December 29, 2015
From our One Towne, Two Different Worlds desk
Presidential frontrunner Donald Trump (R-Donald Trump) gets the coveted Boston Herald Pooh-Pooh Platter (pat. pending) today, with the target being Bill Clinton.
Page One:
Inside spread (with bonanza of Inexplicable Little Green Numbers):
We’ll leave you to read the cartoon columnists for yourself (here and here). But we do want to point out this quote in the news report from Lori Davis, a member of the “Women for Trump” Coalition in New Hampshire.
“Hillary has some issues with how Mr. Trump views women. She claims Mr. Trump is sexist,” Davis said. “Meanwhile, her husband can’t seem to stay monogamous — not to mention even discreet. Perhaps she might want to rethink things before she starts tackling Mr. Trump. She should clean up her own house.”
That’ll be an interesting leitmotif to follow as the Big Dog hits the campaign trail.
Rounding out the frothy local tabloid’s Trumpa Stumpa coverage, columnist Kimberly Atkins proposes in her usual levelheaded way that maybe Bill could help Hill. There’s a special place reserved in heaven for anyone who can maintain a measured voice at the Herald, and Atkins seems a mortal lock for first-ballot entry.
Crosstown at the Boston Globe, the GOP’s Hair Apparent gets the usual treatment in a balanced trail report from Jim O’Sullivan (representative sample: “[Trump] assured New Hampshire residents that their first-in-the-nation primary would be secure if he were elected, even though the chief executive has no direct authority over party primary calendars.”). And columnist Joan Vennochi weighed in with some observations about Hillary’s Bill problem.
In other words, everyone ran true to form today on the local dailies front.
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Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Donald Trump, frothy local tabloid, GOP Hair Apparent, Joan Vennochi, Kimberly Atkins, Lori Davis, One Town Two Different Worlds, pooh-pooh platter, Trumpa Stumpa, Women for Trump | 
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Posted by Campaign Outsider
December 23, 2015
So by now everyone has seen Donald Trump’s potty-mouthed remarks yesterday about Hillary Clinton, yes?
Actually, no – if you’re a Boston Herald reader.
The dainty local tabloid featured kids glove treatment in Kimberly Atkins’ column today.
As [sic] a campaign rally Monday night in Grand Rapids, Mich., Trump derided Clinton for her 2008 presidential primary loss to President Obama.
“She was going to beat Obama,” Trump said to the crowd. “I don’t know who’d be worse. I don’t know. How does it get worse? She was favored to win and she got (expletive). She lost. She lost.”
The piece described the expletive as “a vulgar Yiddish word.”
Crosstown, the Boston Globe let it fly in its Associated Press pick-up.
WASHINGTON — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump labeled Democrat Hillary Clinton ‘‘disgusting’’ for using the restroom during a commercial break at the last Democratic debate and used crude language to describe her primary loss to Barack Obama in 2008.
‘‘She was favored to win and she got schlonged, she lost,’’ he said on Monday night, using a slang word for penis.
Meshugge, eh?
As a special bonus, both pieces included this from Clinton: “We shouldn’t let anybody bully his way into the presidency. Because that is not who we are as Americans.’’ (Clinton is channeling Barack Obama there, whose use of that trope was smartly chronicled by the ever readable Andrew Ferguson in the Weekly Standard last year.)
Maybe it’s not who we are as Americans, but it’s certainly who Donald Trump is as a candidate.
To stick with Yiddish, a shmuck.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Andrew Ferguson, Associated Press, Barack Obama, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, dainty local tabloid, Donald Trump, Kimberly Atkins, schlonged, Weekly Standard, who we are as Americans | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
October 23, 2015
Interesting Page One compare ‘n’ contrast in the local dailies about yesterday’s Grill on the Hill.
Looks like the Boston Globe and Boston Herald saw two different Congressional hearings yesterday. Also different: the feisty local tabloid has no news report on the kabuki that took place during the proceedings of the House Selective Reality Committee on Benghazi.
If you’re keeping score at home, that’s two columns – one by Kimberly Atkins, the other from Adriana Cohen – and one analysis piece from Chris Cassidy. Oh, yes – and an editorial headlined “Hillary’s blame game.”
(To be fair graf goes here)
To be fair, the Herald is not exactly Boston’s paper of record. But an actual news report might have been nice.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Adriana Cohen, Benghazi hearing, Chris Cassidy, Grill on the Hill, Hillary Clinton, House Selective Reality Committee on Benghazi, Kimberly Atkins, Trey Gowdy | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
October 6, 2015
The feisty local tabloid has two MBTA-related stories pretty much to itself today.
First, Kimberly Atkins’ column on an advertising rumpus that’s shadowed the T for two years now.
T ad issue may merit court’s consideration
Free-speech dispute on Supreme’s radar
WASHINGTON — A free-speech dispute over political ads in MBTA buses, trains and stations is likely headed for the U.S. Supreme Court and could have far-reaching effects on 
paid messages on public property.
The case stems from 2013, when the MBTA agreed to post paid ads from pro-Palestinian group Committee for Peace in Israel and Palestine that read: “4.7 million Palestinians are classified by the U.N. as refugees.” But the T then rejected the American Freedom Defense Initiative’s ad, submitted in response, which read: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.”
So far, as Atkins reports, “[t]wo federal courts had backed the MBTA’s decision to reject the AFDI ad, under its policy barring ‘disparaging’ or ‘demeaning’ messages.”
Prior to those two decisions, the MBTA’s batting average in ad dustups was well below the Mendoza Line, as the hardreading staff noted two years ago. And Atkins also writes that “[i]n New York and Philadelphia, by contrast, courts have ordered transit agencies to run paid ads they had rejected, including one that claimed Muslims believe ‘killing Jews is worship.'”
So who knows if it even gets to the Supremes, and who knows how they’ll lean.
But we’re guessing the MBTA loses this one too.
Elsewhere in today’s Herald, there’s this news from the T’s Ghost of Winter Past.
Scott bows out of bid for NTSB post
President Obama has withdrawn his nomination of former MBTA chief Beverly Scott to the National Transportation Safety Board, abruptly ending her controversial bid to the $155,000-a-year post, the Herald has learned.
Obama officially rescinded her nomination yesterday, according to a White House document viewed by the Herald. A White House spokesman said last night Scott requested that her nomination be withdrawn “due to personal reasons related to her family.”
Efforts to reach Scott were unsuccessful.
That’s a surprise, eh?
(To be fair graf goes here)
To be fair, today’s Boston Globe does have a squib (via the State House News Service) about Scott, although it tells a slightly different story.
Huh. Maybe we need Scott herself to come forward as the tiebreaker.
Yeah – that’s coming just like a Riverside train.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: American Freedom Defense Initiative, AP, Beverly Scott, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Cannabis News, Ghost of Winter Past, Israel, Joe Pesaturo, Kimberly Atkins, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, MBTA, Mendoza Line, Palestine, Pamela Geller, State House News Service, The Committee for Peace in Israel and Palestine, Titan, transit advertising | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
August 4, 2015
It’s not often that the stately local broadsheet and the feisty local tabloid find themselves in accord, but today is one such instance.
The Boston dailies have pretty much the same take on last night’s Voters First Forum at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire.
Boston Globe’s Matt Viser:
[W]ith 14 candidates fighting for time during a two-hour debate, it became at times a rollicking, political version of speed dating, with each candidate trying to cram as many words as possible into their allotted time.
Boston Herald’s Kimberly Atkins:
For GOP voters facing a crowd of eager presidential suitors, last night’s Voters First forum in New Hampshire was exactly what they need. A political combination of speed dating and Tinder.
Give the edge to Atkins for tossing in Tinder. But nice to see the crosstown rivals think alike on something, eh?
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, GOP, Kimberly Atkins, Matt Viser, speed dating, St. Anselm College, Tinder, Voters First Forum | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
March 23, 2015
The local dailies are giving a whole new meaning to the Warren Report.
Yesterday’s Boston Globe was a Love Letter to Liz (actually a mash note, not to get technical about it). The paper devoted over 25% of its Ideas section to making a Warren for President case, starting with this rare front-page editorial.
Democrats need Elizabeth Warren’s voice in 2016 presidential race
DEMOCRATS WOULD be making a big mistake if they let Hillary Clinton coast to the presidential nomination without real opposition, and, as a national leader, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren can make sure that doesn’t happen. While Warren has repeatedly vowed that she won’t run for president herself, she ought to reconsider. And if Warren sticks to her refusal, she should make it her responsibility to help recruit candidates to provide voters with a vigorous debate on her signature cause, reducing income inequality, over the next year.
There are three – count ’em, three – other pieces playing variations on that theme in this high-priced spread:
That’s a lotta real estate for Warren to gobble up.
Not to be left home from the dance, the Boston Herald jumped on the Lizwagon today.
For starters, there’s this Kimberly Atkins column:
For Clinton to win she needs Warren to run
WASHINGTON — Elizabeth Warren, as we now know her, would make a terrible presidential candidate. But her party, the Democrats — including presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton — need Elizabeth Warren to run.
Because they need a primary, and no one else can give them one.
The Herald’s Tom Shattuck is even more desperate for a Warren run.
Please, please, PLEASE! Go for it!
Let the movement begin.
Starting today, all good progressives should write it on their Starbucks latte cups:
Run Liz Run.
And don’t stop there. Facebook profile pics, Twitter avatars, the dirty windows of your Priuses, Subarus and Range Rovers — even the Burberry sweater your Maltese named “Chloe” wears — take a Sharpie to that Shar-Pei and scrawl “Run Liz Run.”
(There’s also, inevitably, this: Indian claims would be under microscope.)
Funny – the Globe wants a Warren run to help Hillary Clinton, while the Herald wants one to hurt her.
Imagine that.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Anna Galland, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton, Joshua Green, Kimberly Atkins, Robert Kuttner, Tom Shattuck | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
January 26, 2015
From our One Town, Two Different Worlds desk
Well the GOP had its first 2016 Iowa Presidential Cotillion over the weekend and say, it was . . . swill.
All the GOP kids were there (but not the adults: Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney), including Sarah Palin (R-Drunken Brawl), who got this coverage in James Pindell’s Boston Sunday Globe piece.
Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin got a standing ovation for a speech in which she referred to President Obama as “a little boy.”
Versus this play in the Sunday Boston Herald, starting with Page One.
Then the high-priced spread inside:
Read it at your own peril. (But notice the do-me boots lower left.)
Just for scale, this New York Times piece by Ashley Parker and Trip Gabriel buried Palin in the 29th – and final – graf.
The gathering, called the Iowa Freedom Summit and held at the Hoyt Sherman Place theater, represented a return of the full political roadshow to the state. The forum drew more than 100 out-of-state journalists and a long list of Republican figures. On Friday, Sarah Palin ran into Newt Gingrich; his wife, Callista; and Mr. King in a hotel lobby, where onlookers quickly mobbed them.
Not to get technical about it, but Donald Trump got higher play than Palin in the Times. Draw your own conclusions.
Back in Boston, leave it, as often, to Herald columnist Kimberly Atkins to restore some sobriety to the tipsy local tabloid. Under the headline “Entry Trumps all silliness,” Atkins writes today that a Palin presidential campaign is only slightly less absurd than a Trump run.
[A]s absurd as a Palin candidacy sounds, at least her name has appeared on a national ballot. Not only has Trump never run a successful political campaign, his multiple corporate bankruptcy filings belie his claims of robust business acumen, which I assume would be his main presidential selling point.
Crosstown, the Globe’s Pindell has this follow-up story on the web (we couldn’t find it in our print editions). Apparently, the Palindrone won’t be stopping anytime soon.
2 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: Ashley Parker, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Callista Gingrich, Donald Trump, Iowa Freedom Summit, James Pindell, Kimberly Atkins, New York Times, Newt Gingrich, One Town Two Different Worlds, President Obama, Sarah Palin, Steve King, tipsy local tabloid, Trip Gabriel | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
August 19, 2014
When the Hillary Clinton Rock Star Diva story broke yesterday, the hardreading staff knew it would be mother’s milk to the feisty local tabloid. And today’s Boston Herald did not disappoint.
Inside, readers were treated to two Whack-a-Hill columns – one from Kimberly Atkins, the other from the inexplicable Adriana Cohen.
(Note the rare double Little Green Number that Clinton rates.)
Crosstown, today’s Boston Globe said nothing about Queen Hillary, not even in Tom Keane’s Hillary is inevitable no longer op-ed. (The paper does have a News Brief: Clinton to attend key Iowa fundraiser. No mention of how she’ll get to Indianoloa.)
In a Weekly Standard piece this week (Hillary Clinton’s Reputation), Jay Cost says “it’s better than you think” and reminds us that “what matters in the Beltway does not necessarily play in Peoria.”
That goes the other way around, too. Case in point: Queen Hillary didn’t make today’s New York Times, either. But stay tuned – Maureen Dowd is up tomorrow.
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Adriana Cohen, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Hillary Clinton, Jay Cost, Kimberly Atkins, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Maureen Dowd, New York Times, Queen Hillary, Rock Star Diva, Sherman Frederick, Weekly Standard, whack-a-Hill | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
January 27, 2014
As the hard reading staff has noted on numerous occasions, it’s normally the Boston Herald that gets shortchanged in the full-page-ad department, especially in terms of advocacy ads.
But not today.
Page 11:
The outfit that funded the ad, Alzheimer’s Impact Movement, describes itself as “a nonpartisan, nonprofit advocacy organization working in strategic partnership with the Alzheimer’s Association to make Alzheimer’s disease a national priority.”
And Ed Markey? He’s co-chair of the Congressional Task Force on Alzheimer’s Disease. So good idea to suck up to him, although not sure why the Herald is the place to do it.
Regardless, here’s another thing today’s Herald has that the Globe doesn’t: coverage of Chet Curtis’s wake yesterday.
Nice coverage, unfortunate photos.
Finally, the Herald has also cornered the market on Romney Redux reporting, with the normally level-headed Kimberly Atkins speculating that two-time presidential loser Mitt Romney might go for the hat trick.
Oy.
So the feisty local tabloid goes two-for-three today. Better than average, yes?
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Alzheimer's, Alzheimer's Impact Movement, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Chet Curtis, Congressional Task Force on Alzheimer's Disease, Ed Markey, Janet Wu, Kimberly Atkins, Mitt Romney, Romney Redux, Susan Wornick | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
August 19, 2013
Of all the nudnik 2016 presidential wannabes (Peter King! Martin O’Malley! Come on down!), Scott Brown (R-Fox News) ranks among the most delusional. But you’d never know that from reading the Boston Herald.
Today’s Page One:
Inside, the feisty local tabloid is plenty giddy itself, starting with a sunnyside up semi-news story.
Nation may learn what Scott Brown can do for U.S.
National Republicans rushed to give former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown’s presidential trial balloon a thumbs up yesterday, saying the Bay State moderate’s impassioned plea for a big tent party could be the 2016 anecdote to debilitating GOP infighting.
“I’m thrilled he’s here. I see 2016 as wide open both nationally and in Iowa — especially if a candidate can come here and make a strong case,” said Iowa Republican committee chairman A.J. Striker. “I think having a diverse field actually strengthens and grows the party.”
Certainly grows the coffers of the Iowa Republican committee, yeah?
Then there’s this legit opinion piece by Kimberly Atkins:
Wait – more good news in the Scott Brown Gazette! His daughter Arianna just got engaged! To “a paralegal specialist at the Department of Justice and a former Brown Senate office intern”!
The only skunk at the Herald garden party was this letter writer:
Brown’s betrayal
Bona fide registered Republicans, who share conservative fiscal values and liberal social views, wish Scott Brown would just go back to his obscure role as a member of the corrupt Massachusetts House or Senate (“Brown: ‘Infighting’ aids Dems,” Aug. 16).
He has disappointed a majority of Republicans and moderates who elected him on a false belief he shared their views of less government intervention in their lives. Unfortunately, like every other RINO, he blindsided us with his decisive vote on the Consumer “Destruction” Act. Shame on him for scolding the members of his party who support Republican values.
— Todd Douglas, Weston
So Brown’s disappointed Republicans and moderates? That won’t put much giddy-up in a presidential campaign, will it?
Which is essentially what Adrian Walker writes crosstown in the Boston Globe today.
I don’t want to make light of Brown’s presidential prospects. It’s just hard to believe that he has any presidential prospects. For starters, he lost his last election by a substantial margin, something unusual for a sitting senator.
And his so-called brand of politics is far out of step with the leadership of his own party. There’s not much reason to believe the GOP wants a nominee whose main qualification is that he can draw support from Massachusetts moderates. Why would a party that got trounced with Mitt Romney in 2012 turn around and nominate Scott Brown?
Walker’s conclusion is that Brown can’t stand being out of the spotlight, so “[t]he quest for attention has become his never-ending campaign.”
At least he’s raised his sights, though. Here’s what the Herald reported yesterday about Brown’s fondest wishes:
Brown, who’s tapped into his musical side since his November defeat to Elizabeth Warren, said he’ll make his “debut” next month playing guitar with his daughter, Ayla, when she opens for the Charlie Daniels Band on Sept. 8 in Webster.
A beginner five months ago, Brown said he’s religiously practiced each night before bed to the point he can strum more than a half-dozen songs . . .
Great – he can always live off Ayla if this presidential thing doesn’t work out.
6 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: A.J. Striker, Adrian Walker, Arianna Brown, Ayla Brown, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Fox News, Iowa, Kimberly Atkins, Martin O'malley, Peter King, Scott Brown | Permalink
Posted by Campaign Outsider
It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town 