Posted on 10/15/2006 6:10:09 AM PDT by Panerai
Christy, it’s time to quit the governor’s race.
Let me be blunt: You are a straw for Deval Patrick. Of course you deny it, but there’s an old saying that the best straw is the one who doesn’t even know he’s a straw.
For anyone unfamiliar with the term, a straw is a candidate in a fight who drains off votes from the main challenger. Basically, a straw splits the anti-vote, so that even if a majority are against a particularly odious candidate, he still slides in. Christy is playing Ross Perot to Deval’s Clinton.
But this campaign is not a referendum on Christy Mihos. It’s about Deval Patrick. There is only one question in this fight.
Are you for Free ’Em All Deval, or are you against him?
Look, Christy, we all like you. You’re a good guy. I’ve had you on my show about a million times; we’ve been to each other’s houses; we’ve gone out to dinner together; one of my best friends is on your campaign payroll.
But the fact remains, your continuing presence in the race is only helping one person, and his name is not Joe Sixpack.
You’ve admitted that you would vote for Deval if you weren’t running. Before the primary, on NECN, Jim Braude asked you flat-out who you would pull the lever for if you couldn’t vote for yourself.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bostonherald.com ...
I agree--what Mitt prob. should have done was "train" her to take over, and then once she knew the ropes, resigned to
let her finish off his term. Then when the Big Dig disaster
happened, guess who's leading those press conferences explaining about the bolts, etc.? Mitt "His Hair Was
Perfect" Romney...and Kerry was just told to stand by
and look concerned.
Can Kerry Healey lead this state? I don't know if she's
hapless--she can be capable if properly trained for the job--
but what the heck is Deval Patrick? The "outsider" (no
govt. experience) who is really the ultimate insider
(here comes Billy Bulger! or at least he was seen
conferring with him...)
And yes, KMH couldn't beat Mike Cahill here in Beverly...
but I think she's grown in the job of Lt Gov. Have heard
her interviewed.
...in other words, even if Mitt hasn't really "trained" her to take over, she still sounds a lot more capable than Patrick
would be!
I have a question for you... since you're a MA resident. I'm sure you realize the state GOP there is practically moribund and horrifically statist. When is there going to be a full-fledged, full-frontal assault on reinvigorating the grass roots ? While the state is undeniably 'Rat, it isn't nearly as much as its representation makes it out to be. The GOP ought to hold anywhere from 1/3rd to 40% of the legislature and at the federal level, and it has been stuck at zero on the latter for 10 straight years and barely above 12% or so at the legislative level (and worse, yet, the legislators that ARE there are as leftist, if not more so, than some of their 'Rat counterparts).
for awhile it looked promising when Weld won in '90 and there were as many as 3 Rep. Congressmen (Torkildsen, Blute, etc.;
or was there 2? I forget...)...Joe Malone in as Treasurer,
and there were more State Senators and Reps from the GOP.
There was talk of developing a farm team of promising young talent but it hasn't happened...Mitt worked, from what I've heard, to get some people to run for Rep./Senate seats on both local and national levels but nobody won....
And yes to get elected you do have to be more "moderate"..here.
Dems have a stranglehold on this state. With Patrick
in office the only benefit might be that it'll get so bad that there will be another "Revolution", or maybe not...
Surely Carr understands that Mihos' campaign is fully supported by the Democrats?
One way or the other, the rats will take care of Mihos (wink, nod) if Patrick wins.
Mihos ain't getting out.
No, it was 2 Congressmembers (it would've been 3 had the ultraliberal RINO Silvio Conte in the 1st not died in '91). There were 16 out of 40 Senators and 38 out of 160 Reps. As you well know, thanks to William Weld, the King of the RINO Governors, he completely eviscerated all of the gains by the time he left office, leaving even fewer members that were there under Dukakis. I do know Mitt tried just once, but gave up (and you can't "give up" on party building as a Governor, or you're simply a failure -- one reason I'll never vote for him for President).
The problem for the GOP there is precisely their ideological approach, and it has been a consistent loser. When you have a choice between liberal 'Rats and liberal Republicans, why do you need a Republican party ?
The sad thing is, while the state legislature is something like 88%D/12%R, the people themselves are more like 60%D/40%R.
The debates are a joke. They trot out the 4th place candidate, a carpetmuncher from the "Green Rainbow" party who is right at home wearing a tinfoil hat, to make Patrick look like less of a moonbat. Then Christy is there to attack Healey, and Patrick keeps his mouth shut and walks away looking like a polished turd.
Yup, that's what I wrote in post #23.
The ratio for GOPers to Dems in MA have been ludicrously out of whack for several decades. Of course, going way, way back to 1867, the 'Rats held exactly 10 seats out of 240 in the House (this was before they cut the numbers by 1/3rd in 1978 to 160). It took from before the Civil War until 1949 for the 'Rats to finally win a majority, losing it again in 1953, and winning it back again in 1955 (and have never lost it since). From 1953 to 1963, the numbers for the GOP dropped from over 50% to less than 40%, and from 1963 to 1973, dropped to barely above 20%. From 1979 to 1991, we held a paltry 18-24%. Today we stand at only 1 seat above our lowest number of 20 (in 2002), which is 13% (as you can see, in only a decade, the percentage drop was nearly half).
On the Senate side, it was also GOP controlled from before the Civil War (in 1867, all 40 seats in the Senate were Republican) until 1959. In 22 years, from 1957 to 1979, the erosion was just as dramatic, dropping from 21 seats to 6. In the 1990 landslide, the GOP restored its numbers to what they were in 1959 (the last year it was remotely competitive for control of the body), which was 16 out of 40. In only 8 short years (1993-2001), the numbers plummetted from 16 back to 6, where it remains today (just 15%).
It is very conceivable the GOP could be completely shut out of the legislature as they are at the federal level within a decade, as the 'Rats were back in 1867, and become the first major state outside the South in the modern era to have a one-party legislature.
Christy should drop out. What's important is that Kerry Healey is beginning to climb in the polls, due in part to Patrick's attempting to get early release for a rapist (shades of Willie Horton). She still trails by a large margin, but she's narrowed the gap by about 10 points.
Conservatives need to be aware not of Deval Patrick's inspiring background, but his specific proposals. If you look closely, you'll see that the Deval is in the details.
Unless gerrymandering is ended, The Republicans will be shut out. The Democrat's supposed strength is mostly due to the redistricing plans that they passed in 1980, 1990, and 2000 (and which got progressively worse). Our Republican Governors vetoed the redistricting measure each time, but even then, the legislature overrode them. We need that Common Cause stuff here, but even then, the legislature would probably veto it. Massachusetts is in trouble.
Tell me about it!
Read this -- it proves his ideas for the economy are total socialist rubbish:
http://www.devalpatrick.com/issues_economy.cfm
Doesn't Massachusetts have referrendums?
Yes, however in 2000, the Legislature voted down a binding resolution that passed with 56% of the vote over the issue of a tax cut.
Of course, MA is the original home of the gerrymander. I'm not sure, however, even if some of that was undone, how much gains could truly be made. I don't think it would even be possible to gerrymander one House seat at the federal level for the GOP. As for legislatively-speaking, I can't imagine the gains would be all that much beyond where they are now. The preeminent problem remains an institutional one within the party, and until that is solved absent of the gerrymandering, the gains will be fleeting, indeed.
It would be possible to draw 4 GOP-leaning seats out of the 9 that MA will have following the 2010 Census. By GOP-leaning I mean that President Bush would have gotten between 47%-50% in 2004, which is a higher percentage than that of Simmons's and Shays's CDs in CT and about the same as Bass's, Bradley's and Johnson's CDs in New England. But, of course, only a GOP-majority state legislature would draw such districts---even if a nonpartisan commission drew the maps, it would likely draw 8 or 9 RAT CDs out of the 9.
In truth, the post-1990 Census map for MA was quite friendly to Republicans, which is why they were able to pick up 2 seats and could have picked up 2-4 others (the CD Meehan won in 1992 had actually voted for Bush in 1988). Weld threatened to veto the map if it didn't meet his specifications, and the RAT legislators were afraid that an impasse (I assume that the GOP had enough votes to stop an override in at least one house) would throw redistricting to the courts, who would likely draw a map that would fail to protect the 4 RAT members with seniority who lived within a few miles of each other (Moakley, Kennedy, Markey, and Frank). The prior year, Weld had similarly shown a partisan bent by scheduling the special election to replace Conte for after universities were on summer vacation in order to aid the GOP candidate, who happened to be a conservative who had lost to Weld in the primary (his last name was Pierce IIRC); the GOP candidate lost by only 53%-47% or so in a very liberal district. Now, we all know that Weld ended up being a worthless RINO who did not move a finger to build the state GOP, but it seems like he at least started off on the right foot before being led astray.
Yeah, I remember you mentioned that before. I would think those would be remarkably contorted designs to get that many seats out of MA (although the current districts are fairly contorted as it is, so maybe they wouldn't be). But as I said, even if we had a shot at drawing the lines, the farm team is so scarce, along with the moribund party apparatus, that such an opportunity would be inherently squandered. It really is remarkable that the GOP was truly staging a comeback in the state only 16 short years ago, but it's like it has been sucked into a black hole ever since.
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