In the final days of the fall campaign, the Democratic State Committee overwhelmed its Republican counterpart with a massive amount of spending that helped the dominant party snuff out any GOP hopes of gaining statewide or congressional offices, despite the hospitable political climate for challengers and outsiders in much of the country.
New reports filed with the state show that from Nov. 1 to Nov. 15, the state Democratic Party outspent the Massachusetts Republican Party, $475,641 to $21,147. In the prior month, the Democrats had outspent the GOP by more than 2 to 1, $2.4 million to $1.1 million, as both parties invested heavily in advertising to support their gubernatorial candidates. Since January 2009, the Democratic Party outspent Republicans by $5.9 million to $2.6 million.
You mean the Democratic party, that bastion of the little guy, threw around money like there's no tomorrow? In Massachusetts? A state that's voted reliably Democrat for many generations? If that doesn't send a message, I don't know what will. When the Democrat party has to focus its efforts on states like Massachusetts, it ought to make the powers-that-be sit up and take notice.
Now, I fully expect that the message will be taken completely the wrong way. I expect the Democrats to clamp down extra hard on those that might even think about straying off the reservation - look for increasing attacks on women and minorities who don't hew to the party line. As for the GOP, well, I fully expect The Stupids to start marching even further left, completely ignoring the basic fact that, given a choice between real Democrats and pretend Democrats, people will choose the real thing every time. I expect neither party to take the right message home; the difference is that the Democrats will alienate the moderates while the GOP will alienate the party faithful.
2012 should prove to be a most interesting election indeed. Things have not been progressing according to plan - those meddling Tea Partiers for instance - and the economy is the 800 pound gorilla that will make or break Øbama's re-election hopes. If things turn around in the next year or so, the bad times behind us, Øbama should have smooth sailing to a second term; if we're still seeing double digit unemployment in January 2012 Barry ought to polish the ol' résumé his ownself... I don't buy into the "Hillary! is going to challenge Øbama for the Democrat nomination" noise that's floating around - internecine squabbling will doom the party, and Hillary! is shrewd enough to know that.
May you live in interesting times indeed - I just hope we can get through them in one relatively intact piece.
That is all.
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