If Democrats in this state are serious about taking back the corner office, they have to figure out a way to scratch Charlie Baker’s Teflon coating.
There have been a number of instances of scandal and mismanagement in the past 4 years, yet none of them are even close to being Charlie’s fault. The latest – the preponderance of state troopers with no-show shifts – is the perfect example of this. But I don’t see any articles on BMG about this.
Baker comes out and talks tough – “I’d take away their pensions if I could”, and he somehow makes people believe that this scandal is not about him at all. He’s just the lone Republican in the corner office, and somehow, gross mismanagement in a department that is in the executive branch becomes the problem of the legislature and “the government”. Not his problem, even though it occurred under his administration. As long as he promises to fix it, he gets a pass on allowing it to happen in the first place.
Same goes for the MBTA. He appoints a Control Board over the MBTA consisting of “his guys”. They can’t fix the problem. Baker pays zero price. The state botches a rollout of vehicle inspection program, “not Charlie’s problem”.
When you run as the “fixit guy” for the state, then when you fail to fix things, that’s a problem, right?
Deval Patrick took a huge hit in capital just because of a Cadillac. Meanwhile, I can’t even find a reference to what kind of vehicle Charlie drives, but I bet it cost more than $46k.
Shirley Leung has noticed that the implicit bargain for which Baker was elected — Manage the shop, don’t ask for anything too huge — is being sorely tested. He’s got his own management issues, to say the least.
And the T is absolutely no better off. I’d be happy to give him credit, but nope. A bunch of noise about reform; some ok ideas and overdue action; and at the end of the day no hope that things will ever get better. I’d call that a failure.
The state trooper scandal is the kind of stuff that usually makes the front page of the Herald and a Carr column, except this kind the hacks are blue lives who matter more than any working stiff outside of a uniform. Meanwhile his lackeys at the state labor review board are stonewalling teacher unionization efforts and he is trying to crush the Carmen and rob their pensions. The staties need to pay more, working people need to pay less. Exempting law enforcement while making every other public sector worker suffer is straight out of the Walker-Snyder playbook.
We should not have to wait for a Flint level crisis to act on the T, our infrastructure, or our opioid epidemic. Charlie’s only solution is a 30 year old idea already disproven (lock em him). All the Democrats running could do a far better job pointing out his failures as well as they articulate their own visions. You cannot beat an incumbent with 60% (and dropping I might add) approval rating without hitting him directly.
Carr and his ilk lose their sh*t when the public employee lists come out every year. They feign being horrified by a small number of UMass professors who make like $200K (and who also usually bring in millions in research grants) but don’t make a peep about the police. I’m glad this is making news and I hope it makes changes. Many police in MA (especially in the state police and Boston Police Dept) are grossly overpaid and our systems for overtime and details are plain stupid. When you see the list of Boston city employees ranked by salary and you have to scroll through 100+ police officers before seeing a single teacher, you know where our priorities lie.
If memory serves, Baker was the bright boy who thought it was a good idea to make the MBTA the depository for the debt from the Big Dig.
I met Baker once when he was campaigning. In his talk, he mentioned his blind grandfather and teared up remembering him. I came up to him later and told him he didn’t have to apologize for his tears. A few days later, there was the kerfuffle about him saying the last time he cried was when he was talking to a fisherman who couldn’t send his children to college, an incident that evidently happened years before. I’d SEEN Baker cry a few days before and knew then this guy was a liar and just another empty suit.
He’s gotten a free ride from the media for the last four years and, in all likelihood, breeze back into office unless the media starts picking him apart or the Democrats stop playing nice with him. Has he actually done anything?
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/joe_battenfeld/2018/03/battenfeld_statie_scandals_may_roil_baker_s_re_election_bid
Democrats like House Speaker DeLeo are tacitly endorsing Baker for re-election. You can’t land a scratch if you don’t want to even try.