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2010 Election Postmortem – The Local Edition

by Bill Dusty

Well, the 2010 election season is behinds us, and there were predictable results throughout the state as the Democrat supremacy in Massachusetts politics was again re-affirmed.

It’s unfortunate that so many voters opted to stay with the current office holders, the vast majority of whom have failed in their jobs. But as is almost always the case, politics trumps performance (and in at least one glaring case, qualification).

Below are a few observations.

Massachusetts Governor
In the race for Massachusetts Governor, Republican candidate Charlie Baker was defeated by independent Timothy Cahill. Baker (42%) had pulled within 6 percentage points of incumbent Governor Deval Patrick (48%), only to be foiled by the arrogant Cahill (8%), who told anyone who would listen that he was in it for keeps regardless of his low polling numbers. He will undoubtedly be duly rewarded by the Democratic leadership – either by the state Party or the national organization – for his efforts. Green-Rainbow Party candidate Jill Stein, meanwhile, was a non-factor at only 1% of the vote. Even if all of her votes had gone to Patrick, Baker still would have won with Cahill’s numbers. At the very least, assuming some of Cahill’s votes may have gone to Patrick, it would have been a much closer race than it turned out to be.

Massachusetts State Auditor
This result was an obvious case of Democratic Party politics trumping qualification. Republican candidate Mary Connaughton (46%) was the only truly qualified candidate in the field (even the left-favoring Republican newspaper couldn’t resist endorsing her). Suzanne Bump (48%) is a career politician and party hack, duly serving the Democratic Party and being richly rewarded with an office she was able to secure from loyal Democrat voters despite running against a more qualified opponent in Connaughton. Green-Rainbow Party candidate Nate Fortune may have been a factor in this race after coming in with 4% of the vote, but it’s far more likely that his votes would have been passed on to the more left-perceived Bump.

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(Just as a side note: Having been in the job market for several months, now, I can say that for the most part the private sector interview process pretty much works the same way. Your qualifications are presented in your resume – that’s what gets you in for the first interview. That initial interview then expands upon your past experience and knowledge. Once you successfully get past that first interview, you know you’re qualified for the job. It’s the vital second interview, however, that is largely a popularity contest, with the best personality, as opposed to the most qualified individual, usually getting the nod.)

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State Representative, 2nd Hampden District
Republican candidate Marie Angelides, a newcomer to politics, lost out to incumbent Democrat Brian Ashe. When our country was first founded, politics was supposed to be a part-time job, taken up for a short period of time before being passed on. That, of course, is no longer the case. In fact, these days, our brave leaders have set themselves up so sweetly, with benefits and pensions and the like, that the idea of voluntarily giving up one’s seat is practically unheard-of. Ashe hasn’t served long himself, having only recently taken up the seat once held by career office-holder Mary Rogeness. But it’s a fair bet he’s not going to be losing his seat – whether by election or by voluntarily quitting – anytime in the near future. My guess is that we’re all going to watch Brian Ashe grow old in his office together.

Hampden County District Attorney
Being happy with what you have is probably what soon-to-be former state Senator Stephen Buoniconti should have been. Instead, the career politician opted to go for another pension source by running for Hampden County District Attorney. Unfortunately for him, the far more qualified trial attorney, Mark Mastroianni, decided to run for the same office. Even more unfortunately for Buoniconti, Mastroianni decided to run as an independent, and thus would survive the slaughter inflicted by Buoniconti upon his other rivals in last September’s Democratic Primary. In that pre-race, the Republican newspaper endorsed Buoniconti over other candidates – some of whom were actually more qualified for the job. But no matter. After two months of shoddy, negative campaigning on Buoniconti’s part (thinking the job was his for sure) and some aggressive and positive campaigning by his lone rival, Mastroianni, Buoniconti found himself struggling to get support. Mastroianni practically swept the major endorsements contest (by the end, even the Republican had switched ponies and endorsed him) and ended up crushing Buoniconti on Election Day. (Notably among Mastroianni’s backers, too, was the local Republican Party establishment, including hard-line Holyoke Chief of Police Anthony Scott.)

So bad was the beat-down for Buoniconti, it was reported that, shortly before he conceded, Republican and Masslive.com reporters were expelled from his election night party being held at the John Boyle O’Reilly Club in Springfield. (An elderly woman, alleged to be Buoniconti’s mother, reportedly yelled to the reporters, “screw you!” as they departed – apparently in reference to their newspapers’ endorsement switch.)

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Although the local scene didn’t go quite the way many area Republicans had hoped they’d go, nationally the Republicans swept into power in the U.S. House of Representatives, thus finally ridding us of that whiny witch of woman, Nancy Pelosi. (And after Democrats openly accused Republican women of being such things as a whore, a bitch, and a slut, respectively, I feel confident I can call Pelosi what she truly is.)

Thank God for that much, at least.

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Posted by Bill Dusty on Nov 4th, 2010 and filed under Bill Dusty, Contributors, Elections, Feature Stories, Latest Posts, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.