Maura Healey is more well positioned to win the 2022 governor’s race than any candidate in an open seat Massachusetts governor’s race in at least half a century. Nonetheless, Healey is apologizing for an analogy she used at the end of a 2020 Chamber of Commerce speech that is being used against her by Bay…
Author: Jerold Duquette
Professor of Political Science
Director, Public Policy and Management Program
Central Connecticut State University
GOP Effort to Stop Permanent Mail-In Voting Highlights Unique Aspects of Mass Politics
The MassGOP lawsuit to stop permanent mail-in voting is more interesting than you might think. The state’s Republican Party Chairman, Jim Lyons, has taken a very weak outfit and turned it into an exceptionally incompetent one that is now engaged full-time in garden variety “lib trolling,” an activity that hasn’t been as useful for party…
Legislative Opacity Makes Voice Votes a Safe Bet on Beacon Hill
The state senate recently passed a bill legalizing sports betting in the Commonwealth. It passed the chamber by a voice vote, which means that senators’ individual preferences on the bill’s passage were not formally recorded. The Boston Globe editors were shocked…shocked to see voice votes on gambling in the state senate. “A lawmaker’s first duty…
My Pre-Review of Guv Baker’s Book about “Getting Beyond Politics” to Achieve “Results”
Charlie Baker has written a book. The purpose of the book (according to the publisher’s description) is to demonstrate “that government can work,” a task that is “vital to ensuring the future of our democracy” and apparently requires “getting beyond politics.” Sadly, Baker’s publisher, Harvard Business Review Press, didn’t see fit to send review copies…
MA Lieutenant Governors: Reputation v. Reality
It seems that Matt Stout’s recent Globe article about the 2022 Lieutenant Governor’s race has revived some perennial critiques the Office of the Lieutenant Governor. For example, Globe columnist Adrian Walker and Northeastern Journalism prof Dan Kennedy, two keen analysts of Massachusetts politics, were both moved by Stout’s piece to announce their low opinions of…
Baker’s Decision will Help Protect His Legacy & the Statehouse Status Quo
Charlie Baker’s decision not to make an unprecedented run for a third consecutive four-year term in the Corner Office was a wise one for many reasons, most of which have been well and thoroughly discussed by thoughtful observers. The complications of his party having been thoroughly trumpified and the various land mines Democrats could detonate…
The Utter Futility of the MassGOP: Not New, Just More Obnoxious Lately.
The ongoing conflict within the MassGOP between Trumpist wingnuts and politically rational conservatives is as crazy and counter-productive as virtually every political analyst has indicated. It is, indeed, absurd for state Republicans to oppose Charlie Baker’s brand of conservatism. What it is not, however, is surprising or unexplainable. The most interesting thing about anti-Baker wingnuttery…
Baker’s Re-election Depends on Pols, not Polls.
Charlie Baker’s decision about whether to seek an unprecedented third consecutive four-year term in the Corner Office is a lot more interesting and consequential than most people realize. If you really want to know whether Baker will run and whether he would win if he does run, pay attention to the words and deeds of…
Could “New England’s Civic Mythology” Become Reality in Post-COVID MA?
Today’s Boston Globe editorial was about how the use of creative ways to hold public meetings during the pandemic expanded opportunities for the public to participate in local governance in the Bay State. The Globe editors, who want these methods to become permanent, write: “In New England’s civic mythology, public meetings are allegedly the building…
Recall Elections and Asymmetric Polarization
The Globe’s resident rightwing columnist, Jeff Jacoby, has provided another example of a very tired genre of political commentary in his latest work. Seizing on the present effort to recall California’s Democratic governor, Jacoby is flogging liberals for equating this direct democracy gift of early 20th century progressives with an “attack on democracy.” As usual,…