WITH THE TOUGH decision to give up his House seat and challenge an incumbent Democratic senator behind him, Joe Kennedy now faces an equally tough question: Why is he running? […]
News Analysis
Posted inNews Analysis
Americans evenly divided on impeachment
DEVELOPMENTS IN THE TRUMP-UKRAINE story are coming at a breakneck pace, and so now are national polls asking about whether the President should be impeached. There are enough impeachment polls […]
Posted inPolitics
Kennedy vs. Markey is no Pressley vs. Capuano
ON SATURDAY, Rep. Joe Kennedy formally announced his campaign to challenge Sen. Ed Markey in next year’s Democratic primary. Rumors of a Kennedy run have been swirling since earlier this […]
Posted inNews Analysis
Polling, like everything else, is moving online
HE’S NOT EVEN officially running, but we now have two polls showing Rep. Joe Kennedy III with a sizable lead over Sen. Ed Markey in the Democratic primary for US […]
Posted inPolitics
Wait wait, don’t primary me
It used to be both polite and practical to wait your turn to run for Congress in Massachusetts. Party leaders and insiders frowned on impertinence, and the very occasional primary […]
Posted inEconomy
‘No more real newspaper’ in Worcester
THE “GHOST NEWSPAPER” ERA has arrived in Massachusetts, and the worst is almost certainly yet to come. The state has not yet been hit with vast news deserts, the term of […]
Posted inNews Analysis
Did Liss-Riordan overstep on Second Amendment?
FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS about American’s constitutional right to bear arms are roiling the Massachusetts Democratic primary for US Senate. After mass shootings, a distressingly occurrence in American politics, the debate typically […]
Posted inNews Analysis
No beach for Baker
GOV. CHARLIE BAKER hasn’t had much time for the beach this summer. First there was the Red Line derailment on June 11, which knocked the MBTA on its heels and […]
Posted inPolitics
Who’s looking at a Markey-Kennedy race?
AN ENIGMATIC TELEPHONE SURVEY raised eyebrows among the Massachusetts political establishment this week. The poll, first reported by POLITICO Massachusetts, pitted Massachusetts Congressman Joe Kennedy III against incumbent Senator Ed Markey in […]
Posted inNews Analysis
Safety allegations raise control board issues
THE MBTA’s FISCAL and Management Control Board is widely viewed as a government success story – five, unpaid gubernatorial appointees who have brought public scrutiny to the inner workings of […]
Posted inPolitics
Baker flunks driver’s license test
THE REGISTRY OF MOTOR VEHICLES, with its interminable waiting time and paperwork, has long been the state bureaucracy bane of drivers’ existence. Now it’s proving to be the same for […]
Posted inTransportation
Will Baker get on the T revenue train?
FOR CHARLIE BAKER, when you’ve lost Bob DeLeo and Marty Walsh, along with leading business voices, those infernal MBTA countdown clocks that can’t give Red Line riders a clue to when […]
Posted inTransportation
Baker’s approach to T epitomizes his leadership style
GOV. CHARLIE BAKER, Beacon Hill’s Mr. Fix-it, is taking a lot of heat over the Red Line derailment on Tuesday. A Boston Globe editorial – titled “Going off the rails on […]
Posted inArts and Culture
Creative economy losing some steam
1BERKSHIRE, Berkshire County’s leading economic development organization, released a strategic report last month called The Berkshire Blueprint 2.0 that, on the surface, seems to provide helpful action steps for supporting […]
Posted inPolitics
Warren in the cross-hairs — where she wants to be
FIRST HOWARD SCHULTZ called her tax-the-rich plan “ridiculous” in an NPR interview Tuesday morning. Michael Bloomberg piled on later in the day in New Hampshire, saying it would set the […]
Posted inNews Analysis
Shutdown sending Trump poll numbers down
“IF WE DON’T GET what we want … I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Chuck.” That, of course, was President Donald Trump in an unexpectedly […]
Posted inNews Analysis
Census politics
THE LATEST CENSUS population figures are out, and Massachusetts is keeping pace with national population growth. The state’s population grew to nearly 7 million people at a rate of 0.6 […]
Posted inNews Analysis
Seth Moulton and the shifting sands of polls
POLLING IS A SNAPSHOT in time. When times change, polls are a time capsule of the way it used to be. Perhaps no one better exemplifies the shifting sands of polls […]
Posted inThe Back Story
Grid hearing had one-sided feel
Legislative hearings are supposed to be fact-finding missions – a bill comes before a committee, proponents and opponents testify, and lawmakers ask questions to understand the implications of the proposed legislation. But hearings can also serve as […]
Posted inNews Analysis
Malls reinventing themselves as ‘lifestyle centers’
WHEN NEWTON’S ATRIUM MALL croaked, I figured Spotify’s shopping playlists would soon enough feature a “Requiem for the Mall.” And a “Hymn for Amazon.” Surely, all the malls of my […]
Posted inNews Analysis
For GOP, is the lesson be more like Charlie?
MASSACHUSETTS REPUBLICANS suffered yet another electoral drubbing last week. Apart from Gov. Charlie Baker, every Republican candidate for statewide office got trounced by 24 to 46 point margins, based on […]
Posted inNews Analysis
Baker shows a Republican can do well in cities
ON HIS WAY to a landslide victory this week, Charlie Baker did something unusual for a Republican these days. He won urban areas, pulling 55 percent in the state’s 20 […]
Posted inNews Analysis
Charlie Baker and the incredible vanishing gender gap
Charlie Baker has bridged the gender gap. Nationally, Democratic women are fleeing the Republican party, threatening to swing a host of offices to Democrats, while men still tilt right. But […]
Posted inNews Analysis
On transgender rights, Massachusetts and Trump administration moving in opposite directions
“Transgender could be defined out of existence by Trump administration” read the headline on the New York Times story from Monday, reporting on a leaked memo that showed the Department […]
