Deval Patrick

With one week left in the campaign, what have we learned? That every candidate for every office everywhere is a slavering, fanged troll who eats live babies and puppies as snacks, except for that nice Steve Grossman. He's such a mensch.

Speaking of slavering, fanged trolls, don't say mean things about un-birther Bill Hudak or he'll sue you.

Associated Press uncovers a memo from Baker to then boss Paul Celllucci, urging him to sit on news of escalating Big Dig costs until after Cellucci beat Scott Harshbarger back in the day. Tony ponders:

Baker advocated that the financial mess the Big Dig was causing for the state be hidden from the public until after the election in November 1998. Yes, Charlie Baker advised Governor Paul Cellucci to hide important information from the public, the taxpayers, the citizens, the voters of Massachusetts to assure the the reelection of his boss. This is a condescending, insulting attitude and a perfect example of the politics of lies.

The Herald reports the two major candidates for governor are dogged by questions in the final week of the campaign: Baker by Jeff Perry, Patrick by job losses.

Look for the Dems to crow that the state's unemployment rate is down and the Republicans to thunder about how the number of jobless increased. The Globe attempts to explain how that could happen; the Herald gleefully predicts the crushing job-loss news will crush Deval Patrick's chances.

Mike Ball reports on a rare live public appearance by Secretary of State for Life Bill Galvin.

Hey, West Roxbury and Jamaica Plain peeps: Today's the very special preliminary election for city council, so go vote.

Before Barack Obama arrived in Boston last weekend to campaign for Deval Patrick, three Emerson College students and a fourth from Lesley College arrived at Hynes Convention Center around 6 a.m., more than six hours before doors would open.

Read full article by John Stephen Dwyer

Election tomorrow! Well, for city council in District 6 (West Roxbury, JP and pieces of Roslindale and Mission Hill), at any rate. Will turnout get into double digits?

The Globe says Patrick should stop blaming Baker for MBTA fare increases. But at least Patrick didn't sign documents saying the Big Dig would only cost $7.7 billion when he knew it would cost more than $11 billion. The Herald reports Patrick took donations from gambling lobbyists.

The Herald also shows the sort of gritty courage we expect from a scrappy tabloid: It dares to compare the fashion sense of the three men running for governor:

The Globe reports on the Obama visit. The Herald sure loves swapping in a dollar sign for an S.

The Globe takes a look at the effort to repeal Chap. 40B, which relates to housing construction in towns where less than 10% of the housing stock is "affordable."
Wicked Local compares Markey and Dembrowski on job creation.

Punditocracy: Yvonne Abraham ignores Jill Stein. Joan Vennochi doesn't like political consultants. Peter Gelzinis wonders why Baker hates teens. Margery Eagan is bored with Obama. A Republican operative doesn't like Democrats.

Would they be slim or none?

Taylor, of course, appears at a Hynes rally today with Patrick and Obama. Red Mass. Group hopefully asks: Is Barack about to do the same for Deval as he did for Martha?

The Herald proclaims Baker the big winner in yesterday's debate, in giant end-of-world type. This outrages the Outraged Liberal.

The Globe endorses Matt O'Malley in the 6th District council race (reminder: Preliminary, for this election only, is this Tuesday).

Wicked Local takes a look at the race for Norfolk County DA.

Robert Dwyer, who writes about wine, will be voting yes on Question 1, which would repeal the sale tax on wine. Dwyer explains why that was no easy decision, especially after he learned that even with the tax, Massachusetts still ranks in the bottom ten states for tax levels on booze.

What did you think?

My big takeaway was that Jill Stein seemed like an afterthought; she was the only one who didn't really get to enunciate what it was she stood for, besides not being one of the other three. Still not sure if that's because she wasn't able to do so or because she seemed to get a lot less opportunity to talk in the first half of the debate.

Associated Press report.

Charlie get mad.
Give me the biggest lecture I ever had.
I want a brave man, I want a cave man.
Charlie, show me that you care, really care for me.
Every time you debated me,
You let Timmy cut in constantly,
When he'd ask, you'd never speak.
Must you always be so meek?

Guess not.

Credit where credit is due. And kazoos!

When he lost the primary to Deval Patrick in 2006, Reilly didn't show up at a post-election Democratic unity rally. And he's still sticking it to Patrick, this time over the issue of how the state helped Harvard Pilgrim get back on its financial feet. The Outraged Liberal explains how Patrick should have compared what the state did to a Wall Street bailout, rather than talking about state aid:

Harvard Pilgrim apparently received an $80.9 million tax-free bond through the Massachusetts Health and Educational Facilities Authority -- a quasi-public agency that, ironically, Patrick abolished this year and merged into MassDevelopment.

The authority then created a nonprofit entity to buy Harvard Pilgrim's Kenmore Square property and lease it back.

All of that was on top of state receivership under then-Attorney General Reilly.

So, no, the state didn't cut a check to Baker's HMO. It just did everything but.

John Carroll watched the debate so you didn't have to:

Glossary, Please

David Tuerck? Michael Widmer? The Pacheco Law? The Connector?

Are the candidates so out of touch they think the average voter knows what they're talking about when they just toss out those names?

Memo to gubernatorial hopefuls: You’re done with the insiders. It's real people you need to talk to now.

Richard Howe analyzes the debate. Contrarian David Bernstein gives props to Tim Cahill.

Globe: Patrick, Baker take their shots and Cahill often pushed to the sidelines.
Herald: Charlie Baker, Deval Patrick trade blows.

Channel 4 has posted the video.

John Carroll parses a Patrick press release that's mainly about how Charles (not Charlie) Baker is a Republican, but which proudly states that "For the first time in twenty years and amid a global economic recession, property tax increases under the Patrick-Murray administration went down three years in a row – from 4.2% in the first year of the term to 3.3% presently, representing a 22% decrease."

Or as Carroll explains:

A 22% decrease in increases, for those of you keeping score at home.

That’s a helluva slogan: We’re taking less of more.

Even Green Party candidate Jill Stein took a few tilts at the windmill deal, in a debate yesterday, the Globe reports.

John Carroll has more.

Technically, the governor has ten days to sign the casino/slots bill passed by the legislature last night. But the odds against that are pretty high. House Speaker Robert DeLeo, whose district would likely get both a resort casino (Suffolk Downs) and a slots parlor (Wonderland) vowed to raise the stakes if Patrick "amends" the bill (sends it back to the legislature with proposed changes; effectively killing it).

Or even if he does sign it, he can do what he wants because of an apparent mistake with a single word in the section of the bill setting up a gambling commission, the Outraged Liberal informs us.

Meanwhile, Ross Levanto writes that all the dithering over casinos means Massachusetts lost out on a federal stimulus program to encourage small-business job creation.

The Outraged Liberal takes note of the anti-Patrick blue line outside a Fenway Park party for visiting governors, says maybe Patrick could have kept his promise to add 1,000 more cops, even with the Great Recession, if only union's such as Nee's would have been willing to regnegotiate contracts over such issues as health-care costs and the Quinn bill:

... Keep all those facts when you listen to Nee and remember he's not part of the solution, he's part of the problem. And he loves playing politics as much as he loves policing. Maybe more.

Deval Patrick says he was only employing "a rhetorical flourish" when accusing Republicans in Washington of getting pretty darn close to "sedition," the Globe reports. The Globe also helpfully defines "sedition" for those of us who, unlike the governor, didn't attend a fancy law school where they learn about big words like that.

He must be loving the Baker/Cahil war.

Why should California have all the fun? Jack Gately compiled this:

Mike Ball reports on the rally, which included the unveiling of Slogan 2.0: "On Our Side."

... So, let us muse on how good is the slogan, which we shall definitely hear repeatedly. Four years ago, together we can took on a magical twinkle. Try as they might before and even after the election, Deval opponents were unable to adequately denigrate the intellectual and emotional pull of that one.

This one is fine, but lacks the mystique. In fact, it has a darker undertone, one we heard in Murray and Patrick's words today. The re-election is us v. them, progressives v. regressives, hopeful advancers v. backsliders. ...

It's here, which is a good thing, since the coverage by the Herald and the Globe seems to consist mainly of marveling at how Patrick, an English major, typed slowly so as to not make any typos.

Word comes from Patrick aide-de-camp Doug Rubin that Gov. Patrick has told the RMV to rescind that $5 fee for talking to a live person, and find other ways to get people to interact with the registry online rather than in person.

The Herald reports; doesn't say what happened to the kid who wrote Patrick after the governor left the unidentified school.