Obviously it’s early, but there’s another article in today’s Boston Herald that offers the surprising suggestion that Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick is toast:
“This race is really between Charlie Baker and Tim Cahill,” said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, which conducted the poll. “Whoever emerges between the Baker-Cahill race is likely to be the winner.”
Of course, this is a surprising analysis of a poll where Patrick leads, with “33 percent of the vote compared to Republican Baker’s 25 percent and Treasurer Timothy Cahill, running as an independent, close behind with 23 percent.”
But the poll’s other numbers show that Patrick is in a deep, deep hole:
Only 29 percent of likely voters said they thought the governor deserved re-election, compared to 60 percent who wanted to give “someone else” a chance. Equally grim for Patrick is a job approval rating of just 35 percent, and 68 percent who view him as a “weak leader.” Using the sour economy as an excuse won’t fly with voters, the survey shows. Only 22 percent agreed that Patrick is a “victim of the bad economy.”
Before David Axelrod managed Barack Obama, he managed Deval Patrick. Before the senator from Chicago told adoring crowds, “Don’t tell me words don’t matter,” the aspiring governor from Massachusetts told adoring crowds, “Don’t tell me words don’t matter.” In Massachusetts, an electorate selected a charismatic African-American lawyer who made bold, almost-too-good-to-be-true promises to reform government, only to be disappointed by waste, corruption, and a sense that the team around the executive was more interested in the appearance of competence than actual competence.
For obvious reasons, Republicans will want to see how the demo version of Barack Obama performs in a reelection bid once he has an actual record.