I was wrong on gay marriage; thank heavens

With two common dumb comments we humans often make, one is from the jejune and the other from the lazy. The first is truly stupid and really inexcusable. That is to respond to a concept or fact in the air with, "I wasn't even born yet!" That, of course, is absolutely no excuse for ignorance, History does not start with your birth. When you discover an idea, event or technology you don't know, your job is to learn about that and be ready...and smarter than you were before.

The other even more of us succumb to using — "It's only common sense," or "Let's not reinvent the wheel." This is for when we are too lazy to think or analyze.

Almost invariably, when the words are, "It's only common sense," the real message is, "I have nothing. I'm making wild, unsupported assertions and don't want to be corrected or challenged."

The latest poll on same-sex marriage (NBC/Wall Street Journal) continues the findings of the seemingly inexorable trend toward national support for marriage equality. It also reminds me of the frailty of my judgment and forecasting on the whole matter.

The gist is that 59% of us favor same-sex marriage, 33% oppose and 8% waffle. Only Republicans who identify with the Tea Party are strongly opposed. The WSJ video heads discussing this reckoned that this has been the fastest, most decisive cultural shift ever, much more so than changing attitudes about interracial marriage.

The personal messages here for me are not in any shifting support. Long before MA's Goodridge decision, I was a champion for marriage equality. Instead, I had it dreadfully wrong — in two ways — about how fast we'd get there as a nation.

First, I fell into that common-sense trap. When VT allowed civil unions and then MA full marriage, it was patently obvious to me that the Chicken Little doomsayers would have to reverse themselves quickly. The anti-gay sillies went on about such unions "redefining marriage," a misinformed concept. With great confidence, many of them predicted chaos at city halls, draconian prosecution and persecution of the clergy, and wholesale abandonment of the institution by straight couples.

One would think when absolutely none of those occurred in the first two years, five years, decade of marriage equality here would first admit their errors, perhaps with relief and empathy. Second, we might suppose they would work with the new reality. After all, virtually all religions, including all flavors of Christianity, have a version of the golden rule. As the Talmud so perfectly puts it, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to another. That is all the law. The rest is commentary."

I can slap my forehead. I honestly believed that the success of MA and then this state or that with same-sex marriage would convert the haters or at the very least stifle them. Of course, that didn't happen. Even though their numbers dwindle, the anti-gay/anti-same-sex marriage minions snarl and howl. They have been reduced to saying, "Well, it hasn't happened yet, but just you wait." Claudicated reasoning.

On the other hand, after I finally accepted that the march toward marriage equality would be slow and fitful, I fell into a pit limbo. I said and wrote, here, at Left Ahead, and elsewhere that the U.S. was 10 or even 20 years away from equality.

Well, the obvious to me was wrong, very wrong, again. Progress has been extremely fast. I now expect a favorable SCOTUS ruling this spring or summer, wiping the legal restrictions if not cleansing the evil hearts of all Americans.

I don't have to get into how wong I was on both counts. My record is on the tubes. I simply revel in where we have arrived.

MA Election Choices. Fret Not on 11/4.

Yes indeed we'll have two-page, double-sided ballots next week. Be aware most of that is the four ballot questions...and that this is a simpler set of choices than the recent Dem primary.

I happily play scout and point the trail. I read the literature, go to the stump speeches, watch the debates, and drill down into the campaign sites so others don't have to. People do ask and I do say.

Do all of us elections officials and your fellow voters a big favor. Show up knowing which ovals you'll smear. You can do the essential research in two minutes through the secretary of the commonwealth's site. Go here to view or print your precinct's ballot.

Count 'em 4 Questions

This includes the four ballot questions, with all of their explanatory text. Please come with your choices. We have to account for every page of every ballot all day long. If you don't vote on the front and back of the second page, the scanner will reject it and an official will have to trot over to manually override that.

I have strong thoughts on these four. If you don't or are undecided on any, feel free to use my brain. The short of it No on 1 and Yes on 2, 3, and 4. My reasoning is in my Left Ahead podcast, which you can access here.

Mostly Obvious Choices

Sometimes I mix it up, but this cycle, the picks are Dems, as in:

• US Sen. Re-elect Ed Markey over a weak GOP Brian Herr (no real vision or any other virtues)
• Gov./Lt. Gov. Martha Coakley/Steve Kerrigan over Charlie Baker/Karyn Polito. Reject the baseless, even puerile, fantasy that putting a Republican in the titular head office somehow balances anything. The nominally heavily Dem legislature is not very liberal putting a GOP Gov. in is silly. Baker has toxic history from his roles running HHS and the Big Dig finance, and in his inhumane approach to fixing Harvard Pilgrim. Don't trust him.
• AG. No contest between the brilliant and experiened Maura Healeyk and the ho-hum John Miller.
• Secretary of State. Bill Galvin is stagnant and is a Luddite whose technology foot-dragging makes it hard to access "his" data (it should be ours). Alas, neither D'Archangelo nor Factor has made a convincing argument to unseat him. Too bad. Last time, Jim Henderson did, but as an indy, he didn't have the recognition. Begrudgingly, Galvin yet again.
• Treasurer. Deb Goldberg is the one, over GOP Mike Heffernan and Indy Ian Jackson. She has the experience and smarts.
• Auditor. Re-elect Suzanne Bump over GOP Patricia Saint Aubin and Indy MK Merelice. In a fit on inexplicable asininity, The Globe endorsed Saint Aubin. who is an anti-gay, anti-marriage-equality bigot. Moreoer, she got a basic accounting degree 34 years ago and briefly practiced as an auditor; too little, too long ago to qualify her for anything. She is abrasive. Bump has found terrific waste in the system and saved us tons of money. Let her keep at it.
• Congress. Incumbents are OK and in the one meaningful race for an open slot, the Sixth US House District, go with Seth Moulton over Richard Tisei. I generally like Bay Windows picks, but they are wrong picking the latter. Sure, he's openly gay and wants to push ENDA, but he's a Republican first and not in a good way. He promises to be John Boehner's puppy. Tisei has been a MA state senator and there's nothing he knows that Moulton can't outdo in a few days of study and conversation. Moulton has better politics and planks.

More of my reasoning on most of these choices are in another Left Ahead show here.

So, if for some reason you don't totally agree with all my choices, still vote next Tuesday. For all of our sake, come prepared with your picks.

Huck Has Hissy...Yawn

Après moi,...

In the case of Mike Huckabee, the threat is le déluge. But far more realistically, it would be just sans moi.

It was big yucks from Huck last Tuesday on winger radio, American Family Radio's Today's Issues. He was on with a couple of other loonies, including Rick Santorum. Huckabee's false prophesy starts around 22:18.

The short of it is that he said that if Republicans accept same-sex marriage, the GOP will lose all elections going forward. Setting aside that the opposite has been the case and getting more so, bigotry and discrimination don't cut it.

Moreover, the Huck says obey him, GOP, or see a wholesale desertion.

I am utterly exasperated with Republicans and the so-called leadership of the Republicans, who have abdicated on this issue, If the Republicans want to lose guys like me and a whole bunch of still God-fearing and Bible-believing people just go ahead and abdicate on this issue. And while you are at it, go ahead and say abortion doesn't matter either because at that point you lose me.
I'll become an independent and I'll start finding people that have guts to stand," he said. "I am tired of this.

He's going to take his Bible and go away, but not go home. He seems to figure he'll call out, "Over here, y'all true Christians," and millions will do it.

Alas, his record of leading and harvesting voters suggests, very strongly, otherwise.

Vanity and ego, behold yourself in Mike Huckabee.

I Have a Wing to Pick With You

Ed. Ed. Ed, and some more Ed. Broom the vanity and ego aside to get to a vignette from MSNBC's The Ed Show. There, the former right-wing talker but a left-wing talker for the past 16 years, Ed (of course) Schultz did his usual short segment Ask Ed (of course) Live.

That evening, his tweeted query was why didn't more conservatives appear there. He answered simply and disdainfully that he asked them and would welcome them, but they didn't want to. He figured they figured doing so would not help them get elected.

While I nod to Occam's razor, I don't worship the idea that the simplest explanation according to the known facts settles everything. I muse on why so few Republicans and other self-identified conservatives will talk with me at the weekly Left Ahead show.

It's been running for seven years. From the beginning, some weeks the founders — Lynne Lupien, Ryan Adams and I (Mike Ball) — sometimes like to cover topics ourselves. We'll all highly opinionated. About every other week, there's a guest.

Lynne long ago dropped out, pleading business busyness. I generally arrange and book most guests. A few contact me, but typically I call, email or meet potential guests. Often it's a deal to dicker on a day and time, even though we long ago picked a default that works for many, Tuesday at 2:30 PM. Few pols in particularly are solidly committed then.

We also make it pretty painless. We use BlogTalkRadio, so guests don't have to travel or give us an office space to record the show. For what used to be an hour and is now a half hour, they just call in and I manage the connections by computer and the tubes.

Moreover, we're probably too nice. We don't book multiple guests, don't bring on tit-for-tat adversaries to sensationalize or conflict. We don't try to trick anyone or spring accusations. We like to get to the big ideas and help the guest develop them on air. A few listeners used to on-line bullies on winger radio, or the Bill O'Reilly and Chris Matthews shouters are disappointed that we don't badger guests.

Are Wingers Gutless?

Scan the Left Ahead archives to notice a few things. First, the topics and guests are mostly politics and politicians. Second, many big ideas are subjects. Third, many of the guests are hotshots and big shots — a current or former governor, a state or U.S. Senator, and many office seekers. Fourth, there are damned few conservatives.

That latter is not from my want of effort. Some smart, fun and provocative ones included the very conservative MA pol Karyn Polito and the now late economics and transit guru William Lind. My politics differed markedly from those two's. Yet I think we brought out good stuff. Lind in particular could not have been farther from my political views, all except for transit-oriented development and mass transit. We had met at the Rail-Volution 2009 conference in Boston and bonded over our overlaps.

In many ways, Polito was the outlier for me. She spoke with me, took my card, checked the site and said, sure, she'd talk with us in her run for MA Treasurer/Receiver General. That was not at all hard, but she is quite the exception.

Virtually all the other right-leaning potential guests I meet or contact seem terrified or at least disinterested. So, I ask myself, are they cowards or is it like Schultz said, that they don't see the upside?

This has been happening again in this election cycle, which includes MA Governor. Scan the archives again and see every gubernatorial candidate, except the presumptive GOP nominee, Charlie Baker. That includes all five Dems, the several independents or political affiliation candidates and and the other Republican, self-defined full-MA-GOP platform, Tea Party candidate Mark Fisher.

I can't quite figure out whether :

• Baker has no guts
• His campaign staff has no guts
• His staff's cost/benefit analysis doesn't see the ROI on an internet radio show
• He or his staff thinks he's too important to be bothered

Bad Manners

Having spent much of my childhood in more genteel parts of the country, I can still be surprised by the poor breeding of Bostonians and New Englanders. For example, when they do not return phone calls or emails, I have to wonder, who are their people? Were they raised by wolverines?

Baker's camp has been the worst, in both of his staggers toward the governorship. I have gotten fewer than one response to multiple voice and email requests to Baker and his campaign manager,

You can amuse yourself by calling the Baker campaign number, (617) 254-2014.There's no human and no option to speak to one...ever. You can dump your request into a voice box or punch in by last name. The communications director, Tim Buckley, does not communicate and is not even in the directory. The campaign manager, Jim Conroy, does not communicate but is in the directory. There's a slush email box, info@charliebaker2014.com and the other's is conroy@charliebaker2014.com.

Conroy has ignored 11 voice or email requests. Because Buckley hides from ordinary mortals, the closest I could get was Facebook and requests through that info box, where he ignored an FB friend request and two direct messages.

Again,who are their people? Didn't they have mothers or someone to act like a mother?

The gormless Baker-camp non-reactions are particularly noteworthy and amusing in light of Fisher's prompt and warm response. He and I could hardly differ more politically, but we had a good chat. Moreover, he clearly was raised well.

Fear of Lefties

A previous failure of booking seems to blend all the possible causes. I had Jennifer Nassour in hand, only to lose her. She chaired the MA GOP from Jan. 2009 through Sep. 2011.

I spoke with her at two political Rappaport presentations at Suffolk Law, in early 2009 and early 2011. At both, she pressed her card into my hand and told me how much she wanted to be a Left Ahead guest. She punked on both.

Most telling here is her mortal sin, in GOP eyes. She was candid.

In the April 1 (yes, that day), 2009 issue of Bay Windows, she spoke about the new Republican party here, particularly how they wouldn't be guilt tripping on marriage equality, gay rights and abortion. Honk. Wrong.

She got months of pitchfork poking from the most conservative party members and the nasty MassResistance guy, Brian Camenker pretending to be a real movement. The gist seems to be not only should she not have said the party would stop its hateful rhetoric to bring in unenrolled and socially liberal GOP voters, but she should never have even spoken with LGBT-friendly media.

Since her time, the newest MA GOP chair, Kirsten Hughes, won't respond to repeated contacts.

Well,our show hides nothing. It's there in the Left Ahead name. We're reasonable and nice but we don't pretend to be anything else.

I've lost count of the potential guests who have heard the name on a phone line or seen my card and stopped dead. "Left...Ahead...are you left wing?" is the typical shocked question.

Nothing that progressives and liberals speak with anyone, and that we are antithetical to right-wing talk radio's bullying tactics doesn't cut it. Far too many conservatives seem terrified at speaking with "left" anything. Pathetic.

Lefty Anomaly

To smooth the edges and risk being simple-mindedly even handed, I'll admit that there's one left winger's crew who is afraid of me.

Following the initial show with Elizabeth Warren, her handlers seem winger gutless. They won't return my calls or emails either. Once burned, 1000 times shy.

I was blessed or cursed with being early to the Warren extravaganza, in Oct. 2011, right after she announced for US Senate, she spoke with us. It was genial, particularly as she and I are the same age, and both born in OK.

We had a jolly time, including an exchange in which I noted that with my OK/WV background, I have heard repeatedlyfrom the provincials in Boston that I am a hick. Moreover, the local wingers had railed against her as a 17-year Harvard professor, a.k.a an elitist. She laughed, saying she was new class, an elite hick. She said something about going for the hick vote. We laughed.

Well, the plug nasties were loaded for her, just waiting. Our show was just the first Warren-hunting expedition.

The next morning, I got a call and email from her communications guy, asking if I knew of the s**t storm. Turns out, the forces of evil had tried to run with that innocuous bit of humor. Suddenly everyone from FoxNews to winger talk radio and even the likes of ABC TV and the NYTimes portrayed her as ridiculing rural America.

Of course, she didn't say anything like that. However, the imps had been lying in wait for something they could use.

In our show, she said maybe there should be a group hicks for Elizabeth. Again we laughed. I actually made some buttons (reproduced here). My wife and I, from hick backgrounds, wore them. People asked for them and I produced more. I showed her one at Boston Mayor Tom Menino's block party the next July She alleged to love it. I sent her one, but given the crap she got for moments of humor, she most assuredly tossed it.

At that party, one of her staffers, a ziftig woman actually pushed me. She muttered something about how I'd better not try to pull any tricks and insinuated that I and not the forces of right-wing evil has caused the early dust-up.

Meh.

The sad aspect is that Warren's people have not responded to several show requests since. I'll try again, likely by being at one of her public events and squirreling up with her. After all, she adores my yellow glasses.

Of course the hick-vote fad disappeared months later, to be replaced by the Native-American one. Those gunning for Warren picked up her listing herself in a faculty directory as having Cherokee roots. They manufactured a fantasy that she had only gotten jobs at Pennsylvania and Harvard as a result. They morphed that with calls for her to release every academic job application she has ever made, much in the mode of birthers demanding President Barack Obama's short-form, then long-form birth certificate, and subsequently his college applications and transcripts. Pathetic. As with the President, the crazies won't let go of their silly slanders.

Common Senselessness

So there it is, kiddies. There are many variations on guest-interview shows. You might:

• Be typical right-wing radio, badgering lefty guests and licking the hands of your own type
• Play grade-school magazine, bringing on a balance of left and right wingers for mush
• Let the guest shine, like Dave Leno or, dare I write, Left Ahead

There are others, but we are definitely in the latter category. So I still have to wonder why so many conservative sorts fear us.

Over the years, many right wingers have passed on coming on Left Ahead. Granted, we do not have prime-time TV or even cable reach. A small show for us gets hundreds of listeners and a big one 10,000. Those are far more than a pol talks to in a typical stump speech, plus anyone who listens live or clicks the archive play is committing to half an hour of dedicated ear time. If I were a candidate for any office, I'd chat with as many shows as would have me.

I note that the progressive and liberal pols have no problem going on hostile right-wing shows. Yet it seems rare that Republicans and self-described conservative types mirror that. Maybe I shouldn't advise them, but righties would be smart to go on pinko shows.

Baker's Free Ride or Free Fall

It wasn't a clean and definitive win for Charlie Baker. Yet as far as the MA GOP bigs are concerned, he cleared the field of his single primary opponent, Mark Fisher.

A few more days may pass until we're positive that, unlike the Dems, the GOP'ers will have an uncontested race at the very top of the ticket. The debate includes how real the 14.765% of yesterday's convention ballot was. Fisher needs 15% to get on the primary ballot.

Complicating it is that the rules say blank ballots don't count. The party tabulators did instead tally 64 blanks, knocking Fisher down below 15% (as in Baker at 2,095 to Fisher at 394 and Fisher at 15.829 without blanks).

Fisher and I had a good chat at Left Ahead last week. I'll stick in his half-hour show below. He also graciously called me before the convention to thank me for being reasonable and respectful to him, as he was to me despite our political disparities. I can't run a Baker show; neither his campaign manager nor his communications director has responded to numerous requests.

Today, Fisher's FB feed includes:

Dear Friends,Thank you for your support over the last 5 months. I am currently speaking with lawyers about being jobbed out by Kirsten Hughes at the Massachusetts Republican Party "Kangaroo Convention". There were improprieties in the counting of the 'blank' vote that occurred which were not allowed to be challenged and no re-count was allowed. I will let you know our plans in the coming days.

He certainly has every right to feel cheated and to fight.

I don't know anyone who thinks Fisher would win a primary election against Baker. Yet we simple folk who took civics classes cling stubbornly to rudimentary concepts of democracy and fairness.

Conventional wisdom on this is that an uncontested primary is far better for the candidate than spending money and energy before a general election, all the while getting prodded and exposed by another party member.

Today's Globe has a pretty good piece on the convention results. They include a contrarian of moment, former Gov. Bill Weld, among the several saying how great it will be for Baker if he goes unprimaried. Weld says a Fisher challenge would help Baker interest unenrolled voters. As we all note here in MA, with 53% of voters unenrolled, that is where elections are won.

For analysis of uncontested MA primaries, you can try your own tabulation. Instead, look at the stats compiled and analyzed over at the Mass. Numbers blog. Over there in Nov. 2012, Bret Benson admitted the samples are small and Dems rarely have top seats without primaries. However, he concludes that most times, it works solidly in the GOP's advantage to clear the field for governor.

I note and admire the relentless optimism of the MA GOP leaders. I've heard the shouts of the party chairs from the carousel that seems to spin them off so quickly. This election will be different, like Weld or Mitt Romney and such. This is the right candidate at the right time. Then again, they insisted that when Baker went against Deval Patrick.

They would be foolish to turn down real or perceived advantages. Moreover, we have a long if irrational history here of the unenrolled claiming that voting for Republican governors to keep a check on the monolithic Dems. The wide disparity from one Dem legislator to another is plenty of restraint, more than a single chief executive could impose.

So it comes down to Baker. He's trimmed down and comes across a lot more human than in his last run. It may be long enough from his slash-and-burn at Harvard Pilgrim and his Big Dig associations that he can run pretty clean.

We in MA also are quite forgiving and don't burn an L for loser in the foreheads of unsuccessful politicians. Two or three goes at a high office are OK around here. Baker too has the plus of two full terms of a Dem governor. Those many voters who like that fairy tale of the magic of balance only a GOP can bring will certainly want a change on that alone.

Instead, I like the agon, when a governorship or presidency is the prize. Surprisingly, I find myself on Weld's side here. Whoever ends up as the Dem candidate will emerge well defined and with clear positions and personality traits for voters to see. For the other side, wouldn't it be swell to have the same?

Monday Followup: The Globe reports that Fisher remains unhappy at the appearance of a fix being in on the count and rules. MA GOP bigs deny both. I call with Baker the sure winner of a primary, the party should have let Fisher have a go, pretended they were honest and honorable, and not alienated unenrolled and GOP voters.


Update: Autoplay on Blogger started this regardless of settings. That's annoying. I removed the embedded player. Instead, click here to listen.

Elephant Dump on Henriquez

Can it be a pig pile if Republicans are jumping on? They were quick to the task today after MA State Rep. Carlos Henriquez was convicted and immediately sentenced. He will go to jail for six months of a two and one-half year term for two counts of assault and battery on a woman.

The jury found him not guilty on another A&B, on witness intimidation and on larceny under $250. He may even have been fortunate that the original charges could have included kidnapping.

The judge though did not like his attitude, did not find him remorseful, and did not seem to approve of his slapping his erstwhile female companion around then driving her against her will until she was able to hop out and away. As the Globe quoted Judge Michele Hogan,"When a woman tells you she doesn’t want to have sex, she doesn’t want to have sex."

We chatted with him in late 2010 when he was running for the 5th Suffolk seat. You can hear his show on Left Ahead here.

MA politics don't offer too many chance for glee or schadenfreude. The Globe article linked above does list other state Dems who have been charged with crimes. Today's sentencing hearing seemed to release pent vulture behavior.

As the article puts it:

After Henriquez’s sentencing, Republican Representative Elizabeth Poirier and the state Republican party called for Henriquez to resign.

“Now that Representative Henriquez has had his day in court, it is time for him to leave this institution which should in no way condone violence against women,” Poirier, who represents North Attleborough, said in a statement.

MassGOP Chairman Kirsten Hughes also issued a statement.
“The MassGOP calls on the state’s leading Democrat, Governor Deval Patrick to immediately demand the resignation of Representative Carlos Henriquez,” the statement said. “If the resignation is not tendered right away, there may not be adequate time for a special election and thus robbing the good people of Dorchester representation on Beacon Hill.”

Not surprisingly, Dem legislators called for a little compassion and for the process of his removal from office to take its course. Sure, he's out of there, but kicking him and jumping up and down on the supine body doesn't seem very civil. The Dems figure they can wait a day or two.

Then again...Republicans.

PM Update: The responses were not as reflexive and visceral, but Gov. Deval Patrick, House Speaker Roberty DeLeo and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh have also asked Henriquez to make this easy for everyone and resign. DeLeo said he'd act to expel Henriquez (supposedly through the House Ethics Committee) if he had to.

Screamin' at the Demons

Our duty includes loudly and iteratively calling BS on those whose propaganda includes absolving Congressional Republicans for this shutdown. Friends, coworkers, relatives...all..who make the error of raising the shutdown and even pending debt-ceiling/default conversation, need to have their heads aligned properly. Do that for yourself, for them, and for the nation.

I have my own rant about this. It's only 18 minutes, a relative bargain over the usual 30 to 40-minute Left Ahead podcast. There can be no quarter. Click below to hear my rant.

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Decades ago, my wife worked for the sixth-and-seventh grade Scholastic weekly newspaper, NewsTime. The staff had to running jibes at upper management's fake equivalence. One was that no matter what the trend was, you'd avoid analyzing the underpinnings with the suffix On The Move. For example, for The Longest Walk, the heads were Indians on the Move.

The other was more invasive and pervasive. Writers and editors were never to take a position. The fantasy was that there were exactly two sides to any story. The yin-yang trope was such that if you said this is one side's position, you had to immediately give as much space and weight to a differing view. You then never, ever took a side or made a conclusion.

This is not a middle-school, amoral, unthinking issue. The House GOP have goofed up democracy, the economy and their constitutional duties hugely. There is no pretense of both sides deserving equal blame. I ranted already about this. See above.

Please do the same.

Baker Only Player on MA GOP Bench

Lord love a duck, was it only three years ago that Mass Republicans' great wide hope, Charlie Baker, went down grimacing to Gov. Deval Patrick? He's back and big and bland as ever.

You can see his ho-hum announcement on the front of his new campaign site. At there moment, there's no other content accessible, short of signing up for his mailing list or giving him money.

The key concept here is that his only real hope of winning the open office will be voter delusion. The MA electorate loves its fantasy that putting Republicans into that office somehow is the smart thing to do, avoiding one-party rule and such.  Those who vote that way often say something like, "It's only common sense." Yet, that invariably means, "I got nothing. I'll make wild assertions and I don't want to be challenged or prove anything."

In MA reality, over half the electorate is unenrolled. The other 48% divvy up 36%-plus for Dems and 11%-plus for Republicans. Within both the unenrolled and Dems are substantial numbers of socially and fiscally conservative voters. I have long contended that this shadow Republican party is the base that the opposition needs to rally, where they need to pluck and groom their candidates from. That would apparently take more smarts, guts and energy than the GOP has here.

Amusingly, blogs around here, including the Red and the Blue Mass Groups, already carry Baker barkers claiming he will skunk Steve Grossman or whoever else wins the Dem primary. Some shills advance the very false idea that in the 2010 election, Baker would have beaten Patrick if Dem-turned-unenrolled Tim Cahill would not have run. That assumes Cahill's 8% of the vote would have gone entirely to Baker — a risible fantasy, when in fact Cahill bled Patrick votes from both Dem and unenrolled voters.

As outgoing MA Dem party chair John Walsh clears his desk, he also clears his throat and ridicules Baker's bluster. Moreover, sites like BigDigBaker.com and ProgressiveMass' list of 13 things Baker would like voters to forget they know about him are not being subtle about the candidates failures, shames and duplicity. If those seem like showing your hand and telling the opposition what's coming, it's no surprise to either side. Voters will have to delude themselves to smear the oval for Jolly Cholly.

Gov. is Baker's to Lose Again

Saddle up your swayback horses with cliché tack. The MA governor's race will be the wheezing GOP-for-balance one.

Lordy, that's tired and stupid!

Do-nothing state rep and senator, then fizzling firecracker fill-in US Senator Scott Brown said he would not run for MA governor next year. At least this time he seems to have finally learned not to jerk his party around until it was too late for other candidates to raise money.

That likely was a race he might have won. He hasn't failed at this race. His probable Dem opponent, Steve Grossman or a slimmer chance of Juliette Kayyem, face the dual disadvantages of that one-party paranoia and less celebrity glow.

The badly aging former teen model suffers from his own dual problems brought by ego and vanity. Someone he trusts needs to alert him to the reality that he is already making more money than he deserves to and that his occasional appearances on TV and in other media let him pretend to be wise and observant — traits he has never shown. He can play that online and on air without challenge.

Now the empty-bench MA GOP turns over in their political bed back to their old companion, Charles D. Baker Jr. Supposition, already in the Boston tabloid, is that the nomination for next year's race is his already.

 I have to agree that's almost certain.

Oddly, there may be other, better candidates, but they are hiding as Dems. The fairy tale here is that progressive, very left Dems dominate the politics, indeed the whole world of the Bay State.

If you are simpleminded and literal enough, sure, you can make that case. Both houses of the legislature are rife with Dems and have only a few Republicans. You can point to an over 3-to-1 party enrollment among voters as well.

Yet, numbers as well as even cursory analysis show a different reality. Consider that party registration is 35.7% Dem and 11.1% GOP, with a half percent Green-Rainbow and political designations (not officially parties but still a voter registration choice). Wait, you say, that's less than half. Sure enough, over half the MA voters do not choose a party — 52.6%.

The unenrolled as the official term has it regularly vote Democratic Party but have their pretense. They love literally to shout at polling places that they are "not unenrolled. I"m independent!" It's sort of silly but not too bad as adult foibles go. I've written on this before.

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The One-Party Game

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The game we play here is pin the governor on the statehouse. We've had up to 18 running years with Republican governors, while we vote solidly for Dem presidential candidates and keep that Dem balance on Beacon Hill otherwise.

The unproven, unprovable fantasy is that if we have a one-party system both legislative and executive branches, something terrible will happen. Specifically, voters across parties are wont to tell pollsters that Dems will ride the state with their spurs digging in, implementing all manner of extreme left-wing laws and expenditures. Voters are apt to chant, "It's only common sense."

That phrase is a verbal and political tic. Almost invariably that and "let's not reinvent the wheel" mean "I got nothing. I'm about to make wild, unsupported assertions and don't expect to have to justify them."

Back to reality, both major parties here are full of moderates and wishy-washy liberals. A few Republican legislators over the years have been nutty anti-choice types and such, but not many.Moreover, former Gov. Willard Mitt Romney constantly had to dance around his leadership in implementing universal health care for us while he was in office, arguably the most liberal act of any MA gov.

I contend that most Republican voters hide in the unenrolled ranks. Likewise, I contend that most Republican legislators hide as Democrats. There's general truth to the idea that except for governor or legislature from very conservative districts, you need a D next to your name for election.

That written, Left Ahead co-host Ryan Adams and I are among the legion lefties who want a more vibrant MA GOP. We end up speaking in political and economic code here instead of having substantial discourse and debate, both in campaigns and in the statehouse.

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Guts, Anyone?

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Lackaday, we seem to have a courage deficit here. Many Dem pols are willing to say they are fiscally or socially conservative but none switches to the GOP. For the Republicans, I can't even get a state party chair to chat it up with us on Left Ahead.

I had hopes for Jennifer Nassour. Three times when we met, she said how much she looked forward to coming on the show. Twice she asked for my card, took it and swore she'd make it happen. She never returned calls or email afterward.

Now I've tried the current one, Kristen Hughes. As close as I've gotten was to her scheduler guy. I called repeatedly to get him. I admit it was amusing when he heard the name of the show and asked whether we were left-wing. I told him both Ryan and I were progressive sorts, but that we let guests speak their piece without badgering them, pulling out surprise adversaries or using trick questions. He swore he'd get back with me but never has. No guts, those elephants.

I'd very much like to ask Hughes what chance she has of flipping conservative voters from unenrolled and conservative pols from Democratic.  I do see that as the positive future of the GOP here. Then again, that would require both insight and courage.

Milhous or Millstone?

Let us lefty types praise Congressional Republicans, at last for their current stupidity. That is, their reanimation of the odious GOP disgrace Tricky Dick Nixon.

They seem to be oblivious to the low comedy nature of the likes of "I know you are, but what am I." When the Pee-wee Herman character responded that way to an insult, it was more evidence of his puerile foolishness. Now Congressional GOP type and their not so foxy media touts chant an unending Greek chorus of "Nixonian."

The knowledgeable and analytic know first that the evils of the lawless, ruthless Nixon are not at all like the events Obama haters are failing to turn into scandals. Moreover, winger media as well as Republicans push and push the comparisons with Nixon, first the same as and then even worse than Nixon.

I accept as so many pundit types of all political stripes have said or written, that Republicans won't rest, vindicated until they force a Democratic President from office. Nixon, of course, slithered away ahead of impeachment, indictment and jail and under a pardon from his replacement.

Alas, the unrelenting efforts to drive Bill Clinton from office surely were driven by the Nixon stain. The GOP did get him impeached for lying about and inducing others to lie about his being fellated by an intern. He did not leave office and if anything his personal and political stock climbed. (It's worth noting that several of those leading that impeachment effort were at the time involved in long-term adulterous relationships, and lying about those.)

Regardless, this full chorus singing for Obama's impeachment serves two purposes:

1. Highlighting governmental problems, while even in the short term having hearings that show the President to be innocent of the allegations.
2. Reminding all voters that Republicans have decades of nefarious association with the sleaziest of all Presidents. 

Yes, the GOP loves to claim being the Party of Lincoln. Really though, they have revivified that awful zombie to make us aware they are the Party of Nixon.

Younger voters who had only a vague historical reference to Nixon are learning more and more about his sordid administration. They now know that this is the Republican way. The GOP would have been far wiser to leave hid corpse undisturbed.

Boomers and older voters hear this dreadful belch from the past. We too re-associate Republicans with the sneaky, lawbreaking, Constitution abusing Nixon.

When Watergate became his Waterloo, Nixon tried to defend his criminal leadership and simultaneously shift the focus from this abuse of office to whether he had profited financially from his misdeeds. Among his remarks at the time were, "People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got."

Well, he seemed incapable of honesty, but truth be told, he was a crook, on many levels.

So, thanks GOP'ers. You have successfully and repeatedly reminded us how the Party of Nixon acts and speaks.

Wash, Reince, Repeat

Democrats are safe from RNC Chair Reince Preibus.

He released (or it escaped) the Growth & Opportunity Project report. The 100-pager is actually about 30 sheets of big, Mac-style sans serif type pages if you account for the repetition. It could accurately have the title Why We'll Never, Ever Fail Again or Click Your Heels Three Times.

I read the 100 pages, even the iterations and reiterations, verbatim, so you don't have to. Alas for bedraggled elephants, many sheets of, well, stuff don't make Priebus as smart, strategic or analytical as his predecessor Michael Steele. Facts include, Steele and his big candidates were winners, the GOP replaced him with loser Priebus, and the report G.O.P. or maybe GANDOP fails terribly at its two main purposes — 1) explicating how even in the worst of economic times with Republican Congressmen doing their damnedest to make sure our President could neither pass laws, nor appoint key officials, nor govern, the GOP lost the big race and seats in both houses, and 2) detailing corrections that will ensure big Republican wins in 2014 and the 2016 Presidential.

Instead GANDOP the gray:

• Does not deal with such core problems as voter disdain for GOP policies and distrust of arrogant candidates
• Pretends that changing voter demographics toward more people of color and a younger electorate are perfectly manageable if only they package their feces in a pretty box
• Uses a one-strategy-fits-all groups (except women) approach of puppet spokesmodels
• Deludes with gear-head fantasies such as if only they hire the right data collectors and analysts or the spiffiest new-media consultants they'll beat the Dems at their game

I can point to some telling pages in the report:

• P2: Contacts shown here and mentioned sporadically suggest hand-clasping, going to favorable or mildly critical, red-state folk and missing meaningful criticisms
• P4: "Republican governors are America's reformers in chief." if you equate regressive and reactionary policy with positive change. The question they should have asked is whether state-level regression contributed powerfully to the defeats in the last election.
• P5: "At our core, Republicans have comfortably remained the Party of Reagan.." Yet his policies differ dramatically from the current GOP platform and pols. 
• P5: However, this page has one of the keenest and most candid insights in the report — The Republican Party needs to stop talking to itself. We have become expert in how to provide ideological reinforcement to like-minded people, but devastatingly we have lost the ability to be persuasive with, or welcoming to, those who do not agree with us on every issue. I suspect this key judgment will disappear in the morass of jive.
• P5: There is a voter perception that the GOP does care about people, while Dems "tend to talk about people. Republicans tend to talk about policy." The report fails to note that Dem policy also tends to act to the benefit of the voters instead of moneyed classes.
• P6: A key conceit is that Republican policies that favor the corporations and wealthy individuals creates a healthy, growing middle class. Very few are so delusional as to believe that. If the GOP wants the White House, it needs to drop this.
• P8: The only mention of gay rights is that younger people favor them. Yet the report only calls "to make sure young people do not thee the Party as totally intolerant of alternative points of view." It's surely not like the GOP is out of step with the nation, eh?
• P8: "If we want ethnic minority voters to support Republicans, we have to enrage them, and show our sincerity." Of course, every conclusion and recommendation in the report is insincere and manipulative. Saying sincere and being sincere are not the same.
• P12: The dark people are coming, Latinos, Asians and others. The report concludes repeatedly that the canned GOP program is the best for everyone. Yet Barack Obama and the Dems convinced voters that Republicans did not have their economic interests at heart. That wasn't a hard sell.
• P14: Iterates over many pages in recommendations. Just get coached surrogates who look like the target voter groups and the GOP wins. For one, "This new organization should design a surrogate program to train and prepare ethnic conservatives for media presentations nationally and locally. Surrogates would speak on behalf of the Republican Party on issues of the day." The report has similar findings for each major group Romney lost in the last election, except for women. The puppet strategy is simple-minded and insulting. You just train the various looks-like-you folk. 
• P15: "It is imperative that the RNC changes how it engages with Hispanic communities to welcome in new members of our Party." This also repeats for each group it lost. It avoids personal responsibility for clumsy, insulting, mean policies by suggesting that if you only phrase the message properly, voters will buy in.
• P16: For each lost group, starting with Latinos, key concepts are that you train the surrogates (puppets), hire a few, suddenly visible representative members as party functionaries, and repeat to them "The Republican Party is one of tolerance and respect..."
• P17: For Asians and Pacific Islanders, no more fly-over campaigning. There is no mention to what party shock will ensue if the GOP actually asks what the various groups want and sees that none of it aligns with party policy.
• P19-21: Women get a slightly different treatment from the cut-and-past recommendations for the ethnic groups. Here instead of policy changes, the report looks to theater, manipulation and tricks. It calls for framing the wooing and training of surrogates with "unique concerns that female voters may have..." and  using "language that addresses concerns that are on women's minds in order to let them know we are fighting for them." It's all fluff for women, fluff and messaging —"Women need to hear what our motive is — why it is that we want to create a better future for our families and how our policies will affect the lives of their loved ones." This is the most patronizing and insulting part of the report.
• P21-22: Youth harks back to the Vietnam Era Young Americans For Freedom glory days. Somehow the RNC thinks it can get eager campus and young professional voters spontaneously organizing for them, all without changing their policies to be more inclusive for real.
• P26: Many of us remember when Republican were first with the internet and savviest with emerging social media. They've lost hat Now they've become gear-heads, thinking if only they have better data collection, they'll best Dems at the game of voter connection. The report does not see that Dems have both delivery AND content.
• P29-30: Dreams of monopolizing early and absentee voter ballots overlook a huge problem. Through gerrymandering and redistricting, they also thought that they had the Electoral College in hand. They overreached with voter suppression in many states. For sure last year and likely going forward, the GOP created new groups of angry, dedicated voters who won't forget the treachery and anti-democracy.
• P31: "The RNC should recruit and hire a chief technology and digital officer for the RNC by May 1, 2013." More gear-head stuff does not admit the problem. It's like a teen thinking if only he had that glove and bat, he'd be a star or an adult fantasizing that his $5,000 bike would make him a champion cyclist.
• P33: Calls for "recruiting the highest-quality candidates with the greatest potential for leadership" ignores the history of primaries that yield extreme and ultimately unelectable entries, chosen by the wingers who vote in these contests. It also avoids consideration of whether the RNC will try (surely unsuccessfully and maybe illegally) to dictate state parties' operations.
• P52: "Our friends and allies (third party groups) should significantly invest in voter registration and grassroots efforts." This assumes a buy-in by voters that has not existed in a long time.
• P54: Relying on ambush videos by "Well-funded conservative groups" tracking Dem candidates is a tactic, but one that many voters find both despicable and boring.
• P54: "Our friends and allies must realize that the Party is at its best as the Party of ideas, and healthy debate of those ideas is fundamentally good for the Republican Party." This is the most unintentionally amusing recommendation in the report. Throughout, it is heavy-handedly paternalistic in not bringing up self-criticism, not admitting failures, and calling for RNC edicts to state parties and the puppets, a.k.a. surrogates.
• P57: The report envies Obama's grassroots support there and here, and notably in "low-dollar fundraising." This follows a passing mention of the rich folk who bankroll the party. It avoids the obvious, that grassroots are millions of voters and million of contributors. Dems win them by offering platform planks that help them. The clear recommendation should be, but is not, to evaluate the party policies to see whether they help the target voters.
• P65-67: Citizens United was not enough. The report wants a total freedom for the RNC and state campaign financial system to raise and spend as it sees fit. The report phrases such anarchy as "making political speech more robust at the state and local level."
• P71: Cut the number of Presidential-candidate debates in half, with the aim of helping the GOP pick a single candidate and getting a head start on the national campaign. Forget that talk about robust speech.

The last third of the report cuts and pastes each section's already iterative recommendations. I suggest not just starting on page 74 for these. You'd miss the shameful and illogical rationalizations.

This report is a marvel of effete delusion. Academics will enjoy this for decades. Given the chance and lots of resources and what passes for brain power in the GOP, Priebus' pals could well have dealt with real causes and real solutions. Instead, it's the fantasy world again.

Yeah, the Dems did this or that better than us. All we need to do is buy the right staff and train some spokesmodels. All will be swell.

It is to laugh.

Reverse Engineering Dem Machinery

Those who enjoy the good fight in politics dismayed at GOP Chair Reince Priebus' recovery-by-committee announcement this week. Rather than taking the route of personal responsibility, he and what passes for party leaders kept up their delusions.

Forget the many tea-party types who claim that Mitt Romney would have won if only he had been more brutally right wing, a.k.a. more like what actually cost them the election, including Senate and House seats. The alleged brains of the GOP are the back end of the elephant.

Priebus inexplicably to those who live in the real world looks to retain his job after his abject failures. Now he claims that all the party has to do under his pathfinding leadership is copy what the Dems did right this time. All will be well.

I snort in his direction.

His newly acronym-ed GOP (Growth and Opportunity Project) applies RNC members plus Jeb Bush and Ari Fleischer. Let's call them the usual suspects, á la Casablanca. Their eight mission-impossibles are campaign finance issues, demographic changes, fund-raising, geting out the vote, messaging, outside groups, and presidential primaries — buzz words each and all. 

Together this abrogation of duty must also cause considerable amusement among Dems. The task before the GOP's alleged leadership is not to pretend they can emulate and maybe improve on lefty tactics and strategies. In fact, instead of thinking that adding more high-tech aids and PR ploys will reverse their fortunes, they should look beyond messaging and into message. 

(Click below to hear Dem campaign god Howard Dean on MSNBC giving real advice to the dumb.)

For the GOP to get its act together, it has to admit its essential platform and policy blew the election. They simultaneously managed to offend and turn off large portions of the middle class, women, Latinos, African Americans and far more. 

Priebus hinted at that to the WaPo, while making it plain he would not push for policy revisions. He told Jennifer Rubin, "I can’t tell you what policy recommendations, if any, will be made, but when you are doing a deep dive like this it is hard not to look at the message. Policy bleeds into a lot of things." Yet reading all of his recent statements, I figure it's plain he will get this little traveling circus to study everything and then try to nudge it to recommend (never demand) comprehensive immigration reform and similar planks that will bring in the millions disgusted with the GOP now.

In other words, as I and many could tell him right now, Dems won in a terrible economy because their message was superior, rational, compassionate, and little d democratic, a.k.a. American. Republicans don't need new tricks and toys. They need new hearts and minds.

Here in MA, we can recall when the Dems lost the U.S. Senate seat in the special election following Ted Kennedy's death...to a do-nothing state senator, Scott Brown. The extremely capable state party chair, John Walsh, did not play Let's Form a Committee. He first admitted the obvious failings of both their candidate and the campaign. He considered it a personal failure, the worst of his life. He dug right into the issues, after first setting them out for all in and beyond the party to see.

That's what having personal responsibility, courage and insight can do.

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Whiners and Winners

The counterpoint to winger excuses for massive GOP loses this election has been a surprising, to me at least, self-control by Dems. I have read on winger blogs and heard on Fox carefully picked and over-expanded examples proving, absolutely, unequivocally, so-there proof, poof, proof, that Democrat are vindictive and vicious winners.

I honestly don't see and hear that. For every smirking Dem, there must be a dozen or more relieved ones. Most of us accepted that the slow economic recovery make seem swell in contrast to the larger world's, but still sucks for us. Plus state-level Republican gerrymandered districts gave terrific advantage to them. This was certainly the GOP's year to pluck the Presidency without even reaching.

Moreover, as recently as 2010 when Scott Brown took the special election for U.S. Senator from MA and again later in the year when Republicans took control of the U.S. House, the crowing and cackling were deafening. Spiking the football was far too mild a metaphor. I suspect with the Bush years in mind and emotion, they were like Bostonians used to championships and feeling entitled.

My own delusion was that a substantial number of Romney/Ryan supporters would play nice, mildly praise the winning side and say they'll make sure it doesn't happen next time. Very little of that has been evident.

A lucid example was over at the often doctrinaire redstate.com, there featured writer Erick Erickson was fair and smart. He admitted defeat without whining and delusional or paranoid self-lies. He specified what the GOP had to fix.

On a personal level, I thought perhaps Brown and Romney supporters might show a bit of grace and even good humor. Not yet. Even among school classmates on Facebook, those with the most extreme slurs against Barrack Obama and Elizabeth Warren have simply ignored the election. Their feeds have regressed to light news and noise, none of it political.

Sure it would be satisfying if wingers showed some social skills and even went the personal responsibility route. Their party likes to claim they are for personal responsibility and accountability after all — but apparently only if those inconvenience or embarrass Dems.

I've given up looking for hints of conciliation. That may only come when GOP Congressional leaders show it is acceptable to do some things for the good of the nation. That's bound to happen, but why do they make it so hard and so temporally distant?

Instead, unlike the Gingrich/Koch/Rove types that want and foresaw a regime of Republican dominance crushing all opponents, Dems in the main would like a working two-party system. They say as much and do more than their part to act on it. When Republicans claim that bipartisanship can mean only do exactly what they want, they make a zero-sum game.

For that two-party thingummy to work, Republicans have to have a big rethink again. Everyone's numbers show they have alienated women, that majority of voters, in large numbers. Quite justifiably, Latinos, African-Americans, Asian-Americans and other groups don't trust Republicans. They still hold sway among older, white men, the party's dwindling party.

What could be plainer than:

• Admitting Dems' policies and positions worked better even in what should have been a gimme election for the GOP
• Considering all the groups where Romney, Brown, Akins and so many other lost, and mapping those races to Republican policies and positions
• Rethinking what they really want — self-righteousness or political power

There is still a big GOP subset, led by the House Tea Party folk, who say and seem to believe that they can sway a majority of Americans by being more extreme, more xenophobic, more government intrusive into personal decisions, more restrictive in voting rights and on and on. Those folk don't have any extra brain cells to rub together to keep their skulls warm in the winter.

Here's hoping Mitch McConnell and John Boehner do enough deal cutting and cooperation in the lame-duck Congress and early into 2013. Beyond being better immediately for us all, that would provide license for GOP voters to come to terms with the election results and for the GOP itself to accept that they have to alter strategy and platform to ascend to power again.

I can guarantee that Obama would be happy to share credit or let GOP leaders take credit. When they try at all, he has. He prefers to think of his role as enabling reasonable people to act together. There's another lesson Republican leaders get for free.

I can't say that I'm eager for the next Republican President, but like most lefties, I like a vibrant political discussion leading to laws we can all live with and benefit from. And like most lefties, I like a good election battle that brings lots of voters to the polls to have their say. Smearing the ovals and other voter tricks gives us ownership of the results.

Don't Tell the Republicans!

Let me have a puerile moment here thinking the Republicans might re-moniker-ize themselves from GOP into CRAP — Confederacy, Rockies, Ancients Party. That was their voter base this time and why they lost the POTUS and numerous Congressional seats.

In a cynical war, stated early and often, they had a united stand despite their conflicting subgroups. Their unity came from negativity, when they admitted they were about to lose the demographic edge that has kept them powerful. They counted on whites, on men, on the elderly, and reactionary swathes in the Deep South and the Mountain West.

The shameless, anti-democracy, anti-rights efforts this election cycle was as bad as any during the 50s and 60s. Then Southerners were terrified that who were then called Negroes would take over their world....if they were actually allowed to vote.

And this election as in the bad old times allowed was the key word. Law and respect for other be damned (very anti-Christian, I'll add)! If only voter suppression schemes could hold down turnout in Democratic and democracy favoring groups, notably African Americans and Latinos, CRAP could prevail. Then, they'd sew up a couple more SCOTUS slots in the next four years and stage a production of delusional regression.

Well, they not only pissed off the traditional low-voting-rate minorities, they infuriated many high-voting-rate women.

Party officials and pols in Congress and on the state levels made ham-fisted efforts to keep the POTUS from a fast economic recovery. As if that weren't cynical and destructive enough, they spoke up for and introduced legislation to severely limit or even withdraw rights and freedoms Americans, particularly women, already have.

At the same time, the winger media joined Romney, Ryan, Brown and other candidates in opening lying and using scare tactics in their campaigns. No ruse was too dirty or too low...if only it got them their wins and the power to institutional their aims. After all, given demographic trends and suddenly attentive women voters, this likely was the last grab.

You'd think that Obama was hopeless when he tried to get us out of the Great Recession, only to have the CRAP controlled House and filibustered Senate severely throttle his efforts. Yeah we're well ahead of Europe in recovery, we're headed in the right way in all indicators, and Romney/Ryan would only made vague, trust-us promises with no road map or details. As hungry as Americans were for faster results, the majority wasn't buying crap from CRAP.

A month ago up in my Boston neighborhood, the always astute U.S. Rep. Mike Capuano told us,  "A year ago, I didn't think Barack Obama could win reelection. Now I don't think he can lose."

In the loose fraternity of people names Michael, he's long been one of my favorites. He has an amazing prognostication ability.

Now the question that talking heads and typing fingers across the country and beyond want to rant about — will Republicans rethink their failed extremism. Corollaries are;

• Do the stupid mega-rich donors who pissed away maybe billions to buy this election hold back in mid-term and the next POTUS election?
• Will CRAP take hard looks at post-Citizens United/buy-elections strategies?
• Do FOX and other mendacious, hyper-partisan media tone it down so they either deliver accurate news or keep it as a decent level of twist as the likes of MSNBC do?

So far the nearly 90 Tea Party U.S. Reps are not being logical or smart. Word from those speaking is that Romney/Ryan lost the un-losable election not because they were abject liars who had an extreme agenda out of touch with most Americans. Instead they hold that if only the smarmy duo was more right-wing, more extreme, nastier, CRAP would be on top of the pile.

Here's betting for the Reps that dozens will lose their seats in the mid-terms in two years.They are the politically walking dead, as voters continue to recall failed pledges, promises and palaver.

Fox though seems too invested in their irrational lunacy. Like the Boston Herald, they have an identity and a position and distinguishes them. They have so long pretended that even the most objective news outlets are untrustworthy and the enemy. Even though their advertising and other revenues are at risk, until they take huge hits there, they are unlikely even to think of telling their listeners and readers facts and supportable opinion.

There's little hope for the House until the worst of the crazies are driven out. There's little hope for winger media even mid-term.

We might though see some individual donor and SuperPAC changes. You don't have to be smart to be rich. Sometimes those traits go together. For others, fortunate timing, opportunities presented directly, inherited wealth, and connections from school and family can seed money gardens enough that very ordinary people can grow them big.

Many of the very wealthy are not total fools. The Karl Rove sorts made huge promises this time,guaranteeing  the defeat of Obama and a Senate majority. Millionaires and billionaires were suckered by an investment opportunity. They could get favorable tax changes and for some the lure was of harming, hampering and hindering women, gays, Latinos and others. Greed and hate bundled together with donations!

Rove certainly was unmasked. The billing was that he was brilliant based on successes he had selling George the Lesser Bush to the country. Here with a vastly easier pitch, a gimme election, he likely lost all credibility with winger tycoons.

I'm calling no major rethink at least until after the 2014 elections.

The RNC Chair Reince Priebus is right there with the delusional liars on the ticket. He seems equally amoral. One would have to have a sense of shame and of honor to correct course.

Fortunately, Obamacare actually kicks in during 2014 and all predictions are that our economic recovery would pick up speed regardless of who won this week. Demographics also favor more pragmatic, self-interested folk...those young, Latino, female and African American voters the CRAP wanted to crush this time.

Unless the Republicans do rethink their failed positions, they'll lose a lot in 2014 and fail again in 2016. Don't tell 'em.

AM MA Poll Surprises

After working 6 AM to 9 PM at a Boston poll, I got a quick net fix on the MA races before catching Biden and Obama's speeches. I didn't know how much would change overnight.

I was a flawed forecaster.

3rd Middle MA Senate. I royally goofed up on this one. Five Dems in the primary clearly filtered to a single choice. We had the candidates on at Left Ahead, I attended their forums and kickoffs. The choice certainly would be between the smart, charming progressive Mara Dolan and the hyper-confident, highly articulate Joe Kearns Goodwin. Also, by a huge fund-raising advantage and celebrity endorsements, the latter looked powerful.

Before the DNC speech time, he was well ahead. When I rose today though, it was former MA Sen. Mike Barrett (38%), Goodwin (32%), Alex Buck (14%), Dolan (12%) and Joe Mulllin (9%). It seemed Lexington went very heavily for Barrett.

2nd District Governor's Council. At my own Jamaica Plain polling place and citywide, my Hyde Park neighbor Brian Clinton was tromping everyone, including Robert Jubinville, who was in his third run for the office. Come the morning, district-wide, it was Jubinville (35%), Bart Timility (28%), Clinton (28%) and Patrick McCabe (9%).

Clinton is young but well plugged in, as Hyde Park District City Councilor Rob Consalvo's chief of staff. Bostonians sure went for him. Despite his relentless campaigning in the spread-out GC district and seemingly ubiquitous yard signs, this very tight race wasn't his. We'd also spoken with Clinton on Left Ahead, in a show that had a lot of listens. He has strong ideas for changes in the role of the GC.

1st Essex MA Senate. In another close one, the upset went to another Left Ahead guest, Kathleen O'Connor Ives. She is pretty young, a Newburyport Councilor, and not nearly as well known as opponents Bill Manzi and Tim Coco. Smart money had Manzi, with his deep and wide community and family connections. It was her at 38% and both the others 31%.

So far after coming up short working for Al Gore, everything she has touched for herself has shone like silver or gold.

Where are elephants? Most other races in Boston and statewide were not close and many not contested. An astounding number have no Republicans running at all. That wispy party claimed that they'd concentrated on the races were they had the best chances. It looked like they pretty much ceded the General Court and other offices to the Dems.

In my precinct and adjacent on in the same polling place, The Republican ballots were only a little beefier than the candidate-less Green-Rainbow one. Nearly all of the few nominees on the GOP ballot were unopposed, but most offices were empty.

I grant that there is a shadow Republican party in our MA politics. There are so many DINOs in the State House that the fiscally and socially conservative legislators are odd Democrats. If only they felt they could win an election with an (R) beside their names on the ballot, they'd surely switch. Likewise, if the MA GOP could flip these, they'd have an impressive list of legislators.

Honorary Girl? Sure

Honorary girl, eh? I've been called that and don't mind at all.

Over at little-brain sites, like the Boston Herald and RedMassGroup, they're trying to inflate MA Dem party chair John Walsh's jibe at Scott Brown. Then again, that is what they do most often, attach a winger pump to even the tiniest lefty balloon. (You might also look for Howie Carr's puerile go at this, but it's just one cheap-shot fat joke.)

Walsh is as funny as he is smart. Sometimes he brings Joe Biden to mind as he free associates comments for effect. Sure, he was ridiculing Brown's cynical effort to appeal to women voters by showing himself folding laundry. Brown is a shameless panderer, so he was an easy target again.

Sure, Walsh should have called on his brain's executive function here to wonder how such a comment might play. After all GOP sorts and their allies even here do have those trackers and hunt relentlessly for anything they can twist. This didn't require much effort on their part and with that John handed them an ephemeral political toy. He let cleverness get ahead of craft.

This brings to mind though times when I've been named an honorary girl. In particular when I chaired the board of a large downtown church, the woman who was senior minister called me that more than once by way of pointing out that my policies and proposals under discussion were female inclusive and aware. I grew up in an equality minded family...and this was a UU church, after all.

The board and staff were almost entirely women then as well, with a few guys in charge of building and grounds and such.

The senior minister was a partnered lesbian, who adopted the first of their two infant girls then and generally brought the baby to board meetings. As an involved dad, I was at ease with little ones and could keep them amused or jiggle them to sleep with the best of them. I often held her.

I noticed that many babies do like a dad's hands and shoulder. I suspect that they feel secure in large, strong hands. Men are likely to have such, as did my maternal grandmother who was a great baby comforter.

This little one also liked my silk ties. She'd nestle in the crook of an elbow and rub the tie on her face or feel it. My youngest son was similar, liking my ties almost as much as the satin binding on his blankie.

There was a magic state when the minister's daughter was happy in my arms and a bit more magic when she fell asleep. The room was largely populated with women, who seemed charmed and to identify with this honorary girl holding real thing. I am positive it made my job running the board easier. They denied me nothing at such moments.

November Dangers

The first Tuesday of November is laden with political risks this year. Despite GOP Congressional types doing their utmost to stifle economic recovery for the sake of winning the Presidency, and looking to a pair of dishonest, dishonorable fantasy mongers for their top ticket, Obama's re-election is iffy.

November 6th this year is election day but doesn't have the pithy Shakespearean warning, "beware the Ides of March." Rather it would be a warning for ante diem VIII Idus November, eight days before the Ides.

I have a standard rant here and at Left Ahead on this election being about reality v. fantasy. Amazingly, it could go either way and I'm sure at least 40% of voters will go for fantasy despite history and mounds of evidence.

Consider the biggest perils to Obama/Dems:

1. Passivity. Polls are plain. Obama/Biden would do great with those who do not intend to vote. If the Dems can motivate unlikely voters to get to the polls, that would translate into a landslide.
2. Youth Apathy. Unlike four years ago, first-time and second-time young voters do not feel ownership and excitement this time. The viral joy in the Patrick and Obama campaigning with new media/social media is largely absent. That two-year window of magic closed. Social media are less political, more dispersed, and have more of an emphasis on social this go-round. Obama's crew has not made much of an effort to recruit and leverage the declining political-blogger world and doesn't have time now even if they wanted.
3. The Disinterested Self-interested. Key constituents may still make the difference for Obama, but the campaign has to get its act together. Women, Latinos, middle and lower class voters are among the many groups the GOP in general and Romney/Ryan in particular have insulted and whom they would actively harm. The votes are there for the taking, but Dems seem to be relying on voters to pay a modicum of attention to the bad guys' messages — never a wise strategy.
4. Fnord. In addition to Romney and Ryan, their surrogates and PACs openly, baldly, illogically lie, ascribing all manner of positions and acts to Obama. Those who want to find an excuse disguised as a reason to vote Republican cling to the misinformation and disinformation, no matter how often and in how many sources they are discredited. The Dems have to get real about ridiculing and puncturing the GOP balloons of deceit.
5. Purchased Democracy. In the first major election after Citizens United, SuperPACs decidedly will be factors. Fortunately for Dems, few people get their news and opinion from TV and radio only; the dispersion of info flow will dilute some of the impact of lies and smears. Unfortunately for Dems, we don't know yet whether Americans who do vote will be angrier about floods of ads trying to buy the election or will be susceptible to their messages.
6. Stolen Democracy. In numerous states, what can only be accurately described as a GOP conspiracy, the tactics of voter suppression will decidedly reduce turnout and eligible voters. This will hurt Dems the most by disenfranchising the poor, rural elderly and communities of color. Judges seem laissez-faire when asked to stop these shameless ploys. The U.S. DOJ has done little and only a whiplash of voters will counter the effects of this.

National Fantasy

Ladies and Gentlemen, come November Sixth, the bifurcation to end all forks in all roads confronts all voters. Surely at least 40% of them will head toward a fantasy land. Here's hoping with all my being that they don't take us with them.

I'm old enough, well read enough, and observant enough to draw some lessons an inferences from past elections. This looming one is huge, at least as big as the last Presidential. In 2008, Obama promised a clean break with the failed winger economic legacy of Reagan and the Bushes, as well as with their suicidal, economy-destroying wars. He only kind of delivered, hampered mostly by GOP total disregard for the nation and his own temerity.

Despite Republican efforts to keep millions jobless and our taxes going for military over-spending and benefits to the wealthiest only, we have slowly mirrored the rest of the world in recovering from the Great Recession caused by the parody of capitalism so beloved by wingers. Yet, this election may hinge in large part on the impatience and irrationality of the voters. Even with the GOP House and filibuster wielding Senate preventing big recovery efforts, the electorate tends to look to the President for magic.

Setting aside the reason, the Obama administration has been on duty while we only slowly recover. Many will look to the any replacement as the fantasy miracle he did not deliver.

You'd think that voters would go for the rational response — dump every Republican House member up for election and increase the Dem majority in the Senate. Let's pass the necessary legislation to get the nation moving!

Alas, that would require awareness of reality. Isn't the fantasy more seductive?

We'll be kicking this around tomorrow on Left Ahead. Our version of Ryan, as in Ryan Adams, my co-host, will discuss the election with the Paul Ryan pick. If you can catch us live at 2:30 PM Eastern Tuesday 8/14, do that here. Afterward, it will be available for a listen or download there, on Left Ahead or at our iTunes page.

Shout It, Dems!

Even hanging on an odd hook on the side of the judicial closet, today's SCOTUS affirmation of the Affordable Care Act, is beautiful to behold. This first go at universal health care was many decades in the troubled making.

Now Democrats, including that President Obama one, need to focus and shout.

Even those who claim not to like the health-care reform really do. They want to keep nearly every provision of it. If they don't already benefit, their parents and others they know do.

For God's sake, Dems, don't play Blanche Dubois, depending on the intelligence of voters! Tell them, tell them clearly and repeatedly what they keep and what they stand to lose, depending on who's in the White House and Congress. Don't figure if you say it once on national TV that everyone understands.

For some unfathomable reason, Democratic pols and party officials have not been making their case strongly and plainly. This November election is no time for whispering and implying.

I'll read the big, honking decision a time or two, and wait a few days for the wingers to circle around their bonfire of lies and camp of hyperbole.

My dual takeaways today are:

1. This is a brief breather. There's more to be done, from reelecting Obama, to keeping control of the Senate, to shaming those obstructionists in Congress into meaningful jobs-bills support. Speaker Boehner claimed smugly before the ruling the GOP would not spike the football. I don't care if Dems do, but that should not distract them for more than a moment from the big tasks ahead.
2. We have only a few months to make our case. American voter too often have chosen the fantasy (think guns and butter, or trickle-down-economics [still in play]) over reality. Dems have to, absolutely have to, make it plain that we can recover economically quickly, if the Republicans stop the crap. We have to make as plain that taking a huge, blind leap on a fantasy this time is madness. Even with the GOP fighting all the way, the Administration has improved our lot substantially. It is essential for Obama and Dems to leave no doubt where the path is to a good future. 

We can let the Republican pols and funders sit in their corners muttering and cursing, speaking of how they had a better plan. They should just stay out of the way of those who mean to repair and advance the nation.

PM Update: On the way home from a broken-bone followup, I listened to NPR in the car. It was easy to believe that the news voices kicked around the meaning for the POTUS election. It was nearly impossible to hear one say that the victory today put a huge target on Obama for Romney. What century and continent did Mara Liasson recently emerge from? The winger elephants have been trying and trying to depict this stumbling start at universal health care as something terrible, while nearly all Americans love some or most of its features. Now that the SCOTUS has OK'ed it constitutionally, how can that mean anything other than much more widespread acceptance? Romney is erring in continuing to call the ACA Obamacare, adding the only way to get rid of it is to replace Obama with him. The only worthwhile accomplish of MA Gov. Romney was the nascent version of health-care reform that became the model for the ACA. Tell me how he's going to target this successful program that already benefits millions of us without shooting himself with every arrow at Obama. Lackaday, Mitt, Obamacare is not the pejorative you imagine.