Independence Day weekend saw Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin skip out on her job, state Sen. Stanley Rosenberg come out of the closet, and state Treasurer Tim Cahill drop out of the Democratic Party. Cahill is assumed to be running for governor as an independent next year, hoping to capitalize on the current unpopularity of Gov. […]
Gubernatorial politics
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Punting on pension reform
Lots of sizzle, but not much steak. That's the best way to describe the narrow focus by legislative leaders and Gov. Deval Patrick on a pension perk that has been seized on by a handful of former legislators over the years. An obscure law has allowed state legislators who are defeated for reelection or simply […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service, The Download
Patrick “boxed in” on his 2010 re-election strategy?
State House News Service's Jim O'Sullivan has a succinct forecast of gubernatorial politics over the next 18 months (subscription required for full story): Gov. Deval Patrick's sharp words last week against the Legislature, and the very public venues he chose in which to voice them, convinced many legislators that the governor's re-election strategy increasingly revolves […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics, The Download
Patrick’s low ratings part of national trend
Before anyone writes Deval Patrick's political obituary over the 7News/Suffolk University poll released yesterday, it's worth noting that Patrick has plenty of bad-ratings company among his fellow governors. Judging by the range of polls available online, voters across the country feel better about their (new) federal administration than about any state leader who had the misfortune of […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Walshing to and fro
Wednesday, March 25, 2009 It seems citizens are now supposed to be about one-third less disgusted by the patronage appointment of state Sen. Marian Walsh to a high-paying post that sat vacant for a dozen years. What else to make of the word from Walsh and Gov. Deval Patrick that she's willing to settle for […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Just words
Deval Patrick famously dressed down a group of Massachusetts newspaper publishers in a speech delivered days after his election, telling the news honchos that many of their reporters just didn't get it. "Whether it was skepticism, distraction or the cynicism so many of us will try to pass off as sophistication, some of your reporters missed […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
An increasingly ordinary leader
From "No Ordinary Leader" to "Business as Usual." It's hard not to see that as the trajectory Gov. Deval Patrick is on after the latest slap in the face to those expecting more from an administration that pledged to sweep out the culture of patronage and cronyism on Beacon Hill. The new outrage: the appointment yesterday of state Sen. Marian […]
Posted inEnvironment, Politics, The Download, Transportation
Patrick finally embraces gas tax increase
Gov. Deval Patrick made a very persuasive case for raising the state gasoline tax immediately by 19 cents and having it rise in the future in tandem with the Consumer Price Index. My only question: What took him so long? Patrick told the crowd gathered for his speech at the State Transportation Building today that he was going to […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics, The Download
Deval, help us put down our cynicism: send stimulus czar packing
Let's get this straight: The guy Deval Patrick has hired for $150,000 a year to help the state spend the federal stimulus money intended to help halt an economic slide set in motion by unbridled Wall Street greed is a poster child for the sort of legal looting of the state treasury that represents the Beacon Hill greed Patrick decried when he campaigned […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics, State House News Service, The Download
“Starting Line 2009” tackles DeLeo, State House scandals, and the bleak economy
Is new House Speaker Robert DeLeo really just "a hamburger guy", and are other members of the House no more than "sheep"? Do voters pay more attention to public pension abuses than to the state's fiscal crisis? Last Friday, four of the state's most perceptive political jounalists talked about these and other questions at "Starting Line […]