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xiphiasI feel kind of bad for Kerry Healy. Not bad enough to make me regret voting against her or anything -- I didn't want her to be governor, and, in fact, the guy I voted for won.
But still, Healy had a raw deal from the beginning.
For those of y'all not in Massachusetts:
Our current governor, until Deval Patrick is sworn in, is Mitt Romney. His first public-sector job was taking over the whole 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics mess. If you remember, Salt Lake City got the honor of holding the 2002 Olympics, and promptly got mired down in corruption, bad management, and all sorts of other crap. They eventually kicked out the people who got them into that mess, and brought Mitt in -- and he did brilliantly. Absolutely amazingly. Turned the whole thing around, got the mess out of debt, turned in a fine Olympics.
From there, he decided to run for governor of Massachusetts. I'm still not entirely clear on why he wanted to do that, and I'm even less clear on why he won. His running mate was a local politician named Kerry Healy.
After a very short period of time, Mitt started to realize the same thing that I realized -- that he had no clue why he wanted to be governor of Massachusetts. So he stopped.
He didn't leave office or anything -- he just stopped doing anything at all relevant to Massachusetts governance. Except to go around to Republican fundraisers and talk about how stupid Massachusetts is. And every once in a while, veto a bill, which the legislature would then override and pass. He very quickly made himself entirely irrelevant in Massachusetts politics.
Kerry Healy, however, was still in town, and was dealing with all the day-to-day crap that a governor deals with.
Whenever she managed to actually accomplish something, Mitt would come in and grab the credit. Whenever something blew up horrifically, well, nobody attached that to Healy, either, because nobody noticed her.
Mitt did his best to grind Massachusetts into the ground. Healy kept us going as well as she could. And, during the campaign, she could point to nothing she'd accomplished, because Mitt had grabbed all the glory for himself on the things she'd done, and everyone could point to all the things that had gone wrong under the Romney administration -- things which, in fairness, Healy had tried to mitigate.
Now, I didn't vote for Healy because I disagree with her on her platform -- she had a forty-point platform, and at least 35 of the points were things which I personally think are either bad ideas, or ones which are on a low-enough level that I can't see the State House being directly involved in them.
But most people didn't vote for Healy because they hate Mitt.
That put Healy in an untenable position from the start. If she wanted most voters to even THINK about voting for her, she would have had to distance herself from Romney. And Romney had been spending his entire governorship cozying up to the national Republican party, at the expense of his gubernatorial duties. So, dissing Mitt would be dissing the GOP. Diss the GOP, get no support from them.
So, her options were to be totally screwed over by her association with Mitt Romney, or to be totally screwed over by having no national support whatsoever. So she did her best without throwing Mitt to the wolves.
I feel bad for her. Like I said, not so bad that I'd have wanted her to beat Patrick, but she is a better person than her own campaign made her out to be.
But still, Healy had a raw deal from the beginning.
For those of y'all not in Massachusetts:
Our current governor, until Deval Patrick is sworn in, is Mitt Romney. His first public-sector job was taking over the whole 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics mess. If you remember, Salt Lake City got the honor of holding the 2002 Olympics, and promptly got mired down in corruption, bad management, and all sorts of other crap. They eventually kicked out the people who got them into that mess, and brought Mitt in -- and he did brilliantly. Absolutely amazingly. Turned the whole thing around, got the mess out of debt, turned in a fine Olympics.
From there, he decided to run for governor of Massachusetts. I'm still not entirely clear on why he wanted to do that, and I'm even less clear on why he won. His running mate was a local politician named Kerry Healy.
After a very short period of time, Mitt started to realize the same thing that I realized -- that he had no clue why he wanted to be governor of Massachusetts. So he stopped.
He didn't leave office or anything -- he just stopped doing anything at all relevant to Massachusetts governance. Except to go around to Republican fundraisers and talk about how stupid Massachusetts is. And every once in a while, veto a bill, which the legislature would then override and pass. He very quickly made himself entirely irrelevant in Massachusetts politics.
Kerry Healy, however, was still in town, and was dealing with all the day-to-day crap that a governor deals with.
Whenever she managed to actually accomplish something, Mitt would come in and grab the credit. Whenever something blew up horrifically, well, nobody attached that to Healy, either, because nobody noticed her.
Mitt did his best to grind Massachusetts into the ground. Healy kept us going as well as she could. And, during the campaign, she could point to nothing she'd accomplished, because Mitt had grabbed all the glory for himself on the things she'd done, and everyone could point to all the things that had gone wrong under the Romney administration -- things which, in fairness, Healy had tried to mitigate.
Now, I didn't vote for Healy because I disagree with her on her platform -- she had a forty-point platform, and at least 35 of the points were things which I personally think are either bad ideas, or ones which are on a low-enough level that I can't see the State House being directly involved in them.
But most people didn't vote for Healy because they hate Mitt.
That put Healy in an untenable position from the start. If she wanted most voters to even THINK about voting for her, she would have had to distance herself from Romney. And Romney had been spending his entire governorship cozying up to the national Republican party, at the expense of his gubernatorial duties. So, dissing Mitt would be dissing the GOP. Diss the GOP, get no support from them.
So, her options were to be totally screwed over by her association with Mitt Romney, or to be totally screwed over by having no national support whatsoever. So she did her best without throwing Mitt to the wolves.
I feel bad for her. Like I said, not so bad that I'd have wanted her to beat Patrick, but she is a better person than her own campaign made her out to be.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-17 05:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-17 01:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-18 08:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-17 01:00 pm (UTC)It was fairly obvious even early on that Romney saw the office as a stepping stone to the presidency. IIRC, his father served as governor of Michigan and ran for president.
I suppose Romney could have run for governor of Utah, but despite the liberal reputation Massachusetts has, I think it's easier for a governor from here to get elected president than a governor from Utah.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-17 03:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-17 02:01 pm (UTC)And Mitt said "Hey, yeah! Good idea."
That explains why he wanted to run for and to be governor of Massachusetts--the title, that is, not the job. I'm fairly certain he never wanted to actually have the job.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-17 08:48 pm (UTC)I like what I've read of your entries on my friends' friends pages. Friending you now.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-17 09:02 pm (UTC)Duzzy
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-19 04:10 am (UTC)