Massachusetts Politics

You and I will never have a credible pathway to the presidency of the United States, but if we did, we would take it. That's why former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick (2007-15) will be a candidate for president in 2020.   He probably won't win, but he could win; therefore, he'd be crazy not to give it a shot.. Here's how a successful candidacy could unroll for the man I call, admiringly, the Buddha of America politics: A naturally gifted, superb one-on-one campaigner, Patrick goes to Iowa early and often.  He connects exceptionally well with small audiences everywhere he goes, and, after weeks of  quietly going about the business of retail campaigning in small towns and at rural farm crossroads, his candidacy catches fire.  One day the sun comes up in Iowa and everyone's talking about this guy from Massachusetts by way of Chicago. In the state caucuses on Feb. 3, 2020, he manages a strong second-place ...

The economy of metropolitan Boston is booming, employment is near historic highs, and more young people than ever want to live and work in Boston, so one would think that ridership on the MBTA would be increasing.  One would think wrong. According to a report delivered during a meeting of the MBTA Fiscal and Management Control Board today in Boston, overall subway ridership is down 1.6 percent for the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2019 (July 1-September 30, 2018). Things are worse on the subway line I frequent. The board was informed that, over the past five years, ridership has declined 2.5 percent on the Orange Line, which runs from Oak Grove Station in Malden, at the Melrose line, to Forest Hills Station in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston. I hope they won't spend on a marketing study to determine why riders are shunning the T. The reasons are obvious to anyone who has to use the T: on the Orange and Red subway lines, for example, servic...

Whenever I think of Freddie Berry, the late Majority Leader of the Massachusetts Senate who will be buried this weekend, God rest his magnificent soul, I can't help but smile because he was such a naturally funny and attractive human being, the kind of person who constantly surprised and delighted you with his slyly camouflaged wit and high intellectual voltage, and because every day that he ventured forth into this brutish world he was a walking, talking Exhibit A of how much a righteous person possessed of an unswerving, ferocious determination could achieve in the face of obstacles the nature of which normally crush 9,999 out of a 10,000 souls.  I doubt that Freddie's soul was ever seriously dented, so formidable was his inner strength.  Berry died this past Tuesday at age 68 following a long period of declining health.  He was born with cerebral palsy, and though he bore the effects of tha...