Blue Mass Group

Not that it’s a bad thing but I got a great kick out of the Menino introduction at today’s rally.  If I had just walked in I would have thought that Mayor Menino was with Deval for the past year.  “One year ago, Mayor Menino stood on this stage with Deval Patrick, yada yada yada”.  Two or three references to sharing a stage at a voter registration rally one year ago does not equal long standing support for our candidate. The truth is that Tom Menino was doing everything in his power up to and including the primary to ensure that anyone other than Deval Patrick was the Democratic nominee.  And I hate to think where Tom would be standing if the Democrats had generated an independent “Mihos-type” candidate.  Has anyone seen Gabrieli or Reilly lately? But hey, we’re the big tent party.  Jump on board.  Bring Bob and Sal with you.  Just don’t expect business as usual. Deval by 20.  Brand new day.

Word is that Romney will be announcing that he is going to get rid of the tolls. Wow, three weeks before an election and Mitty boy returns to make another major press/photo release. How lucky we are to have a part time Governor and a Lt Governor who has no clue what she is doing. I guess Christy Mihos should feel relieved that Mitty is going to do what he called for years ago. My only question is how is Mitty going to finish paying for the Big Dig cash cow??? Oh, I am sure his shell game will continue and their will be some ridiculous explanation. Can’t wait to put this BS artist out of our state. He needs to find another state to reside in, after all he has done nothing for us, except screwed the little people. Let’s not allow him any chance of having his fingers in our business through  his puppet Healey. We need to work day/night over the next three weeks.  Patrick Murray the best choice by far. Both work off each other and both will work for all of us.

About a week and a half ago, our esteemed commenter FrankSkeffington wrote an exhortation to respond in kind to the onslaught of negativity from the Healey campaign. FS called it the “Kitchen Sink Strategy”: … [L]et’s throw everything we have at Kerry Healey and drive her already pathetic favorable/unfavorables into the septic tank.  She will tear Deval apart and we’ll rear her apart.  Her negatives are a lot higher than ours and Deval has a softer cushion with his high favorables. And essentially, I agreed. But I admit Jon Keller’s commentaries did indeed give me pause: Why would you give up the “silky smooth”, hopeful rhetoric that had gotten Patrick this far? Why ditch the strategy of the previous 18 months? Well, the last couple of weeks are reminding me never to doubt my instincts, and never to doubt some guy (or girl) on the internet who goes by the handle FrankSkeffington. Keller doesn’t get it, and his howls of derision are becoming more and more incoherent: So what is it, Jon — should Patrick not strike back? Should he not attack the Romney/Healey record with the same vigor and intensity that Healey attacks Patrick? Does it not matter enough? [...]

The rally was wonderful.  John Walsh and Mayor Menino both spoke briefly.  Deval could not have given a better speech.  I hope they post it in full on the campaign website.  He aggressively defended himself against the recent attacks.  The crowd roared in approval.  My favorite lines: I am not a criminologist……but I did prosecute criminals If I had Kerry Healey’s record, I’d want to change the subject too: He used this line multiple times to go after the Healey/Romney administration specifically on : cutting funds to the sexual predator registry health care education – bigger class sizes, fees for buses, etc. the Big Dig – lack of oversight cuts in aid to cities and towns cuts in police Healey’s lack of experience for office He talked a lot about fighting crime, the influx of guns and putting more police on the streets! He talked about the toxic nature of Healey’s campaign and how she is ultimately responsible for setting the tone of her campaign.  He said he would not apologize!  This was a great event!  Kudos to the campaign for organizing it so well and so quickly.

Way to go Martha!  Go to Deval Patrick’s TV website and check out television spot 10 with Middlesex DA Martha Coakley.  It knocked me off the couch.

Way to go, Martha!

This is cross posted from Daily Kos courtesy of Frederick Clarkson

More than 5,000 people rallied with the Democratic candidate for governor of Massachussetts, Deval Patrick today on Boston Common.

Here is what our future governor said:

Extract ran on CH 4 news this morning, later on what used to be Ch38 the “sister station” they ran the whole half hour interview, taped last Thursday. 2 things about Keller today: Great hard-nosed questions, seriously, this guy can be a great journalist. Really weird though, he, no joke, referred to her as “Governor” no less than 10 times during the interview.  Could this be Freudian on his part?  If so, it’s way too over-the-top, once or twice would be one thing… As for muffy, she was her usual ice princess persona.  She’s very consistent on the stump, like a mcdonald’s sandwich is, except hers is a dish that is always served cold.

So, I’m chatting with lightiris at the rally, and we look back and there’s Michael Dukakis.  I got a chance to talk with the Governor, and the conversation really made me think.

Romney, he said, was interested in governing for about a year and a half.  I wondered if it was that long, then I thought, the Governor was right.  “He lost interest the day all his candidates for State Senate and State Representative lost in 2004.”

Governor Dukakis agreed.

Those Mini-Mitt campaigns attempted the same Kerry Muffy Healey slime we are seeing today.

From the Standard-Times:

Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey’s campaign is staked on her being able to convince the voters that she will be tougher on crime than Deval Patrick, her Democratic rival for governor. She might have even a tougher time convincing them that she isn’t a hypocrite, however.

Deval hit all the right notes at the rally today. He inspired, he motivated and he fought back well – without getting down in the dirt. I’m not good at crowd estimates, but there seemed to be a lot of people. There were many volunteers looking to sign up more people to work on the campaign. There was also phone banking at the rally, with people getting sheets with 10 names and numbers and asked to use some of their weekend cell minutes to do voter ID work for the campaign. I thought Deval effectively answered all the smearing that’s been going on. He rightly pointed out that a “leader” should understand (s)he sets the tone for a campaign. And the sliming that Kerry Healey’s been doing absolutely led to a climate and a tone of negativity that resulted into Deval Patrick’s family’s personal, private history being dragged into the campaign. He said he wasn’t going to apologize for accusing Healey’s BRAND of politics as being responsible for what happened. He’s right. The crowd roared. He talked about his leadership experience vs. her lack. He talked about the many things that have  gone wrong here the past four years, and [...]