- sco’s got the scoop (a week late, but earlier than us = scoop) on the special elections for the the 1st Bristol, 27th Middlesex, and 2nd Worcester state rep districts. Primary January 10, election February 7. We got elections year-round in this Commonwealth.
- Mariposa on the 2nd Worcester race, formerly held by Dem Brian Knuutila; uh, how about that strong grassroots the MassDems are talking about? Although, it turns out there is a Dem who has formed a committee for that race: Michael Ellis, President of the Gardner Chamber of Commerce. We’ll see how that shakes out. (Thanks PatrickA.)
- So now Mitt will tell us in December what exactly he’s running for, if anything. Apparently he’s dithering because he wants maximum leverage over the health care debate after it leaves conference committee. "An announcement during the maneuvering could have sharply diminished his clout with the Democrat-dominated Legislature." Right… Diminished clout… hard to divide by 0. Seriously, the question has never been, "Will the Democrats hand Romney a victory in health care?" It’s whether Romney will hand DiMasi (and Montigny, not so much Trav) a victory which will not help his own conservative pedigree come ’08.
Now, I give Mitt some credit for being able to read political tea leaves, so here’s a little unsolicited advice for Our Guv: The GOP is imploding, you were never going to come across as a Konservative Kool-Aid drinker anyway, and who knows, three years from now may show the ascendency of the McCain/Giuliani/Hagel wing. So apropos health care: Take the best deal you can get, declare victory and run, baby, run!
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Sorry, I’m not quite seeing how getting a Health Care bill done is not good for the Senate President. If I remember correctly, it was the Senate President who came out first with the goal to seriously address this issue, followed shortly by the Governor, and ignored by DiMasi until very recently. Let’s face, DiMasi was playing golf all summer and needed a splashy plan to counteract all the terrible press he’s gotten in the past few months. He really had no choice but to go bold. But let’s give Trav the credit for making it a priority in the first place because it’s important- not for political gain like DiMasi and Romney.