2010: HEATING UP IN MA

Posted: Monday, November 16, 2009 10:20 AM
by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under: 2010

Stu Rothenberg on how the political environment has turned against Democrats. “The gubernatorial results should remind us that context matters and that over the past six months, the political context has changed dramatically,” he writes, adding: “Now it will be the GOP who can push the ‘culture of corruption’ argument that Democrats used so successfully in the recent past. Now Republicans will complain about high unemployment numbers, about causalities in Afghanistan and the administration’s foreign policy and about the government’s inability to get H1N1 flu shots to the American public. Moreover, as we are already seeing with health care reform, the internal contradictions of the Democratic Party are becoming apparent. For the past year, the national media have been focused on internal Republican divisions. But now, a fracturing in the Democratic ranks is likely to give plenty of fodder for journalists, columnists and talking heads. This is likely to further erode Democratic poll numbers.”

MASSACHUSETTS: Passion or hot-headed? The Boston Globe on Michael Capuano: “In fact, numerous words were exchanged but they were all of the heated variety. And in the end, Brown filed an application for a criminal complaint -- dismissed a month later for a lack of evidence -- alleging that Capuano ‘threatened to kill my dog and then me while holding an aluminum bat.’
Although Capuano denied threatening to kill Brown, he never denied threatening to kill her dog and, to this day, remains unapologetic. ’I would like you to find the father who would let a rottweiler rip his kid apart,’ he said. ‘Was I angry? Damn right I was.’”

Meanwhile, “Stephen Pagliuca, a Democratic candidate for Senate, is blitzing the television airwaves with ads declaring he will be immune to the powerful influence that special interests and their well-connected lobbyists wield over Congress because he won’t take their donations. But Bain Capital Partners, where he has been a senior managing partner and made his huge fortune, has spent millions to hire high-powered Washington lobbyists to protect its special interests on Capitol Hill.”