Massachusetts is heaven for incumbents and other election thoughts from Jon Keller
The opinions expressed below are Jon Keller's, not those of WBZ-TV, CBS News or Paramount, a Skydance Corporation.
What did we learn about Massachusetts politics from the primary night results?
Yes, it was a narrow sample of the electorate compared with what we'll likely see in November. Absent any exit polling, we can't tell if independent voters, who control the outcome of elections here, bothered to show up in either party primary.
That said, a few observations:
* The "generational change" mantra is overrated, for now, at least in Massachusetts. Seth Moulton just demonstrated that you can't make a charge of excessive ripeness stick if the incumbent you're trying to stick it to shows no apparent sign of age-related impairment. It's a mistake to think that "young people" will automatically gravitate to a younger candidate, if it's the older candidate who better reflects their ideology. And besides:
* There's a reason why Massachusetts is heaven for incumbents, with no US Senator unseated since Ed Brooke in 1978. The foundations of the modern-day Massachusetts economy - from the nation's largest Air Force Reserve Base (Westover in Chicopee) to Lincoln Labs, from the Big Dig to the Cape Cod National Seashore - were built by the federal dollars brought home by long-serving members of Congress like Tip O'Neill, Joe Moakley and Ted Kennedy. Some of those guys even wound up being old, but still popular. Imagine that!
* Meanwhile, Markey's romp notwithstanding, for such an allegedly left-leaning state, "moderates" (they'd be seen as ultra-liberals almost anywhere else) had a pretty good night here. Good laughs were provided by folks who checked in early in the evening to excitedly tout Patrick Roath's showing in some South Boston precincts, before Stephen Lynch's big margins in the southern suburbs - where much of old South Boston moved after unloading their Southie property on the yuppies at a huge markup - became apparent. Same goes for Richie Neal out west.
* The Republicans managed to nominate two articulate millionaires for the Senate and gubernatorial races. But they both must navigate a major Trump in the road ahead. Check out this exchange from the mini-debate we recorded Tuesday night between GOP Chair Amy Carnevale and Democratic Chair Steve Kerrigan, a preview of coming attractions.
KERRIGAN: "Massachusetts is not a place for Donald Trump and for his values and what his type of leadership is going to bring in. What you saw tonight was the completion of the total takeover by Donald Trump and the MAGA movement of the Massachusetts Republican Party, and you know, this is not your grandfather's Republican Party in Massachusetts. We look forward to putting Maura Healey and Kim Driscoll's record for the last four years up against what Donald Trump has been spewing in Washington and what Mike Minogue has been talking about across the campaign."
CARNEVALE: "I would get back to the issue of affordability and what it means to be a resident of Massachusetts, struggling to make your ends meet, struggling to pay your electricity bills, hoping your kids can afford to stay here when they graduate college, and those are all issues that Mike Minogue will be talking about headed into the November election. The residents are feeling that affordability crisis, and Donald Trump is a sideshow that is talked about by the Democrats to distract people from Maura Healey's record as governor over the last four years."
Note: When we pointed out to Kerrigan that GOP Senate nominee John Deaton - who says he's never voted for Trump and has been openly critical of the president - will be tougher to hang with the scarlet T than Minogue, he responded by dismissing Deaton as a "blow-in." Ouch.
It's gonna be a long 62 days until election day.
