Charlie Pierce:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Two_Cheers_For_Martha
. . For our governors especially, but statewide generally, we elect Republicans. We elect Democrats. We do not elect wingnuts, nor do we elect radical southpaws. We're a helluva lot more conventional than our image would have you believe. (Senator Professor Warren was both sui generis, and the exception that proves the rule.) And, frankly, Martha Coakley has run a decent campaign for governor, a campaign clearly superior to the one she ran against McDreamy. She won a tough Democratic primary, with opponents who covered the entire spectrum of Democratic politics. She has more than held her own against Baker in their debates. She has done everything that people said she failed to do in 2010, including humanizing herself through her ads. (There's a very good one in which she describes her brother's struggle with mental illness, a story that I, for one, had never heard before.) In addition, since losing to Brown, she's been a damned good attorney general. And Charlie Baker has run a campaign of pablum. Which brings me to the basic conundrum of this race -- why is Martha Coakley paying forever for the bad campaign she ran in 2010 while Charlie Baker doesn't pay at all for the equally terrible campaign he ran for governor later that same year? They're both retreads. Neither one of them is in the least charismatic. At least Coakley's been elected, several times, to a statewide office. . .
. . .Which brings us to the Globe's endorsement of Baker, which is calm and reasoned, but which seems to be more than a little curious, since it doesn't make a very compelling case for Baker over Coakley on any grounds save for the fact that he's not her. . . .
(Just a note -- the Massachusetts Constitution requires the state budget to be balanced. So, any time you hear any governor of either party up here brag about having balanced x-number of budgets in a row, remember that he essentially is arguing that, during his time in office, he hasn't robbed any banks.).
. . .
The only real policy position of Baker's that the Globe endorses is his enthusiasm for charter schools, over which the Globe and its columnists have been slavering for two decades. Otherwise, the whole endorsement can be fairly summed up as, "It's time for a Republican governor again."
(David at Blue Mass Group does a nice job summing up the curious twists and turns that Globe's longtime crush on Baker has taken.) . .
Blue Mass Group (David Kravitz)
http://bluemassgroup.com/2014/10/did-anyone-think-the-globe-would-not-endorse-charlie-baker/
In a thoroughly unsurprising move, the Globe endorsed a Republican – Charlie Baker – for Governor. Lots of people saw this coming a mile away. I was one of them. At the end of August, I wrote this, on the occasion of the Globe endorsing Steve Grossman in the primary:
"Endorsing a guy who probably won’t win the primary, and in the process setting out all the reasons why Coakley isn’t a good candidate, sets them up perfectly to endorse Baker in the general. I’d say the odds are better than even that they’ll do just that, if Coakley wins the primary." Two days later, on Sept. 2, I was more emphatic: My prediction is that if Coakley wins the primary, the Globe endorses Charlie Baker. And so it came to pass. And, really, the Globe has always liked Baker. . . .
That’s pretty much the line in today’s endorsement: Baker’s an awesome manager, and we need a manager more than anything else.
. . .
Did Baker rise to the “key challenge” of “mapping out a larger agenda”? You wouldn’t think so to read today’s endorsement, which other than the obligatory nod to Baker’s “full-throated support” for charter schools, is startlingly devoid of policy discussion. Instead, the Globe contents itself by saying that “one needn’t agree with every last one of Baker’s views,” whatever they are, to vote for him, and concludes with this:" a difficult inflection point in state government, Massachusetts needs a governor who’s focused on steady management and demonstrable results."In other words, we were kidding when we said back in August that Baker needed to show a vision, or even to talk much about what he actually wants to do other than improve efficiency. We really just want a manager.
Anyway, this is all very interesting, but almost certainly irrelevant to the outcome next Tuesday. As we’ve discussed several times in recent elections, newspaper endorsements have a pretty poor track record recently – just ask Senator Dan Winslow, Governor nominee Steve Grossman, Lt. Gov. nominee Leland Cheung, Treasurer nominee Tom Conroy, Mayor of Boston John Connolly, and any number of other endorsees who have failed to convert a Globe editorial board endorsement into actual votes. No, what wins is getting your supporters to the polls on election day. You know how to help do that.
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