MA Election Choices. Fret Not on 11/4.

Yes indeed we'll have two-page, double-sided ballots next week. Be aware most of that is the four ballot questions...and that this is a simpler set of choices than the recent Dem primary.

I happily play scout and point the trail. I read the literature, go to the stump speeches, watch the debates, and drill down into the campaign sites so others don't have to. People do ask and I do say.

Do all of us elections officials and your fellow voters a big favor. Show up knowing which ovals you'll smear. You can do the essential research in two minutes through the secretary of the commonwealth's site. Go here to view or print your precinct's ballot.

Count 'em 4 Questions

This includes the four ballot questions, with all of their explanatory text. Please come with your choices. We have to account for every page of every ballot all day long. If you don't vote on the front and back of the second page, the scanner will reject it and an official will have to trot over to manually override that.

I have strong thoughts on these four. If you don't or are undecided on any, feel free to use my brain. The short of it No on 1 and Yes on 2, 3, and 4. My reasoning is in my Left Ahead podcast, which you can access here.

Mostly Obvious Choices

Sometimes I mix it up, but this cycle, the picks are Dems, as in:

• US Sen. Re-elect Ed Markey over a weak GOP Brian Herr (no real vision or any other virtues)
• Gov./Lt. Gov. Martha Coakley/Steve Kerrigan over Charlie Baker/Karyn Polito. Reject the baseless, even puerile, fantasy that putting a Republican in the titular head office somehow balances anything. The nominally heavily Dem legislature is not very liberal putting a GOP Gov. in is silly. Baker has toxic history from his roles running HHS and the Big Dig finance, and in his inhumane approach to fixing Harvard Pilgrim. Don't trust him.
• AG. No contest between the brilliant and experiened Maura Healeyk and the ho-hum John Miller.
• Secretary of State. Bill Galvin is stagnant and is a Luddite whose technology foot-dragging makes it hard to access "his" data (it should be ours). Alas, neither D'Archangelo nor Factor has made a convincing argument to unseat him. Too bad. Last time, Jim Henderson did, but as an indy, he didn't have the recognition. Begrudgingly, Galvin yet again.
• Treasurer. Deb Goldberg is the one, over GOP Mike Heffernan and Indy Ian Jackson. She has the experience and smarts.
• Auditor. Re-elect Suzanne Bump over GOP Patricia Saint Aubin and Indy MK Merelice. In a fit on inexplicable asininity, The Globe endorsed Saint Aubin. who is an anti-gay, anti-marriage-equality bigot. Moreoer, she got a basic accounting degree 34 years ago and briefly practiced as an auditor; too little, too long ago to qualify her for anything. She is abrasive. Bump has found terrific waste in the system and saved us tons of money. Let her keep at it.
• Congress. Incumbents are OK and in the one meaningful race for an open slot, the Sixth US House District, go with Seth Moulton over Richard Tisei. I generally like Bay Windows picks, but they are wrong picking the latter. Sure, he's openly gay and wants to push ENDA, but he's a Republican first and not in a good way. He promises to be John Boehner's puppy. Tisei has been a MA state senator and there's nothing he knows that Moulton can't outdo in a few days of study and conversation. Moulton has better politics and planks.

More of my reasoning on most of these choices are in another Left Ahead show here.

So, if for some reason you don't totally agree with all my choices, still vote next Tuesday. For all of our sake, come prepared with your picks.

Mark Fisher Gets Shout Down Instead of Shout-Out

Like the old man in Moonstruck, "I'm confused." Not only did I get sucked into a winger radio show embedded in a RedMassGroup diary, but here I pass it along.

You can go to The Kuhner Report page for the audio show. You can catch it on Red Mass Group, replete with sniping comments from its readers. It is over 40 minutes of fast-paced accusations, counter-accusations, bluster, innuendo, and calumny.

H/T to RMG's Rob Eno. I had never heard Kuhner's show and would have been unaware of this high theater had Eno not featured it.

Guest for Jeff Kuhner's show yesterday was Mark Fisher, the Tea Party GOP candidate for MA governor. As he was when he joined Left Ahead, he started and remained calm and rational throughout the show. In stark contrast, a couple of caller- in said he was a liar, that he misrepresented him involvement in the GOP, and worse.

The gist of Fisher's contentions includes that a couple GOP Poobahs and moneyed types asked him to drop out of the gubernatorial race, giving nearly certain nominee Charlie Baker a clear field with no primary. In return, Fisher said, he would get a shot at a more winnable office, plus funding toward such a race.  He named the Grand Poobahs in the show.

There have been he-says/he-says disagreements on who offered whom what when. To us with clean hands, those seem like quibbles. Some Baker folk may imply Fisher tried to extort up to $1 million from the party bigs to get out. Fisher's competing implication is that they wanted to bribe him.

Regardless, the consensus among GOP functionaries seems to be avoiding the primary is essential for Baker's November victory. As an aside, I'm with various righties and lefties thinking a primary can only strengthen Baker's hand, particularly with unenrolled voters.

The lowest ring of his Kuhner-show hell featured Boston Herald columnist and GOP consultant Holly Robichaud. She is the show.

Robichaud plays the drama queen and is even worse than Chris Matthews and at least as bad as Bill O'Reilly in screaming, in shouting down other speakers, in raw, abrasive emotion in lieu of logic. She is unbelievable in multiple senses of that term.

Her basic refutation of Fisher relies entirely on ad hominem ploys. Again and again, she screams that she knows this or that person Fisher says was involved in proposing the deal. She knows, she just knows (without evidence) that what he said is impossible. She was as far as possible from demonstrating anything in her QED. She just knows, like a parent who just knows her son would never steal a car.

The show fascinates me. There's the circled-wagons aspect. There's the crazed shouting lady, bordering on sociopathy.  Mostly there's the raised curtain revealing the motley GOP crew backstage.

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Fully Baked Charlie Baker on Gay Folk

There's a disarming, charming big-lug quality to Charlie Baker, candidate for MA Gov. You see him, as well as his brother Alex mirroring him, in the new ad off his campaign site.

Click below for a worthwhile two minutes. It's not going to make you cry or touch you deeply. Both guys are stiff, but hell, they're from New England. Yet, regardless of what you think of Charlie, you are likely to feel more positive about him...unless you hate and disrespect gay folk.

The head on his site page featuring the video is Charlie Releases New Video, "Brothers" To Mark 10 Year Anniversary Of Marriage Equality. That shows at least a bit of guts for an otherwise personally timid Charlie. It has not been news to Charlie that Alex is gay for quite some time. Alex married a man 10 years ago when MA was just gearing up for same-sex marriage.

Nevertheless, even in blue MA where SSM has been the law of the land for a decade, being openly LGBT friendly takes a bit of courage for a Republican. After all, the official state GOP platform claims on the one hand to " reject all forms of discrimination, intolerance and exploitation" and right below that " We believe the institution of traditional marriage strengthens our society." That passive-aggressive crap is just barely shy of overt anti-gay lingo.

So Charlie lets the exchange with Alex humanize him, in a big-lug, fraternal way. The arch conservatives and anti-homosexual types weren't going to vote for him anyway. As a political ploy, this can only help, In particular, unenrolled voters and wishy-washy Dems, particularly those who buy into the fantasy that we just have to have a Republican governor to keep balance in our government, are likely to feel good about the socially liberal Baker. That puts him in the mold of his mentor and former boss, GOP Gov. Bill Weld. That's good company around here.

Many around here though also know that the state house is full of registered Democratic legislators who are fiscally conservative, may also be somewhat socially conservative, and really were they honest and not afraid of losing their seats would swap registration to Republican. I've long held that most Republican pols in MA are Dems.

This ad can only help Baker get more undecided voters liking him. Nicely done at low risk, Charlie.

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Baker Sticks With Familiar Tunes

Suffolk Law's lunch series with gubernatorial candidates is at once inconvenient and worth the trip. Yesterday's showcased almost-certain GOP nominee-to-be Charles Duane Baker Jr., known to all here as Charlie.

Check 'im out: Suffolk's Rappaport Center is very efficient about posting vids of these sessions. Yesterday's with Baker is here.

Pic note: Any photos I run in this blog are Creative Commons. You are welcome to them, just make one mention of Mike Ball if you use one.

I won't recap his show in detail. Use the like above to hear it all.

At these luncheon thingummies, some of the usual suspects are inevitable. The moderator will invariably call on the special-interest types to get their predictable questions in the air. The candidate format is 10 minutes to pitch and self-intro, then about an hour for Q&A (no speeches, thank you very much).

We who attend regularly know there'll be a tobacco tax/smoking cessation one from an anti-cancer advocate. Almost always, a land-conservation guy will tunnel down to an obscure law that needs enforcement or tweaking. Former AG Scott Harshbarger will try to get a commitment to hold a vote to overturn casino approval. These brief hazing incidents don't seem to bother the candidates, whom I suspect have been warned beforehand.

By the bye, Baker would be happy to have a plebiscite on repealing the casino approval. He doesn't see such gambling on top of the lottery as a wise or viable economic-development strategy.

The overwhelming impression Baker left yesterday is that he's not making promises of big changes. He's not giving other contenders targets. Likewise, his campaign site is sparse, asking for money and not providing any platform yet.

He returned repeatedly at lunch to the same few, neither controversial nor innovative, concepts. For example, his biggie, which he iterated three or four times, is that:

• He has visited many MA towns
• In each, everyone agrees on which public schools wew best
• Therefore, good education is not limited to a few wealthy communities
• Further, the conclusion is to analyze what a good school does and replicate in lesser schools

That's old and obvious stuff, but he loves it. He is clearly proud of his insight and you'll hear that repeatedly during his campaign.

Likewise, you'll hear repeatedly that his parents were on opposite political poles. He and siblings grew up hearing Dem/GOP debates at meals. He uses that as a metaphor suggesting he learned how to get workable compromise across political divides.

As close as he got to controversies or strong positions were:

1. The recent state budget should not have touched the rainy-day fund
2. Local municipalities need to streamline permitting and otherwise make starting or expanding businesses easier
3. A three-year college degree would lower costs
4. We somehow need to align health-procedure costs so the range is not huge among facilities
5. He doesn't want recreational pot
6. MA cities need to each stand on its own and not see itself as a satellite of another city, particularly Boston

Again, he offered no sweeping, inspiringly named program or set of planks. In this second go at governor, he still pushes himself as a pragmatist who rises above party affiliation to get stuff done. He admits to being in the Weld/Cellucci model, a social liberal and fiscal conservative. (Hey, that sounds like most MA Dem pols.)

In a shallower, yet obvious, note, he has been in training. He used to look too much like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters. As a fellow pasty-faced white guy, I empathize.

He's toned and trimmed. He looks healthy and pretty for 57. He has an unfortunate taste in shirts and ties (lose the pastels, which accent your sallowness, Chuck), but seems vital enough.

In 2010, Gov. Deval Patrick beat Baker, but only by six points. The new, improved contender seems to figure it's his time. Failing in a race for a major office never stamps LOSER on your forehead here.

I'll be intrigued to see whether he clings to his pragmatism/collaboration ideal. If the Dem candidate has big ideas and big promises, he may have to be less spongy.

MA Dems for Gov. Already a Good Crop

MA Gov. Deval Patrick has to step down after this second, four-year term. One of the usual buffoons, Charlie Baker, is certain to be the GOP nominee. On the Dem side though, there are some really good people running.

Disclaimer: I am well aware MA has elected numerous Republican governors. The prevailing, if you pardon, wisdom by polled voters is that there are so many Democrats in the State House that somehow it's only fair to elect a Republican to counterbalance them. Picking by party rather than policies and performance is pretty dumb and self-destructive. Yet, that mythology gives Baker a chance.

That aside, progressive sorts have a wealth of options this campaign. We'll invite many of them to chat with us at Left Ahead. We just had Steve Grossman; you can catch his show here. Next up will be Juliette Kayyem; you can hear her live at 2:30 PM Eastern on Tuesday, 1/28, here, or afterward at Left Ahead.

As I can, I'll also trot down to Suffolk Law for their Rappaport Center's lunchtime shows of candidates. This week was Don Berwick. He'll be on Left Ahead's show Tuesday, 2/11 at 2:30 here.

Kayyem has a solutions-to-big-problems platform and bills herself as a proven progressive. Well, so do Grossman and Berwick.

Grossman is someone Stephen Colbert would call a friend of the show. He's come on Left Ahead numerous times and we like him. He's very straight-ahead and presents well thought out progressive positions — replete with his solutions to problems.

Berwick has been new to me. I was impressed yesterday at Suffolk. If you drill into his issues, you'll find he offers detailed definitions of problem areas and presents how he'd better the condition, and even how he'd pay for doing that.

I wondered how he would cover his platform. Each plank could have taken the whole hour he had.

He spent about eight or ten minutes introducing himself and took questions from all comers. There was only one that stumped him, an arcane legal point about land frontage. He admitted he didn't know about the topic and asked the questioner to educate him after the session. He'll know next time.

If you see him in action, be prepared to be charmed. He is the son of a rural Connecticut (Moodus, population about 1400) GP. He likewise became a physician. He has that avuncular manner. He can also sling metaphors effectively.

One that I suspect will characterize his campaign referred to his upbringing. He drew the image of a small town where when a car is pulled over beside the road, the locals don't drive by. Rather they stop to ask whether they can help.

He riffed on that to say that government should be in the helping...together...business. He went into his favorite Hubert Humphrey quote to tie the car into his philosophy. That would be:

It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.

By the bye, the Rappaport Center has made the video of Berwick's appearance available. They were as good as their word yesterday. You can see and hear it here.

He is the sort of very bright, extremely accomplished fellow who could be a jerk but isn't. He goes far beyond health care into such areas as a very detailed transportation-infrastructure plan (specified on his site). without bragging or condescension.

I left the session aware that he'll be a player in this election.

Gov. is Baker's to Lose Again

Saddle up your swayback horses with cliché tack. The MA governor's race will be the wheezing GOP-for-balance one.

Lordy, that's tired and stupid!

Do-nothing state rep and senator, then fizzling firecracker fill-in US Senator Scott Brown said he would not run for MA governor next year. At least this time he seems to have finally learned not to jerk his party around until it was too late for other candidates to raise money.

That likely was a race he might have won. He hasn't failed at this race. His probable Dem opponent, Steve Grossman or a slimmer chance of Juliette Kayyem, face the dual disadvantages of that one-party paranoia and less celebrity glow.

The badly aging former teen model suffers from his own dual problems brought by ego and vanity. Someone he trusts needs to alert him to the reality that he is already making more money than he deserves to and that his occasional appearances on TV and in other media let him pretend to be wise and observant — traits he has never shown. He can play that online and on air without challenge.

Now the empty-bench MA GOP turns over in their political bed back to their old companion, Charles D. Baker Jr. Supposition, already in the Boston tabloid, is that the nomination for next year's race is his already.

 I have to agree that's almost certain.

Oddly, there may be other, better candidates, but they are hiding as Dems. The fairy tale here is that progressive, very left Dems dominate the politics, indeed the whole world of the Bay State.

If you are simpleminded and literal enough, sure, you can make that case. Both houses of the legislature are rife with Dems and have only a few Republicans. You can point to an over 3-to-1 party enrollment among voters as well.

Yet, numbers as well as even cursory analysis show a different reality. Consider that party registration is 35.7% Dem and 11.1% GOP, with a half percent Green-Rainbow and political designations (not officially parties but still a voter registration choice). Wait, you say, that's less than half. Sure enough, over half the MA voters do not choose a party — 52.6%.

The unenrolled as the official term has it regularly vote Democratic Party but have their pretense. They love literally to shout at polling places that they are "not unenrolled. I"m independent!" It's sort of silly but not too bad as adult foibles go. I've written on this before.

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The One-Party Game

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The game we play here is pin the governor on the statehouse. We've had up to 18 running years with Republican governors, while we vote solidly for Dem presidential candidates and keep that Dem balance on Beacon Hill otherwise.

The unproven, unprovable fantasy is that if we have a one-party system both legislative and executive branches, something terrible will happen. Specifically, voters across parties are wont to tell pollsters that Dems will ride the state with their spurs digging in, implementing all manner of extreme left-wing laws and expenditures. Voters are apt to chant, "It's only common sense."

That phrase is a verbal and political tic. Almost invariably that and "let's not reinvent the wheel" mean "I got nothing. I'm about to make wild, unsupported assertions and don't expect to have to justify them."

Back to reality, both major parties here are full of moderates and wishy-washy liberals. A few Republican legislators over the years have been nutty anti-choice types and such, but not many.Moreover, former Gov. Willard Mitt Romney constantly had to dance around his leadership in implementing universal health care for us while he was in office, arguably the most liberal act of any MA gov.

I contend that most Republican voters hide in the unenrolled ranks. Likewise, I contend that most Republican legislators hide as Democrats. There's general truth to the idea that except for governor or legislature from very conservative districts, you need a D next to your name for election.

That written, Left Ahead co-host Ryan Adams and I are among the legion lefties who want a more vibrant MA GOP. We end up speaking in political and economic code here instead of having substantial discourse and debate, both in campaigns and in the statehouse.

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Guts, Anyone?

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Lackaday, we seem to have a courage deficit here. Many Dem pols are willing to say they are fiscally or socially conservative but none switches to the GOP. For the Republicans, I can't even get a state party chair to chat it up with us on Left Ahead.

I had hopes for Jennifer Nassour. Three times when we met, she said how much she looked forward to coming on the show. Twice she asked for my card, took it and swore she'd make it happen. She never returned calls or email afterward.

Now I've tried the current one, Kristen Hughes. As close as I've gotten was to her scheduler guy. I called repeatedly to get him. I admit it was amusing when he heard the name of the show and asked whether we were left-wing. I told him both Ryan and I were progressive sorts, but that we let guests speak their piece without badgering them, pulling out surprise adversaries or using trick questions. He swore he'd get back with me but never has. No guts, those elephants.

I'd very much like to ask Hughes what chance she has of flipping conservative voters from unenrolled and conservative pols from Democratic.  I do see that as the positive future of the GOP here. Then again, that would require both insight and courage.