In no particular order:
- Polling works. It worked in 2006, and it worked this time too. Yes, there was some variation. Rasmussen, in particular, came out looking pretty bad in Massachusetts, as did the Globe’s pollster at UNH – both showed the Gov’s race much closer than it really was. (According to 538, Rasmussen looked bad elsewhere too.) Suffolk, in contrast, nailed it – kudos to David Paleologos and his team for getting the 2010 Gov’s race, as well as the Brown/Coakley race, pretty much exactly right.
But the point is that every independent poll showed Patrick ahead, most by something like the lead he actually ended up with on election day. Baker’s internals, of course, turned out to be a total joke. (Maybe Patrick’s did too – they never released them publicly.) So I do hope that we can finally dispense with this charade of internal polls being taken seriously by our mainstream media friends. Two Governor elections in which internal polls have been proven to be little more than optimistic press releases should be enough.
- The Boston Herald’s two hilariously self-contradictory editorials tell you a lot about how craven that editorial operation really is. The one about Massachusetts grudgingly congratulates Governor Patrick (while still implying that it was Tim Cahill’s fault, even though the results refute that), but then says that Patrick should promptly adopt most of what Charlie Baker campaigned on, because, you know, Baker had awesome ideas. The one about the national results, in contrast, says that last night’s election results were a clear message delivered by the American people, and that President Obama should listen to that message and change course.
Sorry, Herald, you can’t have it both ways. The people of Massachusetts had a pretty clear choice: Patrick’s approach, or Baker’s. They rejected what Baker was selling, and chose Patrick by a substantial margin. That’s the clear message delivered by the voters of Massachusetts. I believe Patrick when he says that he will look closely at ideas offered by his now-vanquished opponents – he did that last time, and it’s a good thing to do. But I hope and expect that he will also remain true to what he campaigned on.
- Schadenfreude isn’t all that attractive. Still, I have to say that I’m pleased that we could turn Howie Carr’s self-described “nightmare” into a reality. Just to refresh your recollection:
This is the nightmare:
It’s the morning of Nov. 3, the day after the election. You awaken to a Republican sweep from coast to coast. Everywhere but here, in Massachusetts, a tiny island of blue in a sea of red.
Yeah, pretty much. And then there’s this:
Oh sure, we savor a handful of scattered local victories – Jeff Perry, Mary Z. Connaughton, one or two others….
Well, not so much on Jeff and Mary, Howie. It’s actually worse than you had dared to dream.
Michael Graham had a similar “nightmare scenario” column last week. Same notation there. And I’m not even going to bother with Howie’s typically small-minded column today. But if you want to read a thoughtful discussion from the other side of the aisle of what went wrong for them and how they might avoid it next time, head over to RMG.
Your thoughts? Open thread on what happened last night in the comments.
Patrick’s ad on the 5000 lost government jobs was his most effective to me. Baker never offered an answer as to why cutting those 5000 state workers would make my life better.
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p>As for the congressmen that was the old eating the young. In normal years they could have been sending that money out to the swing districts but they had to defend Massachusetts.
let alone how it would affect state services.
he never said. That was one of the (many) major mistakes of his campaign.
If he named them he would have made 5000 enemies. By not naming them he made 100,000 enemies.
I must say, looking at some of the returns town by town, the Democratic GOTV effort was outstanding. On heard somewhere on NECN that over 400,000 doors were knocked on. That’s amazing.
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p>The MA Republican Party has a long way to go to match that effort. We have our work cut out for us.
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p>Congratulations.
John Walsh.
Gracious comment. And thank you for your comments here at BMG.
Maybe people in Massachusetts needed Scott Brown to realize that they can’t take Democratic victories for granted.
But the GOTV was a hell of an operation.
On one hand. On the other, it’s the same stuff Dukakis was doing twenty years ago.
Except that the Patrick team has figured out truly ingenious ways to use technology to make the operation far more effective than Dukakis could have dreamed of. I spent some time last night talking to one of the guys at the top of the GOTV operation. It’s really quite amazing. There’s no doubt in my mind that what happened here in MA needs to be studied and replicated by the national Dems if we’re going to have any shot in 2012 to reverse some of what happened outside of MA yesterday.
You all fought a great fight and I am impressed with the results. I knew many of the races were long-shots for Republicans but I for sure thought we were going to win at least “one” state wide office. So hats off to an amazing execution of a well honed machine.
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p>I have more to say but I don’t want to take away from my congratulatory message to all of you and to the Democratic machine (and the democratic process). The people of MA have spoken.