More Than One Hitch to Baker/Polito Union

December 4, 2013

The shotgun wedding between Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker and lieutenant governor hopeful Karyn Polito had its engagement announcement in Monday’s Boston Globe.

Running mate issue gets thornier for Charlie Baker

Karyn E. Polito, the former Republican legislator who lost a 2010 run for state treasurer, is poised to announce her candidacy for lieutenant governor this week, a move that puts GOP gubernatorial favorite Charlie Baker in a difficult spot as he ponders a potential running mate.

Polito, a 47-year old Shrewsbury resident, is expected to declare as early as Tuesday that she will seek the nomination for the second spot on the 2014 10282010_28treasurer_photo3-7754405gubernatorial ticket, according to several state Republicans with knowledge of her plans.

Baker is expected to lead the ticket, and Polito’s candidacy would pose a politically ticklish question for him: whether to try to control the makeup of his ticket, as he successfully did in his 2010 run for governor, or to leave the decision to voters.

Having Polito as a running mate could be both an asset and a potential liability.

 

And etc.

The GOPpy couple tied the knot in today’s edition of our stately local broadsheet.

Charlie Baker picks Karyn Polito as running mate

Nod to conservatives may also help him with women voters

SHREWSBURY — Charlie Baker, the leading Republican candidate for governor, named former state representative Karyn Polito as his running mate Tuesday, presenting voters with a unified ticket fully 11 months before the gubernatorial election.

Polito’s selection serves as an overture to party conservatives, among whom she is popular, and as an effort to raise Baker’s standing among female voters, a baker-bigconstituency he lost heavily when he ran for the corner office in 2010.

Her hometown of Shrewsbury also bolsters Baker’s candidacy in Worcester County, a stronghold for Republicans in recent elections.

Polito, in her 2010 bid for state treasurer, racked up more votes than Baker did in the three-way race for governor. As she announced her candidacy at a Shrewsbury diner on Tuesday, she said she wants voters to see her as a “mom, a business owner, and an optimist.”

 

Leave it to the Boston Herald, though, to crash the reception.

Insider: Pick not Charlie’s first choice

Former State Rep. Karyn Polito wasn’t Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker’s first choice — or even his second, according to a source who said Baker considered several other female GOP running mates and even former Attorney General Tom Reilly before settling on Polito.120313politotf05

“It’s not uncommon, when candidates look for running mates, that you get further down the list than you hope to,” said a Republican source close to the Baker campaign. “Discussions were had with a lot of other people, and there were a lot who weren’t interested.”

 

Karyn Polito: mom, business owner, optimist . . . second runner-up. 

According to the piece by Hillary Chabot and Matt Stout, “Baker . . . reached out to Mary Connaughton, a former GOP candidate for auditor, who told the Herald two weeks ago that she turned down the offer because she is happy with her job at the Pioneer Institute.”

Finishing behind Connaughton is one thing, but Tom Reilly? Really?

Today’s feisty local tabloid also has a Joe Battenfeld piece on the Two-Time Charlie/Karyn Enough knot-tying, along with a pro & con honeymoon preview.

(Skunk at the Garden Party honors go to the Globe’s Scot Lehigh, who says Massachusetts should tear the sheets and dump the lieutenant governor’s office altogether, which will happen about the same time Baker and Polito adopt Tim Murray).

The hardreading staff gives that couple 11 months.

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Here’s Your Hat, What’s Your Murray?

May 23, 2013

The local dailies have very – all together now – different takes on yesterday’s swan song for Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray.

The Boston Globe runs it upper left on today’s front page:

 

Picture 2

 

The Boston Herald gives it all of Page One:

 

Picture 3

 

And page two . . and page four . . . and page five . . .

 

Picture 4

 

Picture 5

 

Never one to disappoint, the feisty local tabloid features all the usual aspects in today’s coverage, starting with Joe Battenfeld’s batting Murray around:

IMG_2307.JPGTim Murray, we hardly needed ye

When Tim Murray flees the lieutenant governor’s office, he will leave behind a historic legacy: that we don’t need a lieutenant governor . . .

Despite Patrick’s flowery tribute to his second banana yesterday, Murray had no power or influence in the administration and usually could be found standing behind the governor at press conferences, saying nothing. The lieutenant governor ranked so low he didn’t even merit one of those cool MEMA vests that Patrick wears during disasters.

 

And etc.

Next up, Howie Carr mails in his balding retreads:

010512murray03‘Crash’ is no test dummy

The Worcester Chamber of Commerce?

Nobody’s all that surprised to see Tim “Crash” Murray take the golden parachute. But shouldn’t it have been a more appropriate job, like, say, with NASCAR?

 

Ha-hah!

As you’d expect, the going-away party is a lot more subdued crosstown at the stately local broadsheet. In addition to the straightforward Page One piece, there’s this sober-minded assessment from op-ed columnist Joan Vennochi:

Murray’s ambition meets reality

IF ONLY there were no mysterious car crash.

If only he weren’t embroiled in a possible fund-raising scandal.

If only Governor Deval Patrick resigned and left the job of acting governor to his lieutenant governor, Timothy P. Murray could be the Democrat to beat in 2014.

Murray’s ambition — always grander than his profile — felt more delusional as time and controversy dragged on.

 

Even the boyos at the Herald would agree with that, yeah?

The Globe also features a largely judgment-free editorial about Murray’s departure:

An unsurprising end to Murray’s once-promising political career

The announcement Wednesday that Lieutenant Governor Timothy Murray will resign to lead the Worcester Chamber of Commerce mainly served to ratify what most on Beacon Hill basically knew: that his recent political scandals had left him without a path to higher office, while his current duties were too limited to sustain an ambitious person’s career.

Murray’s departure ends an awkward chapter in Massachusetts political history . . .

 

That level of understatement, however, is entirely missing from the Herald’s editorial today:

Lt. Gov. Tim Murray yesterday gave the people of Massachusetts his two-week notice, thus drawing a curtain on one of the most underwhelming tenures of a statewide office-holder in recent Massachusetts history. And that’s saying something.

Murray is trading the privilege of elected office for what amounts to a bigger salary and a shorter commute, resigning with nearly two years left in his term to accept a lucrative job as president of the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Now, we aren’t particularly sorry to see Murray go but we happen to think elected officials shouldn’t throw over the voters simply for the favor of a fat paycheck.

 

Wait a second . . . the Herald spends all this time saying Murray was a useless slug in a worthless job, but now he should have stayed?

The hardreading staff will be at the chiropractor’s if you need us.

 

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A Chelsea Morning in the Local Dailies

January 24, 2013

Two very – wait for it – different takes on former Chelsea housing authority honcho Michael McLaughlin in this morning’s Boston papers.

The Globe puts the story in the power position: Page One, upper right.

16nomedfordaMcLaughlin charged in hiding of pay

The former chief of the Chelsea Housing Authority was charged Wednesday with four felony counts of deliberately concealing his inflated salary from state and federal regulators from 2008 until he resigned in 2011, triggering a scandal that has rocked Massachusetts’ public housing system to its foundation.

US Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz announced the federal charges against Michael E. McLaughlin, 67, of Dracut, alleging that McLaughlin deliberately underreported his annual salary by up to $164,000 a year in mandatory reports to state and federal housing regulators. The charges were contained in a document that is normally used when the defendant has agreed to plead guilty.

 

(Explanation of that last: “the charges against [McLaughlin] came not from the grand jury, but in a document called a criminal information. Prosecutors normally file such a document when a defendant agrees to a plea deal.”)

Crosstown at the Herald, the story appears on page two, and from an oblique angle:

111911mclaughlinFeds charge Tim Murray’s buddy

Lt. Gov. Tim Murray’s surprise exit from the 2014 governor’s race could be tied to federal charges brought against his one-time associate Michael McLaughlin yesterday for falsely boosting his salary, local politicos speculated.

“It probably reinforces what a lot of people were thinking last week,” said Richard Tisei, a former Republican state senator who ran unsuccessfully for Congress. “The whole McLaughlin scandal would have hobbled any potential run for governor, and it would have lasted during the whole campaign. You can’t go an inch into that story without Tim Murray’s name popping up.”

McLaughlin, the embattled former Chelsea Housing Authority director, was a longtime Murray fundraiser, and there are ongoing questions as to whether he pressured staffers to give to the lieutenant governor’s campaign. Murray reportedly was also questioned by federal investigators.

 

The Globe waited until the fifth graf to drag Murray into McLaughlin’s mess.

Slowpokes.

 

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The Great Mentioner Comes to the Bay State

January 20, 2013

Now that Lt. Gov. Tim Murray (D-Pressed) has made his high-speed exit from the 2014 Massachusetts gubernatorial race, rampant speculation about who might emerge as alternatives has officially begun.

As is only fitting, the Great Mentioner stopped by both local dailies in Murray’s wake, with – wait for it ! – decidedly different results.

From Joe Battenfeld’s Saturday Boston Herald column:

Here’s one scenario: Joe Kennedy, the father. Sources say the former congressman may not have completely shaken off the political bug. One Democratic source said there has been increasing chatter about Kennedy mulling getting back into politics. But there is even more buzz that his son, newly elected U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy III, could be a gubernatorial prospect.

While the elder Kennedy and many other Democrats say he’s happy living in the private sector, he — or his son — could always come in as the Democratic shining knight to keep the GOP from taking over the Corner Office.

 

Another Herald piece adds this:

011813murraymg001As Murray bows out, race for gov is on

Lt. Gov. Tim Murray’s stunning decision yesterday to bow out of the 2014 gubernatorial race shook up the Bay State’s political landscape — likely nudging potential candidates for the Corner Office closer toward a run.

State Treasurer Steve Grossman has made his intentions about a likely run clear, but candidates such as Attorney General Martha Coakley and U.S. Rep. Michael E. Capuano could also decide to take the plunge.

“The race now is wide open,” said Democratic consultant Mary Anne Marsh. “Steve Grossman becomes the front-runner as of today, and you’ve got to think Martha Coakley is looking a lot more closely at it.”

 

Crosstown at the Boston Globe, there was this:

In addition to [State Treasurer Steve] Grossman, potential Democratic candidates include Donald M. Berwick, a former administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and State Senator Dan Wolf, the founder of Cape Air.

Murray’s exit could also clear the way for US Representative Michael E. Capuano, an urban liberal who would draw some of the same supporters as Murray. Capuano, a former Somerville mayor, said this week he will not run for Senate.

His spokeswoman, Alison Mills, said Capuano “has already received a great deal of encouragement and will consider other opportunities at the appropriate time.”

Charles D. Baker, a Republican who ran for governor in 2010, is considering another run as well.

 

Donald Berwick?

Dan Wolf?

But no Martha Coakley?

Seems like the Great Mentioner had an off-day at the Globe.

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