Blue Mass Group

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Plategate: Polito caught in classic sleazy hackery

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This would be hilarious, if it weren’t so pathetic, and if it hadn’t likely cost the Jimmy Fund thousands of dollars.  Fortunately, we can give it an awesome name: plategate.

The “RS” [for Red Sox] license plates, in existence for seven years, have been so popular that the Registry of Motor Vehicles is running out. When six plates were auctioned for charity in 2003, they drew huge sums: Ben Affleck paid $50,000 for the number 1, and Red Sox minority owner Phillip H. Morse bid $140,000 for Ted Williams’s retired number 9.

So how did more than two-thirds of the first 100 numbers go to state Representative Karyn Polito, a Shrewsbury Republican running for state treasurer, her friends, relatives, campaign donors, and others with ties to her?

Oooooh – awkward.  I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation.

Before the Registry will make a charity plate, it requires 1,500 prepaid applications. Polito said in an interview that she encouraged people close to her to sign up so the Registry had enough orders. “I took the lead and worked with my friends and family to collect the pledges so that we could create the Red Sox license plate to benefit the Jimmy Fund,” she said…. In fact, 68 of the first 100 “RS” plates issued went to people with ties to Polito, many of whom live in Shrewsbury, according to Registry records.

OK, that sounds barely plausible.  Polito sponsored the original legislation, and she got the ball rolling by getting a bunch of people she knew to sign up.  But, uh oh…

Jimmy Fund officials and Polito said the plates were available to anyone who applied and that the numbers were assigned on a first come, first served basis after the bill was signed into law Sept. 26, 2002.

Registry records, however, contradict that. On all 68 applications, the words “per KPolito” or some variation appears, according to the documents, obtained through a public records request.  Dozens of applicants applied before Polito’s friends, relatives, and donors, but received higher numbered plates.

The story then runs down several instances in which a Polito-connected person clearly jumped the line, simply because he or she knew Polito.  For instance,

A Needham driver applied on Oct. 4, 2002, asking for any two-digit plate, and was assigned 1912. Several applicants, whose forms bore Polito’s name, applied days or weeks later and received two-digit plates.

And then the comedy starts.

Polito, who is running for treasurer as a watchdog who will fight what she calls the culture of corruption on Beacon Hill, did not explain why her name appeared on dozens of applications. but called the plate program “a huge success story.”

HA!  Yeah, a success story for the Polito family.  It’s classic, olde tyme Beacon Hill hackery: special favors and perks for friends and relatives of people who work inside the building; the end of the line for everyone else.  Can’t wait to hear what Howie Carr has to stay about this.

Steve Grossman issued a statement demanding that the Polito family and friends give back their plates so that they can be auctioned off to raise money for the Jimmy Fund.  Doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me.

So, plategate it is.

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Comments

  2. Worcester Telegram and Gazette were right on top of this story, too.  A quick perusal of their website will indicate that the story has yet to appear anywhere–that I can see.  Perhaps it’s so small I missed it.  

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    p>Atrocious Republican rag.  I wouldn’t line a puppy’s crate with it.  

  3. let’s treat license plates for what they are — an efficient means to identify a vehicle.  That means:

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    p>1.  Phase out the green and white plates.  A single consistent color scheme makes identification easier.

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    p>2.  Require front plates.  Currently, they’re not required if you’ve got a green and white.  Even if you don’t do (1), do (2).

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    p>3.  Do not allow either ‘1’ or ‘I’, either ‘0’ or ‘O’, and do not allow symbols like ! @ $ or lightning.  All those do is add to the confusion.

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    p>4.  Work harder to enforce the ban on license plate holders which obstruct some of the plate.  Lots of ’em obstruct “Massachusetts” and so forth.

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    p>5.  Specialty plates have no place.  The Jimmy Fund Red Sox, etc.  It’s nonsense.  They add to the confusion.

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    p>6.  If you’re going to keep (5), at the very least ensure that there’s no conflict.  There should only be one MA plate with “1” on the back — not one for every specialty plate.  There’s no reason to allow any ambiguity.

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    p>7.  With (3) in place, vanity plates are just fine; after all, they likely make it easier for a person to identify the plate, not harder.

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    p>

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    p>License plates exist for public safety.  There’s absolutely no reason to reduce their effectiveness as tools for safety in an effort to have fun, raise money for charity, show your team colors, show that you’re an old timer, etc.

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    p>Yeah, I’m a curmudgeon on this issue.

    • We have about a dozen different flavors of plates.  So why not allow words/phrases multiple times on DIFFERENT plates?

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      p>We could have a ‘REDSOX’ plate on red and white, Cape and Islands, Spay your dog, invest in children, Olympic, etc. – AND get $75 for EACH of them!

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      p>They are entirely voluntary.  The state AND the charity both make money on them.

    • I believe that the green and white plates are already being phased out slowly. All new plates are red and white and illegible, damaged or stolen green/white ones must be replaced with the new design, so if you really want the green/white ones to go, you know what to do đŸ˜‰

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      p>I agree that at some point they should just issue new plates too all remaining holders of the green/white plates. There is no point in requiring front/back for the old plates since the State has no intention of making any more of the old design.

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      p>I am pretty sure the registry already does not issue two plates that differ only in whether they use zero/oh etc.

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      p>I don’t see the problem with specialty plates. They are easily identified with numbers that are typically easier to read. My wife and I have Spay/Neuter plates (with fairly low numbers because I signed up when the MSPCA first started their campaign to create them) but our plate numbers are just
      of the form “SN XXX”. The only difference from normal plates is the little picture of a dog and the vertical orientation of the SN prefix. The plates have to renewed every year, so the state gets more revenue and the charity gets its cut.

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      p>I believe that in the case of the SN plates, the MSCPA held back all of the plates numbered below 100 and that were multiples of 100 up to 1000 and auctioned them off.

      • The only difference from normal plates is the little picture of a dog and the vertical orientation of the SN prefix. The plates have to renewed every year, so the state gets more revenue and the charity gets its cut.

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        p>I always thought the picture was of a cactus silhouette in front of a setting sun!  Never could figure out what it was for until a few weeks ago while walking, and I stopped and looked closer at it.
         

  4. Not to detract at all from Rep. Polito’s industry and diligence here, but I’d like to know more about the Swift and Romney administration’s involvement in Plategate.  Hackery is twice as effective when two branches of government are involved.  

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    p>We know from the Globe article that Tagg Romney got plate #88.  What else do we know?

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    p>The Globe wrongly says that it was Mitt who signed the bill into law (Jane Swift was governor in September, 2002, and she signed it into law, but the same Registrar of Motor Vehicles served under both Swift and Romney during the time the plates were being dished out, so to speak.  Who was running the Registry when these indulgences were being dispensed?    

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    p>Come on down, Registrar Kimberly Hinden.        

    • You do know what #88 signifies, in less than savory circles, right? It is used as a white supremacist code — the eighth letter of the alphabet is “H”, so “HH” stands for “Heil Hitler”.

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      p>Here’s a link:

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      p>http://www.adl.org/hate_symbol…

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      p>Just wondering…

      • It could also mean … almost anything else. Like his first Red Sox game? Maybe he and his future wife bonded over the Red Sox in 1988? I have no idea what it means, but you went Godwin pretty quick on very little evidence.

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        p>

        • OK, I retract my former comment, it’s more likely that he was looking for his college graduation year. Still, that’s one of those numbers which causes me to raise an eyebrow because its connotation is widespread among skinheads (look for it on their clothing).  

      • You’re going to be surprised if you automatically assume the number is a racist code. In Chinese and Vietnamese and some other Asian cultures, the number 8 is good luck. Hence the Pho 88 Restaurant in Lowell, and a slew of other businesses with 88 in their name. Not that Romney is likely to have tapped into that meme.

        • This is the sort of comment that makes blogs make Glen Beck look like a good journalist.  You guys are supposed to be better than this crap.

          • Please tell me exactly what parts of my comment did you find to be ‘crap,’ so that I can bring my future comments up to your standards.  

            • that CMDad intended to respond to NoPol’s original comment about the secret white supremacist meaning of 88, not to your response.  Personally, I was interested to learn about the 88 thing and the ADL link – I wasn’t aware of it before.

        • I responded to the wrong comment.  I was intending to respond to the original insinuation.

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  6. shows that they were in charge of distributing them which means that Grossman is misleading the public with his ridiculous attacks.

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    p>We can do so much better than an old time political hack like Steve Grossman.

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