The Massachusetts Democratic Party is apparently circulating a draft report among its members coming up with long-winded explanations as to why they can’t seem to win a Governor’s race. The report is described here; there’s an amusing commentary on it here.
I have a somewhat different view than the report’s authors (Jarrett Barrios, Dorothy Kelly Gay (eek) and Guy Glodis (double eek)). I think we’ve lost because our candidates have, well, sucked. Let’s review:
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1990: John Silber. Simply put, one of the scariest gubernatorial candidates that either party has put up in a long, long time. Those of you who were here at the time will recall that maybe you, and certainly many of your Democratic friends (including the really lefty ones) voted for Bill Weld because they couldn’t abide the thought of Silber running the state the way he ran Boston University. (Plus, Silber was really mean to Natalie Jacobson.) No one knew much about Bill Weld, and no one much cared — they just voted against Silber. Almost any other candidate would have won that one for the Dems.
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1994: what was his name again? Oh yeah — Mark Roosevelt. Sacrificial lamb. No one was going to beat Bill Weld that year. Weld did some good things for the state, the economy was hot, and Weld turned out to be a very skilled politician. Fuhgeddaboudit.
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1998: Scott Harshbarger. Charismatically-challenged Beacon Hill insider (incumbent state Attorney General seeks Gov’s office). This guy had less spark than a … spark plug that, uh, doesn’t have any spark. Yeah, that’s it. He couldn’t beat Paul Cellucci? Come on.
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2002: Shannon O’Brien. Charismatically-challenged Beacon Hill insider (incumbent state Treasurer seeks Gov’s office). The spark plug thing again. Romney was a tougher opponent, but O’Brien ran a lousy campaign and at the end of the day, it wasn’t particularly close.
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