I haven’t read a Joe Battenfeld column in years, but yesterday’s effort to throw shade at the likely 2022 Democratic nominee for governor caught my eye. According to Joe, “[p]artisan politics has permeated the office of the state’s top cop to an unprecedented level – whether it’s the scores of lawsuits she’s filed against Trump or the pro-Democrat tweets put out by her press aides… Healey has dropped any illusion of being fair and objective to the point of whether it’s unclear she’d be an effective advocate for a Republican looking for legal protection.”
Joe doesn’t like the fact that Healey’s case for governor is a strong one and has decided the best way to knock her down a peg is to pretend that “fair and objective” in the Trump Era isn’t decidedly pro-Democrat and that most of the state’s voters will be turned off by an aggressively partisan gubernatorial candidate.
That ain’t so Joe.
Joe compares Healey unfavorably to Governor Baker who “has carefully avoided getting in partisan scrapes” as if push back against the most corrupt and dishonest president in history isn’t an appropriate role for a “top cop.” He also seems to think that Baker will be the GOP nominee in 2022 (the only reasonable speculation in the piece). What he doesn’t seem to understand is that if Baker is the GOP nominee in 2022, then his attack on Healey as a partisan Democratic bulldog will actually be quite helpful to her. One reason Healey is the likely 2022 nominee is that she speaks to those focused on defeating trumpism AND those who thing that isn’t nearly enough. Another reason is that she isn’t a politics-hating progressive pit bull, she’s a savvy Democratic politician who understands that for Democrats to win the Corner Office, they have to have the full and enthusiastic support of Beacon Hill Democratic leaders.
Joe thinks the Governor’s poll numbers make him bulletproof and that Bay State voters punish partisanship. He must not have noticed that Scott Brown was the most popular politician in Massachusetts the day Elizabeth Warren easily dispatched him and that had the previous AG been MORE of a Democratic partisan, Charlie Baker would be 0 for 2, not going for 3.
Don’t worry Joe, if you don’t want to back read the relevant commentary and analysis at MassPoliticsProfs.org, the MassPoliticsProfs are presently working on a book about the state’s politics due out next year that will explain everything you need to know.
One of the hurdles Healey will face is her position as Attorney General. All of the AG candidates for Governor have lost. Why would Democratic leaders want a Democratic Governor? Michael Dukakis was the last one.
John J. Fitzgerald. Fitzgera@comcast.net
I promise not to tell Governor Patrick you forgot him.