The ghosts of 2010 are rattling their chains. There are so many problems plaguing Attorney General Martha Coakley’s run for governor that it is difficult to know where to begin.

Coakley’s most recent campaign finance misstep was eminently avoidable. However, the failure of the state’s chief law enforcement official to provide timely reimbursement of campaign travel expenses to state coffers makes her an easy target for Democratic and Republican gubernatorial candidates alike.

The incident follows Coakley’s flub of a question about the size of the gas tax, a gaffe that Charlie Baker is trying to exploit. It’s an error that might have died a slow death, since most Massachusetts drivers probably don’t know the correct tax either. But it’s one figure that Coakley should be acquainted with as the state official responsible for reviewing and certifying a ballot question that would repeal gas tax indexing.

If the Supreme Judicial Court rejects her property rights rationale for disallowing an anti-casino ballot measure, the withering fire will only intensify.

Her Democratic primary opponents have been piling on for weeks. Steve Grossman has nipped Coakley’s heels for being insufficiently pro-gun control. Juliette Kayyem continues to lob verbal grenades in the attorney general’s direction. Over at Blue Mass Group, a recent post urging Democrats to “commit to Martha” before June’s state Democratic convention earned a fair amount of push back.

But the relentless hypotheticals that enthuse the political cognoscenti already gripped by the gubernatorial race are lost on the average voter. Most of them are just trying figure out the best way to beat Memorial Day traffic.

The disinterest of the electorate at this point in time goes a long way toward explaining why Coakley obliterates Grossman and maintains a comfortable lead over Baker in recent polls.

What to make of Coakley’s lead?  Not much, according to a deft analysis by MassPoliticalProfs’ Jerold Duquette, who sees Martha Coakley as a “Potemkin candidate”:

Heading into the State Democratic Convention, Coakley’s position in this race looks pretty precarious. There really is no realistic scenario by which Coakley comes out of the convention stronger than she went in. Steve Grossman will win the convention’s endorsement and whether the party’s primary ballot includes two, three, or four candidates, each possibility provides an easy anti-Coakley narrative that will undoubtedly be exploited by pundits and rival pols alike.

What will happen once voters start paying attention after Labor Day? Gov. Deval Patrick unwittingly provides some clues. He recently expressed concern about Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee, and the “inevitability thing because I think it’s off-putting to the average…voter.”

The same can be said for Martha Coakley, who knows better than anyone on Earth that there is no such thing as inevitability in Bay State politics.

–GABRIELLE GURLEY  

BEACON HILL

Ralph Gants , Gov. Deval Patrick’s nominee for chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, testifies before the Governor’s Council, the Associated Press reports.

MUNICIPAL MATTERS

The Globe remembers the Bellflower Street Conflagration 50 years after the massive inferno consumed 35 Dorchester houses. Kevin Duffy, whose grandfather helped fight the blaze as a Boston firefighter, takes stock in CommonWealth of the broader lessons the fire offers for more efficient and nimble government operation in all sorts of areas.

A Methuen city councilor is forced to post on Facebook that he is still alive after a rumor takes hold that he is dead. He is calling for a police investigation, the Eagle-Tribune reports.

Whitman police have started an investigation into a complaint by a Hispanic woman that an officer in their department responding to a call for assistance from East Bridgewater made a discriminatory remark she captured on video.

Authorities are trying to find out who hid in the Fall River Public Library after closing and stole Franklin the turtle, who has lived at the library for more than a decade and become a favorite of children visiting the athenaeum.

MARATHON BOMBING

The city of Oakland is investigating the lifetime disability pension granted to a former city police officer who retired at age 31 but went on to join the FBI. The agent has been identified as the shooter of a friend of Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON

Frank Rich argues that the merger of the national Republican Party with the tea party is now complete.

Pennsylvania won’t fight a federal court decision that clears the way for same-sex marriage in the state.

Richard Florida crunches new Census data on urban population, and finds the growth of many cities with knowledge-based economies, including Boston, being driven heavily by immigration.

ELECTIONS

Maura Healey , a candidate for attorney general, calls her Democratic rival, Warren Tolman, a “shadow lobbyist,” State House News reports.

With Sen. Elizabeth Warren on the presidential sidelines, former Montana governor Brian Schweitzer auditions as the disaffected liberal’s alternative to Hillary Clinton.

BUSINESS/ECONOMY

A Taunton hummus-making plant where a worker was killed in a gruesome accident in a blending machine has been an egregious violator of federal safety standards, say the Globe and ProPublica in a joint report.

Governing examines population growth across the country, and finds the municipalities that are growing the fastest are associated with energy development or attractive to young people or retirees. Boston ranked 90th in the survey.

So-called Millennials are beginning to displace Baby Boomers as the dominant consumer group and their decision to delay home purchases is clouding the current and future economic outlook.

EDUCATION

The Lowell School Committee approves the return of foreign language education, the Sun reports.

New Bedford will be the latest community to offer free breakfast and lunches to all students including those in five local private and parochial schools to make sure the focus is on learning, not hunger.

TRANSPORTATION

Experts predict the number of people traveling on the roads this Memorial Day weekend will be the most since 2005 and second highest total since 2000 because of cabin fever from the long, cold winter.

ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT

China begins to take note of climate change as negotiations with the US on what the two countries can do about it pick up a little steam, Time reports.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

After former senator John Hart says he remembers almost nothing about any dealings with the Probation Department, an exasperated federal prosecutor asks him whether he has mental problems, CommonWealth reports. Here is the Globe account of the testimony from Hart, the one-time sharp as a tack host of the St. Patrick’s Day breakfast who suddenly got stupid on the stand. Meanwhile, a Western Massachusetts Probation official testifies to hiring irregularities and potential nepotism, but his testimony is undercut by his confusion on the stand. Howie Carr compares Hart’s performance to that of William Bulger, who famously came down with amnesia while under oath.

Yvonne Abraham visits the evergreen story world of public defenders and assistant district attorneys, who scrape by on horrifically low salaries while entrusted with seeing that justice is done in Massachusetts courts. CommonWealth profiled a public defender earlier this year.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has raised its reward offer to $10,000 for information leading to the identity of the person or persons who left a homemade pipe bomb in the Brant Rock section of Marshfield.

MEDIA

The Boston Globe has sold the Worcester Telegram & Gazette to Florida-based Halifax Media Group. The terms were not disclosed. The T&G reports that three companies — none of them local — bid on the paper and that layoffs will precede the formal sale.