Sunday, June 04, 2006

“Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres”

I don't understand the logic of the Massachusetts Democratic party. Whatever Deval Patrick's odds of winning the general election in November are, they must now be divided by three. Any party that works the way this party is working in this election does not want to win, with any candidate. I mean, what's with this? If you want to win a race, you get momentum behind one candidate. How many candidates are the Republicans fielding for governor in the primary? One. How many are the Democrats? Three. Does that sound like a good strategy to win an election? No.

Sure, you can argue that the Democrats are the more "democratic" party, because they're giving the voters more choices, and attempting to vet the candidate in the November election with solid support. But what's really happening is that all those voters who vote for whoever doesn't win the primary have one more excuse not to vote in the final election. And then Sal DiMasi and Bob Travaligni will get exactly what they want: another Republican in the corner office to be their scapegoat when things don't go their way.

All the complaints I heard about the unfairness of the 15% rule in the past week came from people who are happy to see the gubernatorial election stay what it has been for 16 years: a referendum on who wins the Democratic award for "political pariah." Has anyone heard from Scott Harshbarger or Shannon O'Brien lately?

P.S. Don't get me wrong, I'll be voting for Patrick in September (and probably November). But I have no illusions about the likely outcome.

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