Massachusetts: An Interesting Primary to Watch

In case I haven’t told everybody yet, I live in Massachusetts (as do, I believe, many other Political Grind-ers). Meaning, I vote on Tuesday. So, who cares? Well, you should. Massachusetts could reveal many things about what an Obama presidency would be like.

A background
In November of 2006, Massachusetts held a gubernatorial election at the end of Mitt Romney’s term. After party nominations, the election essentially became a two person race: incumbent female Republican lieutenant governor Kerry Healey vs. black Deval Patrick.

Ms. Healey was the true incumbent talking about continuing the good times. Mitt Romney had, for the most part, been very good to Massachusetts. She was running to continue his legacy.

Mr. Patrick was running on hope, change and a new direction. 2006 was the year when anti-Bush, anti-incumbent sentiment was at its highest.

Patrick won by 20 percentage points.

Since then, Patrick has obviously been sworn in and begun his work as governor. It hasn’t been easy. He quickly came under fire for personal spending issues, his 9/11 speech, and his position on casinos.

Can you see the similarities?
It’s pretty obvious. Barack Obama is much like Deval Patrick – Patrick is even campaigning for Obama. Their messages of hope are gaining them support with young people.

The problem
As Massachusetts (Democratic) legislator Salvatore DiMasi said, “To be perfectly honest, I really don’t want my president to be in there in a learning process for the first six months to a year. It’s too important.”

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