The old saying goes that someone is entitled to their own opinion but not to their own facts. But the fact of the matter is most facts tossed around during elections are subject to interpretation. And that’s a fact. The campaign spotlight right now is turned on the Republicans and the media is in high […]
Election 2012
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Ann Romney’s fuzzy valentine
Touted as the not-so-secret ingredient in the campaign to humanize her husband, Ann Romney lived up to her advance billing and delivered a warm and personal speech about life and love with Mitt Romney. “I could tell you why I fell in love with him — he was tall, laughed a lot, was nervous — […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
What should Mitt do?
With a hurricane bearing down on New Orleans, Bill Weld offers up some advice to Mitt Romney today, one former Massachusetts governor to another. Weld wants to see Romney leave the Republican National Convention in Tampa, jet up to a soon-to-be hurricane-damaged Gulf coast, and “go and survey the damage and pay his respects.” Weld’s […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
The GOP forecast
The Republicans lopped a day off their convention in Tampa because of Tropical Storm Isaac and now are praying Mitt Romney’s coronation isn’t eclipsed by video of wind, rain, and floods battering New Orleans once again. Howard Kurtz, writing in The Daily Beast, says the storm creates a split-screen dilemma for the Republicans. The Globe […]
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Abortion flap puts Brown-Warren in national spotlight
In Massachusetts, it’s never about a single issue, although it seems the economy had been dominating all the talk in the US Senate race. But with the cacophony generated by US Rep. (and Worcester Polytechnic Institute alumnus) Todd Akin’s skull-scratching screed on female biology, the spotlight on social issues has increased significantly. And, quite naturally, […]
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Ryan resets the table
There was lots of excitement and high-fiving following Mitt Romney’s selection of Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate. Many Republicans were excited, too. The clearest trouble sign for Republicans is the symmetry of reaction to Ryan, with Democrats and liberal-leaning pundits and policy groups as giddy over his selection as the true-believers on […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics, State House News Service, The Download
The Welfare Bogeyman rises again
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, welfare became a wedge issue for both of the nation’s political parties, with Republicans decrying the “gimme” nature of programs while Democrats insisted it was a needed social safety net as the poor got left further and further behind. When President Clinton signed the welfare-to-work legislation that prodded […]
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The Brown-Warren choice
What does Massachusetts want in a US Senate candidate? US Sen. Scott Brown seems convinced we want someone who can work with Republicans and Democrats in Washington, who believes specific issues and ideological purity are less important than getting things done. His latest ad, an endorsement from former Boston Mayor Ray Flynn, makes the case […]
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Coakley reshaping the race to the White House
With one move three years ago, Attorney General Martha Coakley set in motion events that now seem poised to position gay marriage as the new abortion. In 2009, she filed a challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a union of a man and woman. Two lower courts have now […]
Posted inEducation, Politics, The Download
Mitt Romney’s higher education record
Mitt Romney doesn’t want to talk taxes. He doesn’t want to talk much about his tenure as governor either. Perhaps that’s because, with his signature health care achievement off the table, Romney is left with a fair-to-middling record to exploit and more eyebrow-raising episodes to back away from. The major defect of that strategy is […]