Ba-doing
Massachusetts has made a gift of former Gov./2008 Candidate Mitt Romney to the nation. All yours. Have a party. Yesterday, Gov. Deval Patrick was inaugurated. First Democratic governor in Massachusetts in 16 years, though sometimes it was hard to tell. Here’s Howie Carr on his speech:
If you listened to the entire 17 minutes or so, you don’t have to go to church Sunday. You’ve heard your sermon for the week. Every time he said, “Let’s reach for that!” (four times, if you were keeping score at home), I reached for my wallet. There are going to be a lot of second collections over the next four years.
My prediction: Obama Lite, who trotted out Obama a couple of times during his campaign to make sure we all got the point, will be about as committed to serving his state in the corner office as Obama 2008 is to serving his state in the Senate. This elective neophyte’s eye is on other prizes. Kennedy’s seat, Kerry’s seat and beyond. The governorship of Massachusetts has been used as a springboard for the last 20 years, and that hasn’t changed. It just hasn’t been used very well.
Deval’s Inaugural Ball was heavily attended by marginal special interests but short on the beet-faced powerbrokers and lumpen-politariat that dominate the Legislature. They’re all Democrats, but in the Legislature it’s often less about the politics and more about the power. Deval is not in with that crowd, and the first words out of the House Speaker and the Senate President’s mouths post-oath was a shot across Deval’s bow: The “Together We Can” line won’t fly. No money for pie in the sky. Deval’s own people have started to figure that out for themselves, and I suspect this whole governor thing will soon become a great frustration.
Related:
Steyn and Hewitt on Romney: Least burdened in the top tier for 2008.
Kinsellagh at American Thinker with more Mass myopia.
Topics: Uncategorized
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:10 am on Friday, January 5, 2007
2 Responses to “Ba-doing”
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January 5th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Seriously, I’d (gasp) vote for Hillary before I’d vote for Romney.
January 5th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
Patrick has never been an executive (I wouldn’t include the DOJ and a few years in corporate counsel funtions as executive). Romney has.
I suspect he will be astounded at how tightly constrained the role is, and how creative you have to be to move past those constraints.
Judging by the low grade demagoguery of his gay-marriage plea to the legislature (which was shredded by Charles Fried today), he will probably become frustrated, and deserve it.