Romney Skips Deval's Inauguration

Wow, Mitt Romney's a tool.

BOSTON — With his hand on a Bible once owned by John Quincy Adams, Deval Patrick was sworn in Thursday... Romney, who had decided not to seek a second term and filed papers Wednesday to form a presidential exploratory committee, stayed home during the ceremony Thursday before heading into his new headquarters to work on his campaign.

Seriously? This might be standard practice, I don't know (Massachusetts politicos, enlighten me). But really? Has he such gall? It boils down to "Fuck you, Massachusetts, I'm runnin' for PRESIDENT!" -- not that that's anything new.

(h/t Digby)

UPDATE: (12:47 AM) I've heard suggestions that it was, in fact, Governor-elect Patrick who rudely uninvited Romney from the inauguration. In which case, it's Patrick who's the douche. But I'm not sure.

UPDATE 2: (11:35 AM Friday) per Mel, it's traditional in Mass. for the outgoing governor not to attend the inauguration (though there was some tomfoolery re Romney's "Solitary Walk", see comments). Executive summary: I'm a douche.

Together we can...

So we all saw Deval Patrick's signs with the slogan "Together We Can."  Well, the Boston Globe decided to ask for the rejoinder to this phrase from its readership and posted them online. A few of my favorites include "Together we can:

• turn the state around and put the Berkshires on the ocean!"
• move past this impossible love we all have for our blue laws"
• play canasta"
• resurrect Ben Affleck's career"

Clearly, there's one thing to be learned from this:  Deval did a good job not hiring people who submit to silly Boston.com contests.

Blue Mass. Group is here at the Berkman Center

Update: I'm here...come in, come up the stairs, come down the hall, and look for the room on the left called the "John Forry Faculty Library". Oh, but I have class at 11:30.

Stop by and say hello (I'm heading over now). Here's a map.

The good folks at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society have kindly agreed to host a unique election day live-blogging extravaganza, to which all bloggers, commenters, and lurkers, of whatever political stripe, are cordially invited. Starting at 10 am or so, Bob (up from New York for the occasion), Charley, and I will all be on site at the Berkman Center blogging the day's events -- both local and national, as we hear about them -- and you are heartily encouraged to join us. The Berkman folks offer free wi-fi (BYOLaptop, if you can), as well as free refreshments throughout the day, and we of course offer scintillating conversation and astonishing good looks.

The Berkman Center is just outside of Harvard Square in Cambridge, next to the law school campus, on the second floor of 23 Everett Street (Everett runs between Mass. Ave. and Oxford Street, and unfortunately does not have a street sign on the Mass. Ave. end - note that it's called Chauncy St. on the other side of Mass. Ave.). No. 23 is an unprepossessing yellow house, and I don't think there's a sign (or possibly even a street number) on the building, which is an odd choice by the powers that be at Harvard, but there you go.

Favorite music of the MA-Gov candidates

If you were to guess favorite music of Deval Patrick and Kerry Healey, who would you pick?   For Deval Patrick, one of his three albums is James Taylor's latest, October Road.  Apparently James heard about his statesman/supporter and gave him a shoutout at his concert in Boston last night: "I understand my candidate for governor is in the house!" after which Deval was highlighted by one of the many Wang Center spotlights.  After showing his support he dedicated his performance of "Fire and Rain" (Windows Media clip here) to him after a tough week of attack ads.  This is after Taylor made an appearance and performance at Deval's 50th birthday party this past July, continuing James' precedent of being politically active, as we saw with his endorsing John Kerry.

What is Kerry Healey's favorite band, you may ask?  The Talking Heads.   Somehow I doubt that they are going to dedicate "Psycho Killer" to her, but who knows, she's crazy enough.

Romney Under Fed. Investigation: Lied about Big Dig?

So much for Kerry Healey's bounce.

Federal officials are probing scathing allegations that the Romney administration falsely claimed to conduct safety inspections in the Big Dig tunnel that collapsed and killed a woman in July.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is zeroing in on state financial documents from 2005 - cited in a new report by state Inspector General Gregory Sullivan - indicating that Gov. Mitt Romney was reviewing the safety of the Big Dig, when in fact the administration was only checking leaks in the Interstate 93 tunnel.

“Despite repeated assurances to bondholders, (MassHighway and Romney’s Executive Office of Transportation) . . . did not inspect the I-90 connector tunnel section where the July 10, 2006, collapse occurred,” Sullivan’s report states. “It is clear that casual disregard for the truth was grossly inappropriate.”

[...] While the inspector general’s report also cites “an alarming lack of stewardship” by the Turnpike, it singles out the Romney administration for abdicating its responsibility to verify the safety of the project.

Emphasis mine. If we tie Lt. Gov Healey to this, it's over. And God only knows what this could do to Romney's presidential bid.

For reference: Recent MA-Gov polls. Story found via DKos.

A Fair and Balanced View on Fox News' "Regular People"

So in Monday's debate, there were some pre-recorded clips of questions from "regular people." This was probably to make the true everyday worker who watched Fox local news feel a connection to the debate, which ordinarily is a great idea. Too bad Fox's idea of "regular" includes the high society wife of the star Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling (a massive Bush supporter), as well as max-ed out Kerry Healey supporter and gourmet restaurant chef Jasper White.

Score: Fox News and their republican star studded supporters, 1; the common man, 0.

Reactions to the First Debate

• Deval needs to worry about Grace Ross looking like a moonbat on her own, and then agreeing with him.
• Kerry Healey is constantly talking about Deval's issues and not about her own actions.
  
• Mihos is working his tail off to establish himself as an independent, even attacking Healey about her aligning with Bush.
  
• This whole immigrant discussion is ridiculous. Since when is MA a border state?
  
• Mihos is rocking the man tan like its his job.
• Grace Ross isn't going to take any crap from Mihos. When she said "Just listen to me for a sec," Mihos lost a serious amount of credit.
• The whole "you will be a first if you are elected" question is ridiculous. It has nothing to do with how any of the people running would govern.
• MA is a commonwealth, not a state Christy. Get it right. Then I will reconsider not voting for you, except, oh wait, I won't.
• The Big Dig question just became a jump on Healey fest. Deval, smartly was not leading that charge because he doesn't need to. Mihos had some hate for Healey on that question.
  
• "I love this state. That is the only reason I am running for governor" - Christy Mihos. I love Massachusetts too, Christy, you don't see me sitting next to you. Try a better reason for running.

Patrick leads by 39 points

Shockingly good poll for our man Deval Patrick:

Survey USA, 9/19-9/21, 608 LVs. 9/19 interviews began when polls closed on Tuesday.
Patrick: 64%
Healy 25%
Miller: 5%
Other 4%
Undecided: 2%

(via MyDD)

Must have been all those phone calls we made.

Why I'm Happy Deval Won

Obviously, there is the initial satisfaction of voting for the guy who wins. Like many of us, I worked a fair amount for the Kerry campaign, and his defeat was made all that much more painful. Waking up Tuesday morning, I thought back to November of 2004, recognizing that once again I had put a lot of effort into this campaign, as well as my entire family and many of my friends. I was nervous, despite the poll saying Deval was 21 points ahead.

But then he won. Not only that, he won big. He got 50 percent of the vote in a 3 man race. This was great news, very satisfying to know that other people in MA saw what I saw in Deval: a chance to move the office of governor forward.

That is why I liked Deval more than his opponents. Reilly has been in MA politics for years, would be a decent, but not exciting leader. Gabrielli bought his way into the race, and it seems like he was doing it for lack of anything better to do. By saying that Deval will move the office of governor forward, I do not mean that Deval, being the first black governor, will be groundbreaking. I do not mean that his poor south side of Chicago beginnings will make him radically different from other governors.

No, rather it is his connections to the people that makes him an exciting candidate. His effort to be a true grassroots campaign makes him unlike his competitors. Reilly raised enough money and Gabrielli donated enough of his own money to pay for massive amounts of television ads, but Deval wasn't advertising until after Labor Day because his money was in the field. He won because he went and tried to talk in person to as many people as possible. He was the only candidate who came to the College Dems of MA convention at Tufts this spring. He came and spoke to 40 Harvard students, most of whom don't vote in MA.

Read more »

Predictions open thread

My money's on Patrick and Murray, but who knows. What do you think?

Don't forget to come to the MA Gubernatorial Primary Party...right now!

Update: Well, I was right. Of course, I made the prediction at 8:27 pm, which doesn't make it too terribly prescient.

Another update: Umm...most things accidentally posted as "The Harvard Dems" are actually by me. Yeah, I'm just trying to get credit for my good predictions.

The Dem Apples Improvement Project

My pet project for this campaign season, aside from trying to be more like David Krakauer, is to increase the reach of Dem Apples outside of Harvard. To that end we're going to try to get some of the high-profile people coming through Harvard to guest blog here. If you've got a suggestion for someone we should contact, or better yet, you want to use your connections, let our Communications Director Hayley know.

Another part of increasing the reach of Dem Apples is to start doing lots of local coverage on our campaigns, primarily the Rhode Island Senate race and the Massachusetts governor's race. To that end, we need you to charge up your cameras, start reading the local blogs (start with rifuture.org), newspapers (start with the Providence Journal), and blog, blog, blog...and also link.

Not a blogger yet? Now's the time to get started.

Bloggers take note: tag your Rhode Island posts with RI-Sen or "Rhode Island" and your Massachusetts posts with MA-Gov or Massachusetts and they'll automatically appear in the right place on the Rhode Island coverage blog and the MA coverage blog (soon to come).

Speaking of which, we need some clever names for those two blogs. Markus, I'm looking at you.

Update: Markus delivers. Vote here (or make up your own and leave it in comments.)