Fuller voted in favor."
Cape Cod Times
Retired public official admits stealing.
Lowell Sun
Almost Forgot!
Your Daily Video
The Ramones - S.L.U.G
This song was never formally released on Ramones studio album and the video is actually a fan creation.
(Edited for Formatting. - promoted by Paul "Cool Cal" Ferro)
From an e-mail that went out today:
My name is Christy Mihos, your Republican candidate for Governor of Massachusetts, and contrary to any rumors, I'm in it to win it!
I'm in it to win for you, the people, who have suffered at the hands of the lawmakers that have squandered your taxes while neglecting your needs, your rights and your laws to serve special interest rather than your interest.
Sen. Scott Brown's (R-Mass.) election has been shown to be "a joke," the son of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) said Thursday... "Brown's whole candidacy was shown to be a joke today when he was sworn in early in order to cast his first vote as an objection to Obama's appointment to the NLRB."
Maybe Patrick is angry that the dynasty is over in Massachusetts? Maybe he is wondering about his own re-election prospects in RI after nearby blue states NJ and MA both elected Republicans to statewide office? Regardless, it was a pretty tasteless comment on the swearing in of a new senator. One wonders if Ted would have been so petty.
A larger, and to me more interesting, question is: what do average Americans think about the concept of dynasties in politics. There have certainly been plenty, the Adams', Kennedy's, Bush's, Rockefeller's, (Biden's?). It seems to go against the very thing we rebeled against in 17176, yet there is a certain appeal to it. Also of note is that most come from the Northeast. Is there something about the history of this area that lends itself to a quasi aristocracy?
(I guess she won't be making googly eyes at him in the debates like in 2006... - promoted by Paul "Cool Cal" Ferro)
This day keeps on getting better!
Challenger steps up to take on Gov. Patrick in primary
February 4, 2010
By Frank Phillips, Globe Staff
Grace Ross, a human services activist who ran as the Green-Rainbow Party's nominee for governor in 2006, has told the Democratic Party she will challenge Governor Deval L. Patrick for the party's gubernatorial nomination.
Ross delivered a letter to the Democratic State Committee's headquarters in time for the 5 p.m. deadline today for candidates seeking statewide office on the Democratic ticket to declare their candidacies to the party and qualify to seek delegates in this month's delegate selection.
Despite getting urged by many conservative supporters to run for Lieutenant Governor in a primary against Richard Tisei, it is becoming cleared by the day that Polito will make no such move and is considering a strong run for the position of Treasurer. A facebook group popped up today and its become quite apparent the the die has been cast.
State Representative Jeff Perry and State Senator Bob Hedlund would both like to be the next Congressman from the Massachusetts 10th Congressional district. There are others, including former state treasurer Joe Malone also eyeing the seat. They will not be a part of this analysis, done for the purposes of the primary itself and not the general election.
The fiscal "wiz-kid" Charlie Baker is suddenly seeming a lot more like the architect of the Big Dig. This past week the Baker campaign gave itself a big pat on the back for their January fundraising haul of 318K. It was an impressive enough showing, except until the information came out today that detailed their expenses. The Baker campaign showed a MASSIVE 327K total for expenses, meaning this past January they actually LOST about 10K. Based on their lavish kickoff though, it seems like they haven't learned their lesson as this campaign is simply hemorrhaging cash without gaining any name ID or stockpiling cash for the fall battle. Meanwhile Tim Cahill announced today, he'll be putting up a ad to be run during the Superbowl.
