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New In The Phoenix -- Mitt Plays The Charlie Card
In this week's issue of the Boston Phoenix -- in print tomorrow, online now -- I look at Mitt Romney's campaign and see uncanny echoes of the one run by Charlie Baker in 2010.
We knew that Barack Obama was planning to copy from Deval Patrick's winning playbook from that gubernatorial contest. But why on earth would Romney want to crib from Baker?
Check it out, and let me know whether you agree: Mitt's Charlie Card
Have a Heart – Transit Action, Feb. 14
Romney struggles in Minnesota, Missouri, and Colorado. And the CPAC minefield is next.
Monday I suggested an analogy in which Mitt Romney is like a starting pitcher; I guess we learned yesterday (when Romney lost contests in Minnesota, Missouri, and Colorado) that he really doesn't have his best stuff in this outing. I still feel pretty certain that he'll win the nomination -- he's facing a pretty weak-hitting lineup -- but he definitely needs to keep fighting for a while.
And that, of course, is a serious problem, for him and for the GOP nationally. These Republican contests have gone around state-by-state showcasing the worst of Mitt, like a neighborhood watch group posting photos to warn residents of the sex offender who just moved in.
If I may toss out yet another metaphor... the Republican nominating process has taken on some of the feel of one of those early-round NCAA basketball tournament games, when the crowd finds itself, for no rational reason, rooting for the obscure, underdog school putting up a fight against the top-seeded powerhouse team.
One effect of this is that Santorum's likely to get a lot of interest now. It also means that in relatively low-profile contests, like yesterday's, people likely to vote for Romney aren't particularly paying attention, while people likely to vote against him -- or, like those fans at the hoops game, just eager to see the underdog make him work for the win -- are the more geared-up rooting section.
We now head into the annual CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference), which is another potential minefield for Romney. For one thing, it's likely that Sarah Palin -- who is the keynote speaker this year -- will finally endorse Newt Gingrich, and could use her prime-time, FOX-carried speech to hammer Mitt Romney. And, while she may not be someone many Republicans would vote for, Palin is still one of the right's most effective zing-masters.
Gingrich is typically given absolute rock-star treatment at CPAC, and I suspect he will again. I suspect Santorum will get huge attention coming off yesterday's win, and could get wide coverage of his speech in conservative circles. And, for what it's worth, Ron Paul packs the CPAC with his people and will, as usual, become a divisive focal point.
Meanwhile, the media and wider audience is going to pay a fair amount of attention to CPAC, and notice that it is, um, a little outside the mainstream of American experience. This is a crowd that believes America is already halfway into Stalinism, under seige by a trained army of homosexual Black Panther ACORN abortionist who have declared war on all practice of religion other than radical violent jihadist Islam. I'm not making a judgment here -- maybe they're right, what do I know -- but I'm just saying it's not your average everyday dinner-table conversation.
And, Romney is scheduled to speak in the midst of this. He has a lot of support among the old-time CPAC crowd, but I suspect the audience will be largely unenthusiastic. Does he shower them with red meat, and risk further alienating the general-election swing voters, or try to largely rise above it all and appear more Presidential, even if that risks more short-term trouble with conservative voters in primaries?
It was interesting to me that in his speech last night, Romney did not throw the red meat around. He didn't even take on the day's big same-sex marriage ruling, or Obama's recent decision about Catholic hospitals.
That may be because he can't find a good way to attack Rick Santorum from the right -- instead, he indicated in the speech that he will attack Santo as a corrupted Washington insider. Romney may also be calculating that the two upcoming contests, in Arizona and Michigan, are significantly less dominated by evangelical conservatives.
Or, maybe he's decided to just stop the obviously phony, inauthentic, play-acting and finally get back to what he and his campaign swore they learned from the '08 race -- that he needs to stay away from the social-conservative and talk-show nonsense, and stay focussed on his core strengths of leadership and economic know-how. We've seen little evidence so far that they are actually following their own plan.
Man admits role in mechanic's murder over balky Volvo engine
A man upset over the alleged bum engine a mechanic put in his wife's car admitted today he helped a friend gun the mechanic down in the Dorchester District Court parking lot, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.
Mario Burns, 39, pleaded guilty to manslaughter a day after his trial for Charles Contave's murder on March 29, 2010. Suffolk Superior Court Judge Christine McEvoy sentenced him to 15 years in prison for his change of plea. Cornelius Evans pleaded guilty in November to pulling the trigger.
Prosecutors say Burns, his wife and Contave had just left a small-claims hearing at Dorchester District Court, when Evans arrived, Burns pointed out Contave and Evans shot him to death in the court parking lot, a couple blocks away from the court.
January’s Small Business Highlights
Clap Innovation School Hosts Benefit Concert Feb. 10
Clap Innovation School will be hosting an evening with world-renowned and champion fiddler Hanneke Cassel at the Carpenters Center, located at 750 Dorchester Ave. The evening will open with a social hour at 7 p.m. and the concert starts at 8 p.m. Tickets will be limited for this event, and are $20.00, available through Roger Clap Innovation School. For more information about this event, please call Roger Clap Innovation School at 617.635.8672. All proceeds will benefit the Roger Clap Innovation School and its students!
DiMasi Comes To Worcester
Update: Robert DeLeo's attorney, Robert Popeo, tells me today that DeLeo "is not a target of the investigation. He is not somebody who violated the law. There is nothing in the DiMasi travel that will in any way affect him.
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Word started spreading yesterday that former Massachusetts House Speaker Sal DiMasi had departed his new residence at the Federal Medical Center in Lexington, Kentucky -- ie, the pen where he is serving an eight-year sentence. This morning, Andrea Estes and Shelley Murphy drop a bombshell: according to their sources (and they typically have good ones), DiMasi is on his way to Worcester to testify before a federal grand jury, presumably the one readying corruption charges relating to the probation patronage scandal.
This may or may not clarify the apparent delay in indictments from that investigation. The Globe reported on January 17 that indictments were imminent, and people I spoke with at the time believed they were coming that week.
Since then, rumors and speculation have run rampant; more than once I have been told that indictments were definitely coming "tomorrow."
Most of the scuttlebutt maintains that the Globe was correct that the indictments were coming, but then something caused a delay. There have been, broadly speaking, two sets of explanations offered.
The first has it that Boston's US Attorney Carmen Ortiz kicked the case up to Washington, for US Attorney General Eric Holder to make some decision about how to proceed. The second theory for the delay posits that someone flipped -- that someone, on the eve of indictment, offered to make a deal and gave the feds some new information. Prosecutors, under this scenario, have been pursuing those new leads.
These two theories are not exclusive to each other. It's possible that both were happening independently. Or, one could have caused the other.
Now, comes DiMasi.
As Estes and Murphy make clear, we don't know what brings DiMasi to Worcester. But it sure looks like DiMasi, having lost his legal attempts to stay free pending appeal, and to be housed close to home, saw that the probation indictments were pending and saw a moment of maximum leverage.
I am told, by people close to DiMasi circles, that this is more or less the case -- that the feds and DiMasi have been negotiating this deal for a couple of weeks, which if correct would place the first discussions just after the January 17 Globe article.
All of the above -- if true -- is of course just backdrop for the real issue: what, and whom, is DiMasi giving the feds?
You'd have to figure it has to be pretty big. Once the feds land a big fish like DiMasi -- and publicly orate about the grossness of his crimes, as Ortiz has -- they don't ease his sentence without getting something good. Indeed, it's quite possible that the reason the deal took two weeks to finalize is because the feds kept demanding more from him.
Estes and Murphy drop a huge suggestion at the end of today's story. Without suggesting directly that this is the subject of DiMasi's testimony, they bring up old allegations that DiMasi and DeLeo traded probation jobs for votes to make DeLeo speaker after DiMasi. That allegedly included DeLeo, then Ways & Means chair, adding money to the probation budget to accommodate those hires.
(Worth noting: DeLeo supporters have long believed, with some justification, that the Globe has been desperate to tie the probation scandal to DeLeo; the inclusion of this allegation could be viewed from that perspective.)
Needless to say, DiMasi testimony affirming all of that would be devastating to DeLeo. And, it is likely that DiMasi would also be testifying to other improper uses of probation patronage -- and other types of improper dealmaking -- going back through his own and Tom Finneran's speakerships, that could implicate many current and former representatives, including those in leadership.
Also, consider this. It is plausible that many of the representatives who knew about these deals didn't think that much of them at the time. After all, people like Finneran, DiMasi, and DeLeo are deal-makers -- sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly. Promises of patronage jobs probably wouldn't have struck someone as particularly worse than, say, promises to get an earmark into the budget, or promises to provide help for a re-election campaign.
But that changed a little over a year ago, when patronage at the probation department became the known subject of a criminal investigation. At that point, anybody with knowledge of anybody making, or offering, any deals involving a promise of jobs at that department had a duty to come forward with what they knew.
If DiMasi is giving federal prosecutors information about such deals, and how they were done, and with whom they were discussed, then there are a bunch of current and former reps potentially on the hook legally for withholding that information. The Feds might not be looking to prosecute all of them, but they would certainly be interested in using the threat to squeeze testimony out of them.
The theory I'm hearing today is that DiMasi, who many say has grown bitter toward DeLeo for a variety of reasons, decided to take DeLeo down in exchange for some changes to his sentence. He may have initially thought he could do this without endangering other former colleagues, but -- according to this chatter -- the Feds wouldn't do the deal without a fuller accounting, which would implicate others.
If this is the case, then DiMasi's upcoming grand jury testimony will likely be followed not by immediate indictments, but by more appearances by people suddenly willing to talk. In other words, this could get ugly and uglier.
Or, maybe DiMasi is just coming to Worcester for a drink at the Boynton. Anything else is just speculation and rumor at this point. But, it's increasingly interesting speculation and rumor.
BPS Hoop Championships Schedule!
Boys semi-finals Thursday February 23 at 4:00 and 5:30pm.
The Championship games will be played on Friday February 24. Girls at 5:00pm and Boys at 6:30pm..
All games will be played at Madison Park High School.
See you there!
Man charged with murder of two Dorchester sisters but remains at large
Authorities today charged Jean Weevens Janvier, 30, of Dorchester, for the murder of Stephanie and Judith Emile on Harlem Street last Nov. 14.
Boston Police and the Suffolk County District Attorney's office are seeking the public's help to find Janvier.
If you know where he is, contact the homicide unit at 617-343-4470 or the anonymous tip line by calling 800-494-TIPS or texting TIP to CRIME (27463).
Innocent, etc.
Community Garden Leadership 101, Feb. 9
New Mission vs. Brighton Game Moved!
Habitat For Humanity Homes Available in Dorchester!
Habitat for Humanity Greater Boston currently has 2, 3, and 4-bedroom homes/condos under construction in Dorchester! Habitat is looking for low-income working families to fill these homes. Habitat is looking for households that have the following characteristics:
- Are low-to moderate-income households (roughly between 50%-80% area median income as established by HUD –for a family of four their gross income should be around $45,000 -$65,000 per year)
- Have steady employment and the ability to afford 0% interest mortgage payments to Habitat (Habitat tries to keep the mortgage payments below $1,000/month –often it is much lower than that);
- Are legal residents;
- Have a current housing need: either housing is overcrowded, unsafe, or too expensive for the family to afford; and
- Are willing to partner with Habitat to work on the home and attend homeownership classes. Each family is required to invest 300 hours working side-by-side with volunteers to construct their future home. (This usually takes 7-12 months.)
Attached is a PDF of Habitat for Humanity's application (which needs to be printed double-sided, flipped on the short side to create a booklet), an information sheet, and photos of the condos available in Dorchester. For more information, call 617.423.2223x17 or visit www.habitatboston.org!
Date (SORTER): Tue, 02/07/2012 - 6:00am Dates Relevant: Tue, 02/07/2012 - Mon, 03/05/2012Green Jobs Boston Update – Feb 2012
The Dorchester House Food Pantry is Temporarily CLOSING!
The Dorchester House Multi-Service Center is temporarily closing their food pantry for the month of March in order to reorganize their service delivery model. As of February 1st, notifications of this closure are being included in food pantry bags during their distribution hours and clients are being given a list of other food pantry sites in Dorchester. >> Read More
Date (SORTER): Wed, 02/08/2012 - 12:15pm Dates Relevant: Mon, 02/06/2012 - Thu, 03/15/2012Quick Thoughts On GOP 2012 (& Tune In)
I will be on Emily Rooney's WGBH radio show today at noon, doing a political week-in-review segment with the estimable Jeff Jacoby. The main topic will be Mitt Romney and the GOP nomination battle, so here's my quick take before you tune in to hear me talk about it on air.
Romney, of course, followed up his big Florida victory by winning an impressive (albeit expected) romp in Saturday's Nevada caucuses. There are contests tomorrow, in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri. Then a break until Arizona and Michigan at the end of the month, followed by (a relatively small) Super Tuesday on March 6.
There is very little doubt, in my opinion, that Romney will get the nomination. But I think he still needs to keep fighting for it, and that's potentially a problem for him.
Think of it as a baseball game, with your star pitcher on the mound, and a solid five or six run lead in the fourth inning. You're going to win. But you might not win if you pull the pitcher this early. So, even if you would prefer to rest his arm, you have to leave him in for a while.
(A better analogy would be a star quarterback in a late-season game where a win gets you home-field advantage in the playoffs -- but nobody around here wants a football analogy today.)
Winning individual states, at this point, is like hurling a shutout inning -- it doesn't really matter, except that if you did give up a run or two you might need to leave the starter in a little longer than if you maintain that bigger lead.
See, if Romney doesn't pitch shutout innings, that means someone scored -- and will feel it's worth it to keep their own A team on the field.
For example, Rick Santorum is polling well in Missouri (where Gingrich is not on the ballot) and Minnesota. If he wins one or both, he can make the case that he's poised to win midwestern and rust-belt states, including Ohio on Super Tuesday March 6. That could get him more funding, and media attention, which will help him compete in Ohio and beyond.
Likewise, if Gingrich wins his home state of Georgia, and perhaps Tennessee on Super Tuesday, he can make the case that he's poised to win other upcoming Southern states, ultimately including Texas on April 3. If Ron Paul can win a caucus state or two that he's targetting, he can also keep building his campaign.
None of them appear to have much chance of actually accumulating large masses of delegates this way -- but they could collectively prevent Romney from rolling up a dominant delegate stash himself. And that could keep mean even more attention and money for the challengers deep into the contest. And that, in turn, means that Romney (and his Super PAC) will have to use more and more of their resources, and spend more and more time using rhetoric that is doing him no good for the general election.
So, Romney has to stay on the mound, and try hard to keep throwing shutout innings. That way, the other candidates -- whether they stay in the race or not -- get their A team (in attention and funding) pulled by the media and donors. At that point, it becomes safe to pull Romney and coast to the nomination.
So, even though Nevada doesn't really mean anything, and tomorrow's contests don't really mean anything, they're actually quite important to Romney. Or, so I would argue.
Firefighter suffers head injury at two-alarm fire in Dorchester
Remains of a room at 101 Maxwell St. Photo by BFD.
A bedroom short circuit caused a two-alarm fire this morning at 101 Maxwell St., the Boston Fire Department reports.
No residents were injured, but one firefighter was taken to Carney Hospital with a head injury, the department says. Damage was estimated at $200,000.
2/4/12 - 9:40 amMen of Color To Arms! The Story of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment
Labouré College and Carney Hospital, In partnership with the Boston African American National Historic Site, will present "Men of Color To Arms! The Story of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment." On February 9th, 2012, see the event at Carney Hospital Riseman Lecture Hall, 2100 Dorchester Avenue, Dorchester 02124. There will be refreshments at 5:30 p.m. and a presentation at 6:00 p.m. This presentation will be jointly led by Lt. Col. David Hencke, Executive Officer, 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment; Sgt. Emmett Bell-Sykes, President, 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, Company A; and Ryan McNabb, Acting Site Manager, Boston African American National Historic Site. See flyer attached below:
Q&A #10: Vegas Strip
"ProfessorU" asks:
Any recommendcations for prof navigating the Vegas strip?
First of all, get yourself to the downtown strip for at least a few hours. That's where you want to play your table games and poker, or drink through a straw from a yard of daiquiri hanging around your neck while operating two slot machines. Or so I hear.
On the main strip... just about all the Sports Books are good. There's a PF Chang's in the Planet Hollywood. Use the monorail -- it's, a much longer walk than you think. There's a Jimmy Buffet Margaritaville now. I'd skip the Cirque shows. What else did you want to know?
Oh, and if you get married, I highly recommend the Hitching Post -- the lucky place to get hitched for life.
Neighborhood Meeting at St. Joseph's Feb. 6
St. Joseph Rehabilitation and Nursing Care Center in collaboration with The Boston Police Neighborhood Watch Unit cordially invite you to attend a neighborhood meeting that will feature: Neighbors getting to know Neighbors, a discussion of important trends, issues, and the most recent break-ins to homes. Share your ideas and concerns to make a better and safer neighborhood. Get connected and learn what's going on! Contact Lauren Scherer at 617.825.6320x1631 or lscherer [at] stjosephrehab.com. St. Joseph's is located at 321 Centre Street in Dorchester.
