On the 2014 Elections in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Just a few brief points on what stood out as important to me when I walked into the voting booth this morning and as I am pondering what I expect will be the results of the election tonight:

1.  Republican Charlie Baker is going to be the next governor of the Commonwealth.  His victory should not, however, be viewed as a "stunning" turn of events in the "bluest of blue states" or as an improbable resurgence of the Northeastern Yankee Republican from the brink of extinction.  Rather, it is simply a reflection of the fact that the Massachusetts Democratic Party selected a nominee in Attorney General Martha Coakley who neither advanced a compelling vision of where Massachusetts should be going nor presented herself as entirely competent to hold the office of governor. 
Briefly, we have to keep in mind that a race for the governor's seat in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a Massachusetts race, not a referendum on the status of the Democratic Party nationally, not a referendum on the Obama administration or the Congressional delegation from the Democratic Party - it is just a contest between Massachusetts Democrats, Massachusetts Republicans, and the odd Massachusetts independent candidates to decide who has the most compelling vision of where Massachusetts should go for the next four years.  In a state where, during much of the gubernatorial administration of former Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, the Republican delegation to the Massachusetts state senate could fit comfortably in a minivan and where only eleven percent of the electorate is actually registered as Republican, this definitively does not represent a resurgence of the Yankee New England wing of the national Republican Party.  That party remains decisively in transition to become the party of rural America, increasingly irrelevant outside of the South, the rural Rocky Mountain states, and certain states in the Plains.  There is no indication that the Republican Party will make any significant inroads in the General Court of the Commonwealth (i.e. our bicameral legislature), so the Baker administration is going to content itself to getting along as nicely as possible with Democratic legislative leaders on Beacon Hill while acting as a fiscally conservative manager for the government of the Commonwealth.  In point of fact, I think this is, to a great extent, the appeal of Republican gubernatorial candidates in the Commonwealth.  As Democratic as the Commonwealth is, most citizens want fiscally conservative leadership in the governor's office to counterbalance the appeal for any aggressive and costly initiatives by Democractic legislators.  To these ends, Baker has presented to the electorate of the Commonwealth a vision of leadership promising efficient management of state resources and little or no new taxation, and such a vision is very compelling to most voters in Massachusetts, as it is in most other states.
           On the contrary, it may be a harder sell at this point in the history of the Commonwealth for Democratics to succeed as gubernatorial candidates.  For the two terms that he served, Deval Patrick seemed to advance a particular direction for the Commonwealth that appealed strongly to Massachusetts progressives both in and out of the Democratic Party and competent and professional persona that won over the larger electorate.  If he had run again for the office, I think Patrick would have defeated Baker a second time.  Martha Coakley simply does not convey the same persona of competent leadership.  Like many individuals who attempt to break into political life in an executive capacity, she seems both quite intelligence but decidely incapable of demonstrating her knowledge in a way that will command the confidence of the electorate from which she is attempting to solicit support.  Insofar as the office of governor appeals to a somewhat different skill set than the office of Attorney General, it might be the case that Coakley's record as AG spoke volumes about her capacity to act on the Commonwealth's behalf in a juridical setting.  This simply is not the same thing as being an efficient executive and articulator of clear agenda in cooperation with the legislature.  Sadly, Baker's record as both a public administrator in the Weld administration and as a private health insurance executive served these ends more effectively than Coakley's AG experience. 
         On the whole, however, I think Baker's impending victory will matter little in determining the policy direction of the government of the Commonwealth.  Again, the incoming administration will be dealing with an overwhelming legislative Democratic majority that will be intent on its own priorities, and the new administration will hash out a broader policy agenda based on its ability to amicably reach a compromise of wills.  Baker is certainly not a Tea Party Republican and this is not Washington.  If Congressional Republican leaders and the Obama administration have taken the inability to compromise to unprecedented level (only to be topped in the next session of Congress), the government of the Commonwealth lacks the luxury to engage in perpetual immaturity!

2.  Side note on the Governor's Race: Why I voted for Evan Falchuk
A couple of minutes ago (around 7:00/19:00), I checked the gubernatorial election results posted on CNN to find that only Republican Charlie Baker and Democrat Martha Coakley had their names listed (no results were indicated because the polls have yet to close in Massachusetts).  This is unfortunate, because we actually had five candidates for Governor of the Commonwealth: Baker, Coakley, Independent Jeff McCormick, Independent Reverend Scott Lively, and United-Independent Party (a self-designation) candidate Evan Falchuk.  In my understanding, both Falchuk and McCormick are independently wealthy businessmen, contributing portions of their own wealth into the campaign, in large part, to advocate for their particular causes in relation to the broader agendas advocated by the major party candidates.  Lively, for his part, is a conservative, anti-gay, anti-welfare, minister advocating a return to Judeo-Christian values in the Commonwealth against the materialistic, atheistic, Marxist values currently embodied by the state government.  Needless to say, I tend to discount the larger message advanced by Reverend Lively, although, as a sincere and adamant Marxist defender of democratic sovereignty and the broadest possible marketplace of ideas in the political process, I am entirely glad that he threw his hat into the ring and made his voice heard on what he steadfastly believes!  That said, McCormick's campaign highlighted the excessive regulation and taxation of small businesses in the Commonwealth, emphasizing both the need to target state investments in education and high tech in order to create a my robust entrepreneurial environment in the Commonwealth.  Falchuk set a similar tone but focused on particular wasteful spending by the Massachusetts legislature on big ticket projects in the Boston area while neglecting, in relative terms, investments in transportation and communications infrastructure and maintenance of the state's public higher educational system.  Further, at least in my area, Falchuk made a significant effort to reach voters via television, internet sites, and other traditional electoral methods, measures that were, no doubt, costly to his campaign. 
          I waivered between MCormick and Falchuk for much of the period up to the election.  Both campaigns seemed to convey positive messages on where Massachusetts should be going.  I especially liked McCormick's focus on small business entrepreneurship, a theme that I find lacking in the political posturing of the major parties in the Commonwealth.  In the end, however, I cast my vote for Falchuk.  I did so for several reasons.  Most critically, I adhere to the general principle that I should always vote for candidates that most closely represent the vision that I would want an office holder to have rather than voting for a particular party or against the threat that some other party's candidate will win.  In conformity with my previous reflections, I know perfectly well that Charlie Baker is going to win this election, probably by a significant number of percentage points, however I vote.  Moreover, in view of the composition of the state legislature and the general political disposition of the electorate in the Commonwealth, it isn't really going to matter all that much if Massachusetts elects a Republican into the corner office.  I am not going to determine my choice for governor based on the fear that, if I don't vote for a Democratic candidate (and one patently inadequate to the task in front of her), that all hell is going to break loose in Massachusetts.  [As a side note to a side note, I voted in the Democratic Party primary election (independents in Massachusetts can select to vote in one or the other major party primary) for Donald Berwick, a physician and former Obama administration aid who was advocating the institution of a single payer health care system for the Commonwealth, a position that I knew perfectly well was not going to win the primary for him!]  If the Massachusetts Democratic Party (or, for that matter, the national Democratic Party) wants my vote for governor, then they should select candidates whose vision for the Commonwealth appeals to my understanding of what policies need to be enacted to carry Massachusetts forward to a brighter, more prosperous, and more progressive future.  In my opinion, Martha Coakley failed to convince me that she had a clear and compelling agenda for where the Commonwealth needed to go.  Conversely, as if I needed to note it as a consideration, I am generally predisposed not to cast any ballot for a candidate of the Massachusetts Republican Party under most circumstances, and there was no way that I was ever going to support a former CEO from the health insurance sector.
           Beyond considerations related to my dissatisfaction with the major party candidates themselves, one particular characteristic of Massachusetts electoral law prompted me to pay particular attention to the independent candidates in general and to Falchuk in particular.  If Falchuk receives 3 percent of the total vote cast, then his party organization will, as I understand it, gain status as an official party in the Commonwealth.  Such a designation is particularly useful for organizing purposes, insofar as it enables the party organization to solicit the membership of individual voters at every municipal clerk's office in the Commonwealth.  As such, if Falchuk gets 3 percent of the vote, I can choose to register as a member of the United Independent Party of Massachusetts.  Unlike McCormick's campaign, the Falchuk campaign seemed to hold a legitimate chance to reach official party status.  Thus, I cast my vote in this direction.   
             As a matter of long term political organization in Massachusetts, the electorate, in my opinion, needs more choices than what is currently offered by the two major national parties.  In view of the present political schlerosis of the federal government, it is more important than ever that Massachusetts develops a politics relatively independent of the federal level and focused on the particular needs of citizens within the Commonwealth, irrespective of the broader policy agendas of the major parties for the state level.  Emphatically, we need more political parties that have an independent Massachusetts base to contest the national level parties in state elections because the latter are too tightly intertwined with federal level politics and the federal government has demonstrated itself to be, at the present moment, largely broken!  I do not know the degree to which Falchuk holds similar views on the direction of politics in the Commonwealth and its relationship to the federal system, but I remain hopeful that the more choices we have in Massachusetts, the more we will set ourselves apart from Washington in ways that might insulate the Commonwealth from the toxic direction of politics that has currently arise on the federal level.