Oops. If the NYT is to be trusted (sometimes questionable) Governor Patrick has just called out Speaker DiMasi:
“It’s part of what we ran against, and it needs to be called out,” Mr. Patrick said in an interview last week on the day before the House overwhelmingly killed the bill. “We’re going to keep working on it until we get a Democratic process that’s functioning.”
This on casinos.
The newspaper quotes Stephen Crosby, dean of the McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies at UMass:
Mr. Crosby said Mr. Patrick’s failed bid for casinos did not portend trouble so much as the recent “bomb tossing” between him and the speaker.
“This feels like there might be some serious personal antipathy,” Mr. Crosby said. “If it’s true, that’s a problem.”
It’s like the Sharks and the Jets. Or Red Sox-Yankees. How exciting.
If the “bomb throwing” is real. So far, this sounds to me much more like a newspaper generated controversy than a true calling out. Let’s see Governor Patrick give a few speeches in which he lays out more specifics of what he, “ran against,” and explains which members of the legislative leadership are the problem children.
If that happens, and he chooses a better issue than casinos on which to base his case, I think he’ll win again as convincingly as he did in the last election. People are sick of the hackocracy and the undemocratic power of the legislative leadership. Who elected them Lords of Commonwealth? Their Beacon Hill buddies who wanted something in return, not the voters. Let’s not forget where the last really powerful Speaker wound up.
(I guess Scott Lehigh disagrees: “[B]ecause he’s the one with the defined agenda and the widespread public expectations, the governor stands to suffer the most damage if he can’t make the relationship with DiMasi work.”)
Until that happens, however, I call this a corporation trying to sell newspapers. (David Bernstein seems to weigh in with the interpretation of the Times: “[B]y the late stages, both Patrick and DiMasi were battling for victory, not principle.”) Time will tell. I do think it was uncool for Patrick to take off on the day of the vote. Maybe he went to Foxwoods. How do you read this story?
More whining by Deval is not becoming.
I think so.
The Sharks-Jets/Sox-Yankees analogy suggests worthy adversaries fighting one another.
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p>In DiMasi vs. Patrick, it’s the muscle-bound bully kicking sand in the face of the scrawny beach-goer.
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p>Deval is getting his ass kicked by Sal so the NYT is trying to play up the personal animus angle, I think, to provide cover for a totally outclassed and out-gunned neophyte governor.
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p>The Times, IMO, is trying to blur Deval’s increasingly pathetic political record least the public begin to project his executive ineffectiveness on Obama. Voters risk thinking “Heck, Barack is using Deval’s phraseology, maybe he’ll be a lame a president as Patrick is a governor. They’re like twins, separated at birth. Do I want that in the White House?”
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p>Then again, I can find al Qaeda under my bed.
Because certainly if Patrick’s going to claim this is what he “ran against,” a heckuva lot of his supporters are going to repeat that meme – but directed toward the Governor. An overwhelming number of core Patrick supporters wanted absolutely, positively nothing to do with casinos – summed up quite nicely in that letter signed by around a dozen (or maybe even more, by the time it was all said and done) of Patrick’s town coordinators.
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p>And, I think it’s important to remember two things: first, aside from casinos, there’s been a lot of compromise going on lately. Governor Patrick could seriously build on that, and help steer the compromises a little closer to the Corner Office than the House. Second, Scott Lehigh tends to be a master of the obvious – and he’s right in this case: Governor Patrick is the one with the serious agenda and it behooves him to work with, not against, the legislature and Sal DiMasi. Like it, or not, that’s what we have on Beacon Hill and it’s a helluva lot better than what we’ve had there in the past. Important legislation can be passed during DiMasi’s tenure, even that coming from the Patrick Administration, but it’s going to have to be done working with DiMasi and not necessarily against him. Yes, pressure can be applied, but if we try to totally usurp him we’re going to lose. And Governor Patrick’s definitely going to lose when he tries to do that on an issue that not even his base would support (and he better stick to the issues we do, or he’ll risk having no real base at all).
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p>(MEMO to Patrick: Let’s get this green bill passed. With DiMasi, it’ll be easy as pie, it’ll have a real impact and it’ll get this state – and people powered politics – doing some good on one of the core issues facing us.)
I thought I would never say that, but he is. There was a lot of progress made in the Legislature on the Governor’s agenda, The House moved on the Life Science bill, DiMasi came out with a compromise on Tax Loopholes, the Senate passed DiMasi’s energy bill, the bond bills seem to be moving and then WHAM – Casino’s hit like a ton of bricks!
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p>Today’s tranpsortation reform announcement shows that they can work together….lets hope it continues.