Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Healey Handlers in Fantasy World

The unintentional humor of failed gubernatorial candidate Kerry Healey keeps on coming. Watching the returns, we here were astonished to find her campaign manager and assorted lackeys saying they did everything right. They must be from Remulak.

The Boston Globe added a nice analysis that somehow avoided foot stomping ridicule.

About the only classy speech of Healey's campaign came in defeat. She must be hoping for a call from the GOP at some future time, so she was humane. When her little Party party booed at the mention of winner Deval Patrick, she shushed them.

In that ballroom (or bawl-room), she seemed the only nice and realistic person quoted though.

If the Republicans are savvy, they'll tear up campaign manager Tim O'Brien's card and delete his entry in their contact software. Even in extreme rejection of his lunatic effort, he feigns perfection and righteousness.

It was only a couple of weeks ago that the pseudo-convicts picketing O'Brien's counterpart's home and Deval's backfired. Coupled with the lame and disgusting ads, this was way over the top. Yet, O'Brien said otherwise. He "insisted yesterday that he and other Healey strategists are not changing course and had long planned a new mix of ads. But he pointed out that Healey's task is particularly difficult because of forces beyond her control: the sharp decline in the GOP's national standing in the past year, Governor Mitt Romney's fall in popularity, and the generally negative feelings among voters about the direction that the state is headed in."

So, it's not his fault. Nope. This is the campaign manager's equivalent of outside agitators causing all local problems.

Among his delusions he revealed yesterday was that he succeeded in portraying Patrick as a tax-and-spend liberal. While on planet Earth, that surely was the most obvious of the Healey campaign's many failures, he couldn't acknowledge it. Instead, all three of her opponents, plus most media, pointed out repeatedly that her administration raised the cost of government hugely through fees and particularly stripping local aid so that towns and cities and even rural areas had to raise property taxes. The long-term hidden taxes have reached undeniable proportions...undeniable for all but the severely deluded.

The killer though was O'Brien and Healey's refusal to switch from smear and deceit in advertising to real issues. Here, O'Brien points to a climb in the polls after they ran their nastiest ads. He can't see that this was simply that she suddenly was buying lots of media and that the short-term improvement came from any ads not these dirty ones.

Instead of 'fessin' up, Healey advisers -- unnamed in the Globe piece -- prefer to imagine that "What crippled her candidacy, they say, was the torrent of spending on ads, especially by Patrick allies such as the Massachusetts Teachers Association." In this reality though, the article adds that "Republicans interviewed for this report, however, say the failure happened before that. The campaign needed to showcase Healey's down-to-earth side and command of the issues."

So, O'Brien, greetings from the Earthlings. Now, get lost.

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