Roundup -- I Hear There's Some Kind Of Weather Thing Going On?

There's a palpable sense of terror vibrating through Cambridge, as though some kind of meteorological Armageddon might be happening. I wouldn't know; I've been here at work, minding the conveniently underground Fung Library since noon, and when I left Mather it was just a pleasant dusting of snow, no worse than my Canadian hometown gets in July. (I'm exaggerating, but not by as much as you think.) Possibly it's gotten worse this afternoon -- whatever, damned if I'm going outside. I think I'll just assume that you're all a bunch of shrinking violets who can't handle a little bit of weather. Typical Americans.

Anyway, maybe that explains our sudden blogcoma these past couple days. Or midterm season, or March Madness. I don't know. Fact is, if John McCain's ghostly bifurcated face occupies the front page much longer it's going to start haunting me at night, and nobody wants that. So here's a few links that will hopefully push him down the screen. Get thee behind me, Senator!

--If you haven't already, bookmark Planet 02138, an excellent new Harvard blog aggregator put together by Renat Lumpau. It does subject us to the opinions of Greg Mankiw, but I suppose that's a price we'll just have to pay.

--You may have heard about Hillary's weird response to a question about homosexuality -- apparently, whether or not being gay is immoral is "for others to conclude." Which is a fair answer, but also a shitty one, for obvious reasons. Barack had a similar non-response after Newsday asked him three times -- first he discussed the Joint Chiefs, second he commended military sacrifice, and third:

Signed autograph, posed for snapshot, jumped athletically into town car.

Ouch. After a day, both issued statements to the effect that no, they don't think homosexuality is immoral, please go away. Terrible showing by all concerned; this really ought to be something we fundamentally believe and are willing to say openly.

--So I was going to write about how Governor Patrick's first couple months have been a colossal fuckup, marked by amateur mistakes / borderline-tonedeaf imaging, and he really needs to get his act together. Unfortunately, the Crimson editorialized about this on Wednesday, and as we all know the Crimson is wrong about everything. Thus I'm forced to defend the Governor -- so BRAVO, Deval, for shaking up your staff and eliminating that stupid $72,000 job for your wife's assistant! This definitely indicates that you're back on the right track, and not likely to keep bumbling around and wasting money like a drunk guy at a hotel minibar! Woohoo!

--Zogby reports that 97% of conservatives think the media has a liberal bias. This is incredible. You can't get 97% of conservatives to agree that the earth is round, for crying out loud, yet they all seem to think that CNN has it in for them. Even 17% of Democrats perceive a liberal bias. Can somebody show me this bias? I honestly don't see it. Kos has a liberal bias, not the goddamn mainstream media. (Caveat: this is one of those Zogby Interactive polls, which historically have the same accuracy rate as your horoscope.)

--"Egad! The game is afoot!"

--"Political Insider" (a spinoff of the normally respectable Political Wire) has a helpful guide on becoming a "Political Junkie", which details the reading habits of your average respectable Washington observer. Apparently this involves sucking in massive amounts of Drudge, Novak, and even -- dear God -- ABC News' "The Note". Do read the whole thing if you want to fully appreciate the magnitude of the head-up-assedness. And then we wonder why our Washington journalists all seem so dopey... no wonder they call them "junkies," this is the political equivalent of sniffing glue.

--It's been brought to my attention, somewhat belatedly, that Gilbert Arenas has a blog.

And let’s talk about "Mister 50." Can you believe that crap? Mister 50 ain’t had more than 30 points in one game yet, but he’s Mister 50. I’m not paying attention to a proclaimed Mister 50. If he was Mister 50, why did he lose to a one-armed man? Tell that to Mister 50. If he ain’t scoring 29 points a game, he can’t talk to me. I’m Mister 29... Forget that, I don’t need to be Mister 29. I’m Agent Zero, son.

You need to see this. It's like something out of McSweeney's, only real.

--More and more buzz is building, thanks in part to Josh Downer on GOP-Open, about the potential Republican candidacy of fmr. Sen. Fred Thompson. I agree with Paul of Alien & Sedition (which, again, everyone should be reading): if we're going to have a "Law & Order" President, seriously, it'd have to be Sam Waterston.

--You know what? I can't top that. Have a good weekend, everybody, up to and including St. Patrick's Day. This is an open thread.

Update (7:32 PM): OK, I admit it, the weather sucks. Objectively. It's the fucking Day After Tomorrow out there. Anyhow, I can't believe I missed this -- here's John "Tears Of Blood" McCain delivering his traditional direct, honest, unvarnished "straight talk":

Q: “What about grants for sex education in the United States? Should they include instructions about using contraceptives? Or should it be Bush’s policy, which is just abstinence?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “Ahhh. I think I support the president’s policy.”

Q: “So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “You’ve stumped me.”

Q: “I mean, I think you’d probably agree it probably does help stop it?”

Mr. McCain: (Laughs) “Are we on the Straight Talk express? I’m not informed enough on it. Let me find out. You know, I’m sure I’ve taken a position on it on the past. I have to find out what my position was. Brian, would you find out what my position is on contraception – I’m sure I’m opposed to government spending on it, I’m sure I support the president’s policies on it.”

He's a maverick, all right!

Romney Skips Deval's Inauguration

Wow, Mitt Romney's a tool.

BOSTON — With his hand on a Bible once owned by John Quincy Adams, Deval Patrick was sworn in Thursday... Romney, who had decided not to seek a second term and filed papers Wednesday to form a presidential exploratory committee, stayed home during the ceremony Thursday before heading into his new headquarters to work on his campaign.

Seriously? This might be standard practice, I don't know (Massachusetts politicos, enlighten me). But really? Has he such gall? It boils down to "Fuck you, Massachusetts, I'm runnin' for PRESIDENT!" -- not that that's anything new.

(h/t Digby)

UPDATE: (12:47 AM) I've heard suggestions that it was, in fact, Governor-elect Patrick who rudely uninvited Romney from the inauguration. In which case, it's Patrick who's the douche. But I'm not sure.

UPDATE 2: (11:35 AM Friday) per Mel, it's traditional in Mass. for the outgoing governor not to attend the inauguration (though there was some tomfoolery re Romney's "Solitary Walk", see comments). Executive summary: I'm a douche.

Together we can...

So we all saw Deval Patrick's signs with the slogan "Together We Can."  Well, the Boston Globe decided to ask for the rejoinder to this phrase from its readership and posted them online. A few of my favorites include "Together we can:

• turn the state around and put the Berkshires on the ocean!"
• move past this impossible love we all have for our blue laws"
• play canasta"
• resurrect Ben Affleck's career"

Clearly, there's one thing to be learned from this:  Deval did a good job not hiring people who submit to silly Boston.com contests.

Favorite music of the MA-Gov candidates

If you were to guess favorite music of Deval Patrick and Kerry Healey, who would you pick?   For Deval Patrick, one of his three albums is James Taylor's latest, October Road.  Apparently James heard about his statesman/supporter and gave him a shoutout at his concert in Boston last night: "I understand my candidate for governor is in the house!" after which Deval was highlighted by one of the many Wang Center spotlights.  After showing his support he dedicated his performance of "Fire and Rain" (Windows Media clip here) to him after a tough week of attack ads.  This is after Taylor made an appearance and performance at Deval's 50th birthday party this past July, continuing James' precedent of being politically active, as we saw with his endorsing John Kerry.

What is Kerry Healey's favorite band, you may ask?  The Talking Heads.   Somehow I doubt that they are going to dedicate "Psycho Killer" to her, but who knows, she's crazy enough.

Romney Under Fed. Investigation: Lied about Big Dig?

So much for Kerry Healey's bounce.

Federal officials are probing scathing allegations that the Romney administration falsely claimed to conduct safety inspections in the Big Dig tunnel that collapsed and killed a woman in July.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is zeroing in on state financial documents from 2005 - cited in a new report by state Inspector General Gregory Sullivan - indicating that Gov. Mitt Romney was reviewing the safety of the Big Dig, when in fact the administration was only checking leaks in the Interstate 93 tunnel.

“Despite repeated assurances to bondholders, (MassHighway and Romney’s Executive Office of Transportation) . . . did not inspect the I-90 connector tunnel section where the July 10, 2006, collapse occurred,” Sullivan’s report states. “It is clear that casual disregard for the truth was grossly inappropriate.”

[...] While the inspector general’s report also cites “an alarming lack of stewardship” by the Turnpike, it singles out the Romney administration for abdicating its responsibility to verify the safety of the project.

Emphasis mine. If we tie Lt. Gov Healey to this, it's over. And God only knows what this could do to Romney's presidential bid.

For reference: Recent MA-Gov polls. Story found via DKos.

Patrick leads by 39 points

Shockingly good poll for our man Deval Patrick:

Survey USA, 9/19-9/21, 608 LVs. 9/19 interviews began when polls closed on Tuesday.
Patrick: 64%
Healy 25%
Miller: 5%
Other 4%
Undecided: 2%

(via MyDD)

Must have been all those phone calls we made.

Deval Patrick and Saul Finestone

Tuesday's Democratic gubernatorial primary in Massachusetts presents yet another good example of the immense influence that local opinion leaders can have on statewide races. In the town of Longmeadow, a suburb of Springfield, Deval Patrick received 57 percent of the vote, easily outpacing Reilly (24 percent) and Gabrieli (18 percent). Reilly is a Springfield native with deep ties to the area, and the town's voters are the exact type of center-left suburbanites Gabrieli was counting on to come out for him. Yet it wasn't even close. Why? One big reason, I suspect, is because Saul Finestone, a longtime leader of the Democratic town committee, was backing Patrick. There's been a lot of research done in political science on the question of how voters, most of whom don't know very much about politics, use shortcuts and information heuristics to decide whom to vote for. One of the most powerful influences can be trusted neighbors, especially those, like Saul, with a long history of mobilizing voters for various causes. This effect is strongest in (relatively) low-salience, low-turnout elections like primaries. Patrick's ground operation meant that there were thousands of people like Saul across the state, delivering tens of thousands of votes for Patrick. Gabrieli's air war, while helping him draw closer to Patrick in polls throughout the summer, didn't prove nearly as effective on election day.