Here's the Baker campaign, in a nutshell. Two consecutive press releases (“blog posts”, in the parlance):
#1.
BAKER OUTLINES EDUCATION PRIORITIES, SAYS HE’S HAD ENOUGH LOCAL AID CUTS
#2.
Righto! So let's end all those local aid cuts with … tax cuts.
(And you know who else hatesssss regulationsssss? Wall Street and oil companies! But I digress.)
Never mind that practically the first thing Gov. Patrick did was roll out the Municipal Partnership Act, the intent of which was to help municipalities weather local aid cuts.
So again, let's get Baker's messaging right:
- Taxes are too high. Taxes bad.
- Aid is being cut. Aid is good.
- We're going to find more efficiencies … without cutting aid, or pissing off special interests, like, say, the cops.
Let's bend over backwards for fairness's sake, and grant that perhaps there are things the state ought to do, like give mayors plan design for health care or require more employees to join the GIC for health care.
Here's the question, given that the resistance to these reforms is in the legislature: Is a Governor Baker more likely to get that through the legislature than a Governor Patrick? (Please show your work.)
Here's the only point of consistency I can detect:
- It's all Deval's fault.
It's one thing to lose an election, as I strongly believe Baker's going to do. But it's this attitude that he can just promise anything to anyone that's making him a joke.
It’s unfortunate that he is flying high with this message, because it’s the right message and he seems to own it.
Yup, we know that it’s a cover story, but the general electorate doesn’t. Governor Patrick needs to hit the ground with a similar message. Show some angst and empathy over the cuts in school programs. Acknowledge the difficulty many, many people are still facing in their day to day struggles to earn a living and pay their bills.
I don’t know what the problem is, but Governor Patrick is not succeeding in sharing or acknowledging the electorates pain.
I believe I made a post similar to Charley’s within the week of Bakers announcement and said that while I was intrigued with a socially progressive fiscally conservative Republican as an alternative to the lackluster Patrick administration I also felt that he needed to do more than simply say ‘tax cuts, spending cuts, more programs’ because it was dishonest and disingenuous and showed him as an amateur incapable of government. Seven months later it seems nothing has changed. And don’t worry about Baker flying high at the rate he’s going Deval might as well measure the new set of drapes he wants in the Corner Office for the second term.
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p>By the by I still do not think this Governor deserves re-election, and it is actually quite sad amateurs showed up to face him because he needs a real challenger to force him to get his priorities straight. He might mistake voter indifference in November as a mandate to keep doing the bad job he’s been doing.
We’re the guys from the G.O.P.
You don’t like cuts? Nor do we!
You don’t like taxes? We agree!
Our ultimate goal? Insolvency!
Insolvency! Insolvency!
In conservative future,
We’ll all be free
Once we achieve
Insolvency!
We’re the party to attack
A state budget that’s much too black
Taxes can take a gigantic whack
If we cut the pay of one lonely hack.
Insolvency! Insolvency!
In conservative future,
We’ll all be free
Once we achieve
Insolvency!
We’re the party of Cellucci
Weld and Healey, Swift and Romney
Next time we’ll exercise better haste
And really remove budget waste.
Insolvency! Insolvency!
In conservative future,
We’ll all be free
Once we achieve
Insolvency!
I think lots of people think the only way to stop the progressive agenda from coming true is to break the economy completely and have the survivors start over. It’s a game of chicken, because the progressives are also going to run the ship aground rather than change course. I think the Democrats should blink first, right now, and change course, because the republicans really don’t care if people suffer horribly. It won’t help anyone to blame republicans for all the suffering they cause.