Tom Menino’s Snow Job

February 13, 2013

The Boston Herald nails Mistah Mayah on Page One today.

Picture 1

 

Columnist Joe Battenfeld’s piece has the damning details. (As with snowflakes, no two campaign contributions are alike.)

NEL_8557.JPGMayor $hoveling it in

Review: Plow contractors are big donors

Mayor Thomas M. Menino may have scolded the city’s snow plow contractors for their slow performance in last weekend’s blizzard, but they have done a stellar job at plowing something else — tens of thousands of dollars into Menino’s campaign war chest, the Herald has found.

Menino has raked in more than $60,000 from executives, family members and employees of private companies that have won contracts to clear the city’s streets, according to a Herald review.

 

But wait – there’s more:

The mayor also has questioned the handling of the blizzard by his Public Works Department, but he shouldn’t be too surprised. His hand-picked commissioner, Joanne Massaro, had no experience in public works or dealing with storms when Menino hired her three years ago. Massaro’s last job was as interim head of the Department of Neighborhood Development.

 

Ouch. Crosstown at the Boston Globe, the coverage is more City Hall Gazette than the feisty local tabloid’s.

Picture 6Boston parking ban lifted, schools set to reopen

Boston finally lurched toward normalcy Tuesday after a debilitating blizzard, ending a 102-hour-long parking ban on major streets and announcing that public schools would reopen for the first time since the storm struck.

Near springlike temperatures began melting snow mountains into lakes of slush. Waterlogged and unshoveled sidewalks forced scores of pedestrians into plowed streets, where they walked on black asphalt with briefcases and grocery sacks, slowing traffic.

The end of the parking ban brought a glint of hope for frustrated drivers, who suddenly had thousands of open spaces. The city’s 57,000 public school students were scheduled to return to classrooms Wednesday morning, to the relief of educators eager to return to lessons and parents who had simply lost patience. School officials warned, how ever, that buses may be late.

“We are ready, but we acknowledge there still are some challenges,” said the school district’s transportation director, Carl Allen. “Traffic might still be a bit slow. . . . Streets are narrowed in some places.”

 

Yeah? Really?

The hardreading staff especially likes the headline above the jump on page 3:

Picture 5

 

Tom Menino in bed with the business community. That’s what qualifies as normalcy in Mayberry East.

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Gov. Patrick’s Driving Ban Didn’t Keep This Carr Off the Road

February 11, 2013

First, a personal note:

V-I-C-T-O-R-Y, victory victory that’s our cry!

The hardlyreading staff went out earlier today to find some actual newspapers – and we actually did. As we carried them triumphantly back to the Two-Daily Town Global Worldwide Headquarters, we discovered inside the front door – newspapers!

The Sunday papers. And Saturday’s papers. Big shoutout to our delivery guy.

Result: An embarrassment of dailies.

As we plowed through the weekend’s storm coverage, one topic stood out: Gov. Deval Patrick’s “extraordinary step,” as Saturday’s Boston Globe dubbed it, that banned driving during the storm.

From the stately local broadsheet:

Travel ban surprises many, pleases some

Governor Deval Patrick’s strict travel ban Friday stunned pizza deliverers and police chiefs alike, shuttering shops, befuddling taxi drivers, and leaving police officers wondering if they had to ticket drivers dashing to the store for a gallon of milk.

Some criticized the governor for his last-minute edict and the stiff penalties it carried — up to a year in jail and a $500 fine to any nonemergency personnel on the road after 4 p.m. — while others doubted that storm-swamped police would have time to enforce the ban.

But those who recalled the nightmare highway strandings in the Blizzard of ’78 praised Patrick’s order — including the former governor who wished he’d taken similar action sooner 35 years ago.

“There’s no question that the governor’s doing exactly the right thing — have people home, get them off the streets, and just cool it,” said former Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, speaking from Southern California, where he now teaches at UCLA. [Where it rarely snows, not to get technical about it.]

 

Others, however, called the ban “tyrannical.” Crosstown at the Boston Herald, it was “absolutely draconian,” according to one local cabbie. But Herald columnist Joe Battenfeld disagreed:

Finding NemoPatrick does it right

Learning from Dukakis’ error, gov still takes heat

You can’t blame Gov. Deval Patrick for not wanting to pull a Michael Dukakis.

In the blizzard of 1978, the state was woefully unprepared for the massive storm. Gov. Dukakis did issue a travel ban but it came too late — after dozens died and thousands were stranded on the roads.

So now Patrick tries to prevent deaths by banning cars on the road and he gets trashed by critics who say it’s an example of government gone too far.

Can you imagine the outrage if Patrick had done nothing and the blizzard ends up claiming lives?

 

That, of course, is nothing compared to the outrage of fellow columnist Howie Carr for the inconvenience Patrick cost him.

801O7669.JPGDriving ban? Take a hike, gov

Hey Gov. Patrick, didn’t your mother ever teach you about the magic word “please”?

You know, you’d ask her for something, and she’d say, “What’s the magic word, Deval?”

I guess she didn’t because I didn’t hear it Friday, when you ordered everyone in the state off the roads at 4 p.m. Like everyone else, I did hear about the $500 fine and/or one year in jail for violating your order, which you had said the previous day you probably weren’t going to issue.

 

Carr proceeds to take a predictable swipe at “the bow-tied bumkissers . . .  already falling all over themselves lauding you for your ‘wise’ decision to shut down business statewide and arrest anybody who had the audacity to try to get home from work.” (So Joe Battenfeld is a “bow-tied bumkisser,” Howie?)

But then Carr gets at the real pathos of the travel ban:

Myself, I’d hired a guy to drive me home Friday night. I was going to leave my car warm and safe in a garage in Brighton. But then he heard about the year in jail, and he chickened out.

So I called Veterans Taxi. At 5 p.m., Veterans called back and said the cops had just ordered them off the road. In other towns, the police were doing robo-calls, a chance to throw their weight around, too.

I wasn’t that worried driving home. I had press credentials, and if any cops had stopped me, I figured I would just tell them I was Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis’ son.

 

There’s your man of the people, Herald readers, whining that “now my car is in the driveway, totally buried in snow.”

Boo hoo, Howie. Welcome to the real world.

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Leone’s Share of Sunday’s U.S. Senate Coverage

February 3, 2013

The Boston Herald got the jump on the latest candidate to consider jumping into the U.S. Senate race to replace clearly departed John Kerry (D-Empty Seat).

Joe Battenfeld’s column today:

DSC_0648.JPGLeone could be spoiler in race

Three’s a crowd for Lynch, Markey

U.S. Rep. Ed Markey and the Democratic establishment did not see this surprise coming.

Their plans to intimidate other Democrats from joining the special U.S. Senate election didn’t work, and now Middlesex District Attorney Gerard T. Leone’s possible entry into the race threatens to make it a three-way fight they wanted to avoid.

Leone’s disclosure, first reported on bostonherald.com, that he is seriously considering jumping into the race, could damage Markey’s campaign and leave the door open for either Leone or U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch to win the primary.

 

Later in the piece Battenfeld writes, “Leone’s surprise comments about running came on the same day Markey was officially launching his campaign across the state, and ended up overshadowing the Malden congressman’s events.”

That’s certainly true from a newspaper real estate standpoint. Leone got all of page 5 in today’s Herald.

Picture 1

 

Lynch and Markey got the next two:

Picture 2

 

Crosstown at the Boston Globe, Leone also scored prime real estate – Metro Page One. From the dead-tree edition:

DA may now run for seat in Senate

Leone had said he was leaving public service

Middlesex District Attorney Gerard T. Leone Jr. is giving “serious consideration” to running in the special US Senate race to fill John Kerry’s seat, he said Saturday.

Leone, 50, said he has received encouragement from friends and political allies to jump into the Democratic primary campaign — a race that already has two Massachusetts congressmen, Edward J. Markey and Stephen P. Lynch, battling for the party nomination. The primary will be held April 30.

“People I have a great deal of respect for have asked me to look at the race,” Leone said. “I will give it serious consideration, but my intention, as I announced last month, has always been to leave electoral politics.”

 

Yes, well, the road to “Hello, Senator” is paved with good intentions.

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Baker’s ‘Doesn’t’ in U.S. Senate Speculation

January 26, 2013

Lots of political prognostication in the local dailies today about who might do what in the race to fill the U.S. Senate seat about to be vacated by John Kerry (D-Am I Secretary of State Now?).

Start with the the Boston Herald, which turns half of Page One over to the prospects of Rep. Stephen (Peek-a-Boo) Lynch (via the Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages).

MA_BH

 

Lynch earns a split decision inside: Hillary Chabot’s piece has the headline, “Menino Shaping Up As Ace in Hole for Lynch,” while Joe Battenfeld’s column presents a less-optimistic slant:

MATT0018.JPGBotched report spells trouble for pol

Even by Massachusetts political standards, this was one of the worst non-campaign announcements ever.

U.S. Rep. Stephen F. Lynch’s bungled will-he-or-won’t-he drama over his possible entrance into the U.S. Senate fight left voters confused and Democratic leaders shaking their heads — not a great start for a campaign.

If Lynch does announce he’s getting in the Democratic primary against U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey — and many Democrats and Lynch supporters are still convinced he will — the first question will be: “When did you decide to run — before or after your advisers prematurely leaked word you were running and you denied it?”

 

Ouch.

Crosstown-rival Boston Globe gives its conjecturing the power position: Page One (via ditto) upper right above the fold:

Picture 1

 

The Frank Phillips/Michael Levenson piece indicates that Scott Brown (R-Show Me the Money) might be leaning toward skipping a third Senate bakeoff in three years and running instead for governor in 2014. Enter the Great Mentioner, starting with former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld:

Weld did not return calls seeking comment. But his associates said it is highly unlikely the former governor, who returned to Boston this fall after living in New York for a dozen years, would plunge back into politics.

“He has no interest,’’ said Stephen Tocco, a partner with Weld at ML Strategies, a public affairs consulting firm. “He is too busy growing his practice and settling into Massachusetts.’’

 

Not to mention Weld has said (as noted by the hardreading staff) that not running for office is a condition of his employment at ML Strategies. Although – yes, yes – contracts are made to be broken.

Regardless, next?

Another high-profile Republican — Kerry Healey, the former lieutenant governor — did not rule out a Senate candidacy, saying only that it is “premature to say’’ if she would be interested in the seat if Brown does not run.

 

Conspicuous by his absence was Charlie Baker, who ran a credible if largely uninspired campaign for governor in 2010. It will be interesting to see if in the next round of chinstroking, Baker is part of the mix.

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Boston Herald Jumps the Shark (Taxachusetts Edition)

January 16, 2013

The front pages of today’s local dailies almost – but don’t quite – say it all in their coverage of a looming tax hike in Massachusetts.

The Boston Globe’s Page One (via the Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages) appears measured and slightly left of center, as usual:

MA_BG

 

The report itself is equally straightforward:

patrick-3151Patrick favors income tax hike

Broad-based levy vital to transit, education plans

Governor Deval Patrick is set to propose an increase in the state income tax as part of a multi pronged plan to raise new revenue for transportation and education, said a person with direct knowledge of the governor’s plan.

Patrick is expected to unveil the plan, at least in part, in his annual State of the Commonwealth speech Wednesday night. Many in and around state government said he is targeting the income tax because it is the only tax that would bring in enough money to fund his ambitious transportation and education agendas.

Those proposals, which he began rolling out this week, call for $1.5 billion in additional spending next year and $2 billion in annual spending in future years to shore up the state’s transportation system and expand early education programs.

Boosting the income tax from the current rate of 5.25 percent to 5.66 percent would raise $1 billion annually, according to a menu of revenue options the Patrick administration released Monday. The remainder of Patrick’s proposals could be funded through other fees or taxes.

 

The Boston Herald’s Page One (via ditto) is something else entirely:

MA_BH

 

The coverage itself is equally hyperventilating.

As indicated above, there are three – count ’em, three – columnists on the case, starting with Joe Battenfeld and Howie Carr in this double-barreled spread:

Picture 2

 

Cut to Michael Graham’s piece on the op-ed page to complete the chinstroker trifecta.

But wait – there’s also this editorial and this editorial cartoon:

holberts 01-16 cartoon

 

Before you say anything, that’s exactly how that cartoon appears on the feisty local tabloid’s website.

Just like the Herald, eh? Never the full picture.

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Boston Herald: Scott Brown for Governor?

January 2, 2013

Up until now, conventional wisdom in the Bay State held that Scott Brown (R-Tickle Me Grover) had first GOP dibs on the U.S. Senate seat soon to be vacated by John Kerry (D-So Long, Suckers), while Good (Next) Time Charlie Baker had same on the 2014 Massachusetts gubernatorial race.

Not so fast.

From Joe Battenfeld’s piece in today’s Boston Herald:

Scott BrownDems fear Scott may run for gov

While Democrats frantically try to block Scott Brown from going back to the U.S. Senate, there are also increasing fears he could pose an even bigger threat as the next Massachusetts governor.

Republicans close to the departing U.S. senator said he’s itching to go back to Washington to replace John Kerry, but Democrats are buzzing more about a potential Brown gubernatorial campaign in 2014. It may be tempting for Brown to run in a special election against a vulnerable Rep. Edward J. Markey, but he should reject the easy play and go for the job that really matters — running the state of Massachusetts.

“In the last week, there has been more speculation (about a Brown gubernatorial campaign),” one top Democratic strategist said. “He’d have a much better shot at (governor).”

 

Battenfeld says in a Senate race Democrats “will throw millions of dollars against him and use the same strategy they used last year for U.S. Sen.-elect Elizabeth Warren, trying to tie him to national Republicans.” The gubernatorial race would be an easier one to win.

[I]f you were Scott Brown, who would you rather run against, Ed Markey and the entire Democratic Party, or state Treasurer Steve Grossman or Attorney General Martha Coakley?

 

Good question.

One last question: What does Charlie Baker think?

Battenfeld doesn’t say.

UPDATE: Gotta add today’s overcaffeinated Page One (via the Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages):

MA_BH

 

Love that feisty local tabloid.

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Herald: City Haul in Menino’s Absence

November 16, 2012

It’s now three weeks Boston Mayor Tom Menino’s been in the hospital with a Whitman’s Sampler of symptoms, and not surprisingly, political maneuvering is the order of the day (although anyone who bets against Menino running again doesn’t really care about his money).

According to the Boston Herald, it’s all hijinks and shenanigans down at City Hall. Via the Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages:

Seems a bit hyperventilating to the hardreading staff, but that’s nothing new for the feisty local tabloid. Nor is the double coverage from bookend columnists.

Peter Gelzinis:

For once, the council prez chase matters

It seems that the growing public concern over Mayor Thomas Menino’s indefinite hospitalization has been exceeded only by the simmering political intrigue within the chamber of the Boston City Council.

As one insider put it yesterday, “The long knives are starting to come out.”

With each day the mayor spends at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the presidency of the City Council suddenly looms larger and larger.

“No one will dare admit it right now,” said a council watcher, “but all of them know that thistime, being council president might actually mean something.”

Say – are we zoned for that?

Joe Battenfeld:

Voters primed to pick black or Latino pol

The stars are aligned for Boston voters — as soon as next year — to make some long overdue history.

Whether Mayor Thomas M. Menino finally decides to retire or not, there’s a good chance his successor will be either black or Hispanic.

That would be ho-hum news in most other major cities, but not in Boston, where every single mayor for the past 190 years has been a white male. That’s an astounding distinction, considering that nearly half of Boston’s registered voters are now minorities.

“Distinction” sounds so positive; maybe we could call it an aberration.

Meanwhile, crosstown at the Boston Globe, the Corner Office  Steeplechase gets not two columns, but two paragraphs in Brian McGrory’s piece today.

On to the mayoralty. For years, every time I’ve thought about joining the chorus that says Thomas M. Menino should retire, I do something crazy. I look around this city. And what I see is a waterfront that may be the most booming urban neighborhood in America, clean streets and cranes in Dudley Square, a relatively low crime rate, stable property values, and sections from the North End to the South End that are packed with diners, play-goers, and just plain strollers through the week. Menino may not be fancy, but his effectiveness is indisputable. But today marks his 21st day at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, which means that every member of that august legislative body known as the Boston City Council is plotting his or her own mayoral campaign for 2013. It’s a little scary when you consider that whenever anyone calls a recess at a City Council hearing, the entire group runs frantically for the doors to play kickball outside, juiceboxes in hand. Not that kind of recess, guys.

McGrory then turns Great Mentioner, listing a handful of possible candidates from Suffolk District Attorney Dan Conley to Suffolk Construction CEO John Fish.

Wait – is that Tom Menino we hear? He says Go Fish.

 

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Poll Vaulting the Brown/Warren U.S. Senate Race

November 5, 2012

The local dailies are – wait for it – presenting very different pictures of polling data in the runup to tomorrow’s actual voting in the U.S. Senate race between Scott Brown (R-I’m Nobody’s Senator But Yours) and Elizabeth Warren (D-I’m Nobody’s Senator Yet).

From the Sunday Boston Globe (boink! sorry, paywall):

Two new polls show Brown, Warren in tight race

A new poll released Sunday morning shows Elizabeth Warren leading Senator Scott Brown by four percentage points, 50 percent to 46 percent. The live telephone poll of 535 voters was conducted between Oct. 26 and Nov. 1 by the Western New England University Polling Institute on behalf of the Springfield Republican and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. It’s the seventh of eight recent public polls that show Warren with a lead of between two and seven percentage points.

It’s a whole nother world, however, in today’s Boston Herald:

UMass Lowell/Herald poll: Senate race deadlocked

The bruising Massachusetts Senate battle between Republican Scott Brown and Democrat Elizabeth Warren is deadlocked just hours before Election Day, with both the candidates and the voters suffering from a barrage of attack ads, a new UMass Lowell/Boston Herald poll reveals.

The poll shows Brown holding a 49-48 percent advantage over Warren among likely voters, dispelling earlier polls and Democratic claims of a small Warren lead. The one-point lead is well within the poll’s 4.1 percent margin of error.

But wait! The Herald piece also provides some uncharacteristic context:

Brown held a four-point lead among likely voters in a UMass Lowell/Herald poll in mid-September, but the Harvard Law professor has closed that gap as more Democratic voters have moved to her side.

Helpful Joe Battenfeld sidebar:

Middle-class vote nearly split between candidates

Massachusetts voters are about evenly split on which U.S. Senate candidate will be a better champion of the middle class, even though Democrat Elizabeth Warren has made that her chief campaign message, a new UMass Lowell/Boston Herald poll shows.

Warren has talked constantly about the “hammered” middle class for the past year but just 47 percent of registered voters believe she’ll best represent their interests, the poll shows.

A nearly equal number — 43 percent — say they believe Warren’s opponent, Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, would be better for middle-class voters.

In other words, pick ’em.

 

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Boston Herald Jumps the Snark

October 23, 2012

Say, the Boston Herald didn’t like all that sarcasm Barack Obama threw at Mitt Romney in last night’s debate, did they?

Start with Page One (via the Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages):

Then the columnists got in on the action.

Paging Howie Carr, paging Mr. One-Note Carr.

Once they got beyond the boring foreign policy part of the foreign policy debate, they reverted to form.

Obama was petulant and petty and, of course, he wants higher taxes on “the wealthiest.” He condescendingly lectured Romney on naval matters, and on these new “ships that go underwater … nuclear submarines.”

Next up, Joe Battenfeld:

The president’s snarky one-liners — such as lecturing Romney that “we have these things called aircraft carriers” — may have alienated some voters and will definitely fire up Republicans.

Certainly worked for Boston Globe columnist Farah Stockman:

At his best, [Romney] came off sounding like a diluted version of the president we already have.

By contrast, Obama sounded comfortable with the material. My favorite moment was after Romney brought up his often-repeated line about the US Navy having fewer ships now than it did in 1916, Obama said: “We also have fewer horses and bayonets . . . We have these things called aircraft carriers. Planes land on them.”

So, obviously, do newspaper columnists.

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Boston Herald: Too Much Candy!

October 17, 2012

No sweet tooth at the Boston Herald today.

Page One (via the Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages):

And that’s just for starters. Next up, Joe Battenfeld’s column:

Romney sours after Candy butts in

Mitt Romney got lost in Candy-land and ended up losing a chance to put away President Obama.

Moderator Candy Crowley’s unusual backing up of Obama’s claim that he called the attacks in Libya an “act of terror” effectively stopped Mitt’s momentum and allowed the president to turn what should have been a bad moment into a victory.

And Crowley’s admonishment of Romney to “go to the transcript” of Obama’s Rose Garden remarks on Libya didn’t help.

Battenfeld goes on to say that “Obama actually did not call the Benghazi attacks ‘an act of terror’ but made a general statement about ‘no acts of terror’ shaking the nation’s resolve.”

Not to get technical about it.

Then there’s Howie Carr’s drive-by:

Obama running on fumes

They don’t like each other. They really don’t like each other, do they? No knockout blows. Barack Obama was better than in Denver, but he’s still got this very big problem, namely, his record.

It doesn’t matter how many extra minutes moderator Candy Crowley gave Obama (somewhere between three and five, depending on which network you were listening to), he’s still stuck with his dismal economy.

“Does that mean you’re not hurting?” Obama told one New Yorker after rattling off a few bogus sunshine-y stats. “Absolutely not. A lot of us are.”

It was Obama who was hurting, though, when the topic of Libya came up, at least until Crowley rescued him, Carr says:

Obama had no answers, because there aren’t many. But then Romney, with a chance for a walk-off home run, got tripped up on what Obama said in the Rose Garden on Sept. 12. OK, Obama didn’t precisely say Benghazi was a terrorist attack, but he had thrown in a CYA reference to “no act of terror.”

Then Candy couldn’t help herself and jumped in on the president’s side by misrepresenting what he’d said, in a positive way.

Two-on-one is moonbat fun.

If you say so, Howie.

Then, just for the heck of it, the Herald assigned a reporter to blow the lid off Candyscam.

Candy Crowley edges into fact-checker role

CNN’s Candy Crowley ventured into dangerous territory last night, briefly playing the role of live fact-checker while moderating the feisty presidential title card.

“Unless a moderator is going to offer live fact-checking of both candidates, she should steer clear of that,” said Peter Ubertaccio of Stonehill College. “Moderating a debate shouldn’t be confused with analyzing what the candidate is saying.”

Okay, then.

And how did crosstown rival Boston Globe match all the Herald’s Candy dish.

It didn’t. Here’s the only mention of Crowley (and not even by name) the hardreading staff could find:

Romney’s supporters were happy . . . though they criticized the debate moderator for not giving their candidate as much time to respond to questions as Obama got.

“I thought the moderator was a little biased, but what are you going to do,” said Sarah Jasper, 18, a political science major wearing a Romney sticker who said she was “definitely happy with what I heard from Romney” at the debate.

Clearly, Sarah will never work at the Boston Herald. Way too reasonable.

 

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