Over at Hub Blog, Jay Fitzgerald gets it exactly right.
What candidate for any office wouldn’t love an 18 percent lead at this point in a campaign? Healey will have to do much, much more than hammer away at a somewhat manufactured coddling-criminals topic that few thought was a major issue just a couple weeks ago. The problem, as noted by Ginny Buckingham, is:
I also have my doubts that Patrick, the candidate of the unions and the Beacon Hill powerbrokers (past and present) will stamp an ‘outsider’ imprimatur on his administration. Yet, after 16 years in the corner office, the GOP is losing its claim to be the party of change.
When a stalwart Republican like Ginny writes that last sentence, you know the fundamentals of the election are much larger than l’affaire LaGuer etc. etc. etc.
I, too, was struck by how lukewarm on Kerry Healey Buckingham’s column today was, but I hadn’t gotten around to blogging it yet. Jay said pretty much what I was going to.
And as for the poll numbers, again, Jay is right. No one seriously thought those initial 39-point numbers could possibly hold up. We didn’t (“there is no doubt that these numbers will tighten substantially over the coming weeks”). Jon Keller didn’t (“The numbers are eye-popping, but also probably somewhat deceptive…. these numbers were almost surely inflated”). The thing that’s surprising is that, given the beating Patrick took from Healey and from the MSM over the last week or so, he’s still holding an 18-point lead. So don’t believe some of the MSM’s spin that Patrick’s somehow in trouble. He’s in a very good position to win this thing.
All of that said, are those numbers going to tighten even further? Almost certainly. So to anyone who believed the first poll, or even who believes this most recent one: get back to work. Give some money. Make a few phone calls. There’s lots to do. Remember: Only You can prevent Healey/Hillman.
Three reasons I’m not worried:
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1. Consider that while Healey’s made up a lot of ground, most of that has likely been accomplished by picking low fruit. After the primary it was clear that a large portion of Deval’s supporters weren’t strong supporters. In other words, the first 21% was a lot easier than the next 18% will be.
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2. While this poll doesn’t show favorability numbers, Healey was over 50% in the last poll I saw. That makes it very difficult to win. It’s a lot easier to move people from positive to negative or from neutral to positve than it is to move people from negative to positive. Her attacks on Deval will undoubtably boost his negatives a lot but will not bring hers down and might raise them a bit. So she might get people to stay home or vote for Mihos or Ross, but to make up an 18 point deficit she really needs to move voters from Patrick to her.
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3. Because of Deval’s impressive organization I suspect that a significant number of “unlikely” voters will turn out and vote for him. I don’t think Healey can afford to go into election day with the polls tied. She needs to be ahead in the polls to win in the booths.
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So it’s not in the bag, but I’m still feeling confident.
as long as you’re not complacent. Can you spare $25? Or a couple of hours?
It is interesting that I have seen nary a mention on this site about any meeting between DP and Billy Bulger, who is held in somewhat low regard by many self-styled independents.
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I’m sure someone told him that you don’t get elected statewide unless you kiss that ring take that meeting. But, ugh. That is disappointing. Thus endeth the “outsider more able to stand up to the Legislature” argument.
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At least he’s not Kerry Healy of the Romney administration going for him, which is nice, and might be enough.
Buckingham lost any respect I had for her when she joined in the screeching about the LaGuer case a week ago. It was way over the top and dishonest. However, she has started to gain my respect again with her column today. I may not agree with Buckingham on a lot of issues, but I thought her column today was much more honest and thoughtful.