Blue Mass Group

What it took to build a nationwide movement for change:

Have you ever been to Piscataquis County, Maine?  It is one of the largest counties (in area) east of the Mississippi River.  Baxter State Park and Moosehead Lake are in Piscataquis County.  Despite its huge size, this county has less than half the population (17,235) of Arlington.   Piscataquis County is the only county in the six New England states that was carried by John McCain. (Yes.  That means Barack Obama carried every county in New Hampshire.)  McCain won Piscataquis County by 355 votes, 4,785 4,430.  Consider there are 67 counties in New England, and Barack Obama carried 66 of them.  McCain carried a tiny county by 355 votes.  Welcome to Blue England. New England elects 22 members of the House of Representatvies.  With the defeat of Christopher Shays in Connecticut, all 22 members will be Democrats.  This is amazing, when you consider that it wasn’t long ago when New England was the most reliably Republican region in the country.  In 1932, New England provided four of the six states (ME, NH, VT, CT) voting for Herbert Hoover over FDR.  (The other two states were PA and DE.) Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.  The rise of the [...]

Next door we learn that we mean liberals deal with people with whom we disagree with ridicule and moral outrage. Sarah Palin got both despite the fact that

• she is attractive
• she is experienced
• she is smart
• she has a Downe’s Syndrome baby
• she took on her own party
• she is a good campaginer

In answer, I bring you Fox News on the inside story about Sarah Palin

I had an idea about how to remedy the dilemma that some states get paid more attention than others.  In the primary season, the earlier you vote the more attention you get and in the general the more fickle your state is the more attention you get.  My idea takes into account both parts of the cycle in order to get some balance.

I propose that the safest states for either party have early primaries and save the battlegrounds for later.  We would use the last presidential election as indicator of sequence.  First week of the primary season would be any state where either candidate won the last general election by more than 30 points; two weeks later those states with a 25+ point margin; two weeks later the states with a 20+ point gap; two weeks later the states with a gap of 15+ points; two weeks later 10+; two weeks later 5+; two weeks later the states with a less than 5 point margin in the last general election.

What a night for Democrats nationally! Obama wins Indiana and sweeps the rust belt.  He takes Florida to exorcise the demons of 2000.  Liddy Dole goes down to a crushing defeat in Jesse Helms old seat in North Carolina.  Those were of course just some of the highlights nationally.

Closer to home the story though is as much a tail of Republican woe as Democratic glee.  Our blessed state Republican party proceeded to take their rock-bottom numbers in the legislature to further depths of patheticness.  The grand ole’ party of Sumner, Lodge, Brooke, Weld (who endorsed Obama) and Romney proceeded to lose a further three open seats in the House – in Attleboro, East Longmeadow and Holliston.  They now have 16 of 160.  16.  Scott Brown held on but five of 40 in the Senate is nothing to crow about.  Their whole delegation in both chambers can fit in one State House suite.  Calling them the minority party is an insult to minorities and parties.

Think about this a second.

In 1992, President-Elect Bill Clinton, our party’s last President-Elect, set about the process of picking  a cabinet and, to be honest, he made some great choices. However, it’s hard to imagine, but in 1992, no one was blogging about their favorites, no one was watching the prediction markets, no one was emailing their friends, hell, cell phones were new and faxes came out of the machines on long rolls.

What do you think the new President should do? Here’s my first attempt: – Get the troops (all or most of them) out of Iraq. Stop military bullying of Iran, Syria and the like. Reduce the deployment in Afghanistan. – Cut the military budget. – Cut the budget for stupid stuff like Homeland Security, War on Drugs, etc. The problem here is that this will cause a loss of jobs. The cutting of the military budget will cause Boeings of this world to close plants, laying off workers. There has to be a plan of their employment beforehand. – Absent huge government intervention, the economy will be in recession for several years. This is unacceptable. The only solution I see is to create a new asset bubble a la housing and dotcoms of the previous years. This will need a huge injection of money into economy Healthcare needs to be reformed, Obama’s plan will do for start, but Clinton’s was better (a single-payer plan such as the one Kucinich and/or Nader advocated would be even better, but it’s not going to happen). Again, this will need money. Education needs to be reformed. It’s a shame that in most European countries [...]

Stoners? Libertarians? Progressives?  The top 30 “greenest” towns in Mass, judged by the ratio of yes to no votes on question two, the proposition to decriminalize marijuana possession:

1 Wendell 6.45

2 Aquinnah 6.24

3 Provincetown 5.73

4 West Tisbury 5.46

5 Shutesbury 5.24

6 Amherst 4.65

(Uh…how many diaries do I get a day? LOL) In celebrating the win for the puppies (ie, the passing of Question 3!), I have paused to ask myself several times if this is the end to this matter, or if there’s another fight a-brewin’. After all, the dog racing industry is one which has consistently employed influential lobbyists to prop up its sagging industry in many ways, not the least of which is the perennial issue put before every legislature: that of allowing racinos with gambling slot machines. So, it is not outside the realm of imagination to believe that before they can be dismantled, there will be one last push in the legislature by the track industry’s lobbyists to “overturn the will of the voters” (as conservatives like to call it when recalling the tax rollback ballot initiative). Now, while the legislature has every right to overturn previous laws, whether created by former sessions of the legislature or by ballot vote, in this case, I would not support that. The Yes on Three people had better be prepared for this last leg of the fight. Although there’s a chance the tracks will just fold up and quietly go, as [...]