On the face of it, Deval’s primary victory does look like a victory for the liberal moonbat crowd. However, a look at the down ballot races would show that something different is going on here. In most of the high profile races, the clear progressive candidate lost- and lost big.
Secretary of the Commonwealth
Bill Galvin gets 83% of the vote. Bonifaz finishes third in a two-man race, defeated by Galvin and a coalition of Blank, write-ins for Mickey Mouse, Captain Kirk, and a few stray Dianne Wilkerson stickers. (This begs the question- Had Galvin agreed to debate Bonifaz, would they also have to provide an empty chair for Blank?)
Ninth Congressional
Pro-Iraq-Invasion-Steve Lynch gets 77% against The-Man-Who-Would-Be-Lamont, Phil Dunkelbarger. Even in this district, Deval wins most of the towns, and even stays close in the towns he loses.
Berkshire District Attorney
In one of the strongest bastions of Patrick supporters, challenger Judith Knight earns only 39% against incumbent David Capeless.
Lt. Gov
Less of a blow-out here, and less of a clear ideological divide, but even in this race the candidate who was at least putatively most conservative wins with 43%.
Conclusions? There was clearly no hijacking of the democratic party by a small group of liberal wackos. All across the state moderate and slightly conservative Democrats were elected or returned to office. (Though in the house races, Marie Parente was defeated- too bad Spiliotis hung on. At least they tossed out one bigot.)
Holly is about 1 1/2 – 5 in campaign management; her only real victory is Reed Hillman, the 1/2 is Ginny Coppola. She has lost two congressional races, state senate races…the list goes on.
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In fact, in this election year – nobody hired her but the Herald. And Christy Mihos.
I was wondering how much credibility she really had. “Sounds great, less filling.”
That would be funny, because I volunteered for his Democratic opponent Ed Noonan. Hillman’s victory was more of a function of Noonan focusing more on GOTV in his hometown of Palmer, and his ignoring the other towns, than any kind of brilliant strategery by Hillman’s camp. That, and the other large town in the district was Ware, and there tends to be an anti-Palmer vote in Ware.
And at least she had him in the right towns!
Holly’s gonna be even more pissed when the liberal moonbat candidate wipes the floor with Healey in November. Then she’ll have to re-assess what exactly defines a moonbat.
I had a hunch the C.G. campaign was in trouble when a Harley-riding retired ironworker neighbor of mine told me at the polls that he was set on voting for “the Patrick Deval guy,” because “he was the only one who didn’t go negative in the debates.” I don’t think Healey has a shot at his vote.
Disagreement isn’t negative, it’s imperative. Or why have a race at all?
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NEGATIVE is personal and snarky – which is why I am not a major elected oficial today!
may be related to your tendency to lapse into piratese. Are you more like a Johnny Depp pirate or one of those Pirates of Penzance?
You talkin to me, PP? I have a high threshold for negative campaigning – I like to see them mix it up, and Reilly’s stuff in the debates, e.g., didn’t bother me. But Healey’s groundless smear ad crossed my line, easily. My only point about my neighbor was that he was a low-information voter, from a generally conservative demographic, who voted for Deval because he liked his attitude best. None of the “he’s too liberal” stuff stuck.