I know, hard to believe that a liberal can fail, especially one who spoke of hope and change in his election campaign…but it does seem to be the case:
BOSTON — Gov. Deval Patrick has lately addressed doting crowds around the country as a surrogate for Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, his friend and fellow gifted orator. Last month, Mr. Obama even acknowledged borrowing language from Mr. Patrick’s stump speeches, casting a flattering light on a novice politician barely known outside Massachusetts.
But there is no such glow at home for Mr. Patrick, the first Democrat to lead his state in 16 years and the nation’s second elected black governor.
Mr. Patrick, who easily won office in 2006 after dazzling voters with a message of hope and change, suffered a nasty defeat last week at the hands of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, which quashed his proposal to increase revenues by allowing three resort casinos in the state. None of the governor’s major policy proposals have cleared the Legislature, in fact, and he and Salvatore DiMasi, the speaker of the House, have taken to trading barbs publicly.
Mr. Patrick is faring better than a year ago, when he was under siege for spending more than $10,000 on drapes for his State House office and upgrading his state car from a Ford Crown Victoria to a Cadillac. (He later agreed to reimburse the state for the drapes and part of the car lease.) By his third month in office, Mr. Patrick had announced that his wife was being treated for depression, and by his fourth, he had overhauled his staff.
But even now, governing is not coming easily for Mr. Patrick, 51, a former civil rights lawyer and corporate executive who came to Massachusetts on a prep school scholarship in the ’70s.
So why has he struggled for traction in a heavily Democratic state with a Legislature that should be on his side?
He blames Speaker DiMasi, a veteran of Beacon Hill who embraces old-school ways of doing business and holds far more sway than the governor over his members. Mr. Patrick believes his casino bill could have passed if Mr. DiMasi, who said gambling would be a scourge on the state, had not pressured lawmakers to oppose it.
Why casinos? ‘Cause you’ve got a liberal in charge – and that means if there’s a budget shortfall (which there is in Massachusetts), then the only thing a liberal can think of is how to increase revenues…never a thought to how to cut spending or better run the government. Its also rather typical of a liberal that he’s blaming someone else for his defeat – it isn’t that Mr. Liberal Hope and Change had a bone-headed idea, its that Someone Else failed to deliver the goods. DiMasi might be a lot of things and, sure, he was clearly opposed to the idea of casinos (as should everyone – really, leave casinos to the professionals in Las Vegas…everyone else always seems to make a hash of it, and you can never get “Vegas” anywhere other than Vegas), but its not like he can actually order everyone around – might it be that a majority of the Legislature just decided that casinos weren’t a good idea? Well, you’ll never get a Liberal Hope and Changer to admit that…liberals never make mistakes, you see?
Poor Massachusetts – saddled with an uber-liberal Governor, a Democrat controlled legislature…and Ted Kennedy at the top fo the nauseating heap! I’ll bet they’re starting to regret their choice in 2006…
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