"He instinctively can find the shining greatness of our American culture and does a good job of highlighting it (although he also does have those rare lapses when he writes about hockey, but that is something caused by impurities in the Eastern waters or something)." Erik Keilholtz
Under the patronage of St. Tammany
Mark C. N. Sullivan is an editor at a Massachusetts university. He is married and the father of three children. Email
As Nicaragua goes, so goes Massachusetts. After 16 years out of power, the Sandinistas are back, in Boston as well as Managua… [At] least a few of the moonbats are starting to peel the ancient Kerry-Edwards bumper stickers off their Volvos.
That thud last night was the sound of the Republican Party hitting bottom in Massachusetts.
With the end of the GOP's 16-year hold on the offices of governor and lieutenant governor, Bay State Democrats in 2007 will enjoy a political monopoly unequaled by either party in any state in the country.
In January, Democrats will hold all six statewide constitutional offices, all 12 seats in Congress, roughly 7-to-1 majorities in both chambers of the state Legislature, and all eight seats on the Governor's Council.
The party's slide has been so precipitous that Republicans yesterday did not contest 130 of 200 legislative seats, fielded a challenger in only three of 10 congressional districts, and put up fewer candidates for statewide office (three) than the Green-Rainbow Party (four).
[The] party, what’s left of it, is a shambles. Healey and Reed Hillman were the only credible statewide GOP office seekers. Down ballot? Except for attorney general, not even token Republican candidates. Treasurer? Secretary of State? Auditor? No one to run for district attorney in the state’s most populous county, Middlesex, to succeed Martha Coakley, or in Suffolk either.
In the 160-member Massachusetts House, 105 Democratic candidates had no GOP opponent. In the 40-member Senate, 23 Democratic seats went uncontested.
Meanwhile the number of unenrolled voters is up to 1.98 million, just shy of 50 percent of all voters and up 22,000 since 2002. Now there is a school of thought that many of those are closet Republicans, which, of course, raises the question of why they remain “in the closet.”
A commenter at TNR's Open University on the Dem consolidation of New England:
One party rule is never a great idea, especially in the corrupt political culture of Massachusetts. The idea that people here are so liberal is also laughable. Anyone who lives here knows that. Demonstrating that is a long article in itself. However, my own theory, is that New Englanders 1. hate Bush for the obvious reasons, but 2. hate the national Republican party precisely because it is so strongly identified with the South now. Old prejudices die hard. There is no way Chaffee, Johnson, Bass, Bradley, etc. were conservatives. They were traditional New England Republican moderates, even liberals on some issues. But the Bush/Dixie connection sunk them. #
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