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Porcupine in a cranberry bog

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With apologies to Peter, here’s a really fun story from the UMass Dartmouth debate, published in today’s Globe.

Healey tells Mihos at debate: ‘Keep your hands to yourself’

November 5, 2006

The campaign is almost over, and in some ways little has changed. Kerry Healey is still annoyed at Christy Mihos. Deval Patrick is still trying to play the peacemaker. And Mihos just doesn’t quit.

At one point during a debate last week in Dartmouth, Healey mentioned that she had gone cranberry-picking in bogs along the South Coast.

“When I go out into the cranberry bogs, as I recently did, I think, ‘What a beautiful resource we have here from Massachusetts,’ ” Healey said.

“I’d love to see you out there harvesting cranberries, you know that,” Mihos said. “That is a vision. That is a wonderful vision.”

“I was there,” Healey replied.

Mihos then patted her on the back, prompting Healey to say: “Keep your hands to yourself.”

“You’re my hero,” Mihos said.

After the debate, Mihos told reporters, “It’s like, what, touching a porcupine or something like that?”

Minutes later, Patrick surveyed his opponents and said, “Despite the wisecracks and the sanctimony, and the distortions, I’m going to miss you all.”

“So where you going?” asked Mihos.

“All the way to Beacon Hill, my friend,” Patrick said.

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  1. ….On Saturday, at the Cape Codder, Healey and Hillman held a rally with our GOP candidates.  After Rep. Jeff Perry introduced them, county Commissioner Mary LeClair gave them each a basked ot hand-picked cranberries.

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    Reed popped one in his mouth and started to chew, while Kerry just smiled at him.  After he finished wincing, Reed said, “Cranberries are a lot like Deval Patrick – look shiny, smell nice, but bite inside and..SOUR!”

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    (This argues for the Lt. Gov. actually having visted a bog before…)

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    Mr. Mihos’ hands are already full of quills!

    • (This argues for the Lt. Gov. actually having visted a bog before…)

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      Yeah, who knew cranberries are sour?  Geez….  lol

    • This isn’t proof that Kerry Muffy Healey was ever within three miles of a bog.  All it proves is that she may have sampled a raw cranberry at Whole Foods.

          • The Kennedys are philanthropic and when in the Congress and Senate help the little guy. The bushes help their rich buddies get richer.

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            Muffy seems to have forgotten her roots.

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            BTW I’m not a bigot toward the wealthy.

            • Not disagreeing, but I never really thought about the Kennedy legacy as one of philanthropy (as in gives a lot of money to charity). I’m mistaken?

          • Peter, we all know that Healey and Patrick weren’t born with money.  Kerry Healey grew up in a home with a few more advantages than Deval, but Deval got the big break that led him to Milton Academy.

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            The question is really who they are NOW.  People can imagine running into Deval at a grocery store and having a conversation with him.  The only way I could imagine running into Kerry Healey is at a GOP fundraiser or a country club.  Not that Healey likes golf, but it’s the place to be.

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            • Personally, I can’t imagine meeting the great Winner of Life’s Lottery anywhere but a corporate boardroom, where he spent the bulk of his professional career.

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              And IMHO, very FEW people realize that Kerry wasn’t born rich.  They assume it because she’s rich now and white.  They assume Deval was born poor because he is black, instead of being some Carleton from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air (whom he eerily resembles).  Interesting form of racism.

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              http://i.imdb.com/Ph…

              • I’m sorry, but I cannot stand when Healey claims she and Deval come from modest means.  I, like Healey, came from modest means.  Deval Patrick came from abject poverty.  There’s a huge difference as anyone from modest means or abject poverty should be able to tell you.  Also, DP did not simply win life’s lottery.  He was extremely bright and avoided the pitt falls of abject poverty, that is why he won his ticket to Milton, he wasn’t simply lucky.

                • Also, DP did not simply win life’s lottery.  He was extremely bright and avoided the pitt falls of abject poverty, that is why he won his ticket to Milton, he wasn’t simply lucky.

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                  Is that not luck?

                • Had he not been an excellent student, had he not kept his nose clean, he would not have been selected.  Was he lucky to have won this scholarship, sure.  But luck alone would not have been enough to grant him this opportunity.  Further, I consider it pretty unlucky to be born into abject poverty. But, whatever.

          • at the champion of the candidate that brought us the “parking garage” ad and the party famous for those three little words “Harold, call me” gettting all huffy about bigotry.  Without bigotry there would BE no Republian Party today, it’s all they’ve got.

            • Without bigotry there would BE no Republican Party today

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              Maybe true.  Republicans did afterall end slavery.

              • As if the Republican Party of Karl Rove stems directly from the Republican Party of Lincoln! Let’s not forget that when the pro-segregation Democrats of the 1960s disagreed with Lyndon Johnson, they found a big welcoming committee in the Republican Party. Aren’t you the least bit ashamed that you have the likes of Jesse Helms, strom Thurmond (may he rot in hell), Trent Lott, and George Allen in your party?

                • Byrd didn’t want to join a party run by men like Everett Dirksen, who wrote the Civil Rights Act, or Chuck Percy, or Elliot richardson, or Nelson Rockefeller, or…

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                  Tell me again, a little closer to home – why did Louise Day Hicks run for Congress?

                • you have to pull stuff from the at least 30 years ago. Both the Republican AND the Democratic Party have changed since the days of busing. Louise Day-Hicks and her ilk would be Republicans in any other region but New England. They know that to play ball back in the ’70s, they had to be part of the Democratic machine in this state. 

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                  You know that all those men that you mentioned who wrote the Civil Rights act would probably be Democrats today. Just look at how many old-style Northeast Republicans are jumping ship a la Bill Saltonstall.

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                  http://www.boston.co…

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                  Your CURRENT party has luminaries like George Allen, who keeps a Confederate Flag in his office, Trent Lott, Katharine Harris, and Tom Delay. Since we’re talking about the present, can you name one Republican in the House or Senate with a voting record that supports affirmative action or equal rights?

                • Olympia Snowe.  Susan Collins.  Elizabeth Dole.  GHWB, who SIGNED the ADA.  Jim Kolbe.  Mary Bono.  Chris Shays.  Ginny Brown Waite.  Charlie Bass.

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                  Don’t MAKE me come down there….

                • Aren’t you the least bit ashamed that you have the likes of Jesse Helms, strom Thurmond (may he rot in hell), Trent Lott, and George Allen in your party

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                  Ok, so one (not you specifically, rather someone upthread) can characterize the Republicans as the party of bigots, and I’ll characterize the Democrats as the “party of KKKers” or “Party of fat drunks who’ve accidently killed in the process of fatly drinking”. 

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                  You know what?  We’d each be wrong.

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                  I’ll go on a limb here to guess that I’m probably the only one on this Blog who actually knew Strom Thurmond.  He was a politician and a gentleman.  He was a politician in a racially charged South at a time, when plenty of his voters probably fought for the Confederacy in the civil war.

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                  Strom Thurman did a lot of good for his State and his country.  He served in the Army and went to war and NOT via the draft AND at age 41. As Senator he brought Federal money and projects to the state. His goal was to take care of his South Carolinians.  He fathered a daughter out of wedlock, but also took responsibility, and not because of pressure from the media to do so.

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                  He also voted wrong. Thurman thought that the solution to black poverty in the US had nothing to do with integration and that it could be fixed by economic development.  On that, he was wrong. BTW, he was joined by a lot of Democrats and Republicans who were equally wrong, and not just in the South.

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                  On balance, his service did more good than harm. And, I’ll also argue that his strident support of segregation with his famous 1957 filibuster and his ultimate defeat (by Truman) as a Dixiecrat made the Civil Rights movement that much stronger — a consensus forged in war, so to speak. 

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                  So I suppose we’ll simply agree to disagree, Ms. God, in your condemnation of Mr. Thurman to hell. If you’re condemning him because of his record, I’d say his record was flawed and it was illustrious. If you’re condemning him because he was a racist, then you must have known him better than I.  But if in hell, I’m sure he has lots of bipartisan company.

                • He was a segregationist with a black daughter.  That means he used his political power to put his own daughter at the back of the bus.  Can’t get much lower than that.

                • I think I’ve seen everything.  Maybe you know the guy who yelled for all the bar to hear at O’Connor’s the other night that he’ll “never vote for a nigger”?  One of Strom’s peeps, I think. 

                • I could suggest that he was a Boston democrat, an alien from Mars or a figment of your imagination and do so with at least as much evidence as you suggest to the contrary.

                • Did you honestly say that having people ardently argue for discrimination and racism actually helped the cause to end segregation because it was so horrible it was doomed to swing the pendulum back?

  2. Poor Abe Lincoln would be drummed out of the Massachusets Repbublican Party today.  He defended murderers and arsonists in his private law practice (see William “Duff” Harrington.

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    Mrs. Healey would never associate with anyone like that.

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