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About Jon's Blog

WBZ-TV Political Analyst Jon Keller is full of opinions, and he isn't afraid to share them. Check back often for Jon's unique take on the world of politics, with some occasional pop culture thrown in.

Email Jon Keller or follow him on Twitter.

Code of Conduct: no out and out name calling or use of slurs, vulgar language, and any troll like behavior. Differences of opinion and challenging others’ viewpoints are encouraged, however; doing so in a way that is meant to insult or demean a specific person or group of people will not be tolerated. Off topic discussions within the blogs will be removed to keep the conversation focused on the topic at hand. We reserve the right to delete any comments that cross the line as deemed by our management staff. Read our complete terms of service.

About the Author

Jon Keller is widely regarded as the top political analyst in New England.  He is a favorite of the region's viewers because he is smart and witty, and he asks the tough questions everyone wants to have asked.  The politicians respect him too because he has a distinguished reputation for being fair, accurate, and dedicated to serving viewers.  Although 'Keller at Large' primarily tackles politics, Keller also makes social and cultural commentary on news of the day and pop culture.
Read his complete biography.

Mar 11, 2010 10:12 PM

Mangia!

Posted by Jon_Keller

Here's a link to more information about the Italian food shop and restaurant profiled in tonight's piece.

Of course, your neighborhood probably has an excellent Italian food spot as well. Why not tell us about it below? Gosh I'm hungry!

 
Mar 11, 2010 3:57 PM

Here Comes the Slime

Posted by Jon_Keller
Better wear your wetsuit

Looks like the effort to oust Sen. Scott Brown in 2012 has begun in earnest.

Students of journalism, watch closely to see which news outlets pick this story up and pretend it's legit.

 

Comments (4)

  • Mar-11 - USAF1125 You can bet that the Boston Globe will jump all over it. With the Globe only Republicans can do...  Show Full Comment
  • Mar-11 - KathyD The article asks the question "Why didn't the Dems raise this issue during the Senate campaign?"...  Show Full Comment
  • Mar-11 - Steve Let's see... As of 4:50 PM, Google news shows 10 results. The only four I've heard of (and I read...  Show Full Comment
Mar 10, 2010 10:50 PM

Kennedy's Tantrum

Posted by Jon_Keller
Time to switch to decaf?

If you haven't seen it yet, here is video of Rep. Patrick Kennedy's over-the-top harangue of the news media on the floor of the House this afternoon.

Check out my take - with help from the Spin-O-Meter. Then add your comment below.

 

 

Comments (16)

  • Mar-11 - Wayne The bit I saw--about the media being more concerned with piffle like Maffa Dramma rather than the...  Show Full Comment
  • Mar-11 - Paul Sounds like somebody skipped their medication!
  • Mar-11 - Marty Ironically patches just voted against a bill to withdraw combat troops form Afghanistan.
Mar 10, 2010 9:50 PM

Head Counting

Posted by Jon_Keller
 

Down and dirty number crunching on the health-care vote from the nation's most knowledgeable Congressional observer.

 

Comments (3)

  • Mar-11 - USAF1125 I have not seen any poll that has a majority of the people in favor of this bill, every thing I...  Show Full Comment
  • Mar-11 - wmasscowgirl We can only hope that the votes are not there. Not that we dont' need SOME health care reform,...  Show Full Comment
  • Mar-11 - Steve David Dayan of FireDogLake (which has taken a strong stand AGAINST the Senate bill, from the...  Show Full Comment
Mar 9, 2010 9:25 PM

Reading Their Body Language

Posted by Jon_Keller
Gestures = votes?

You have got to see my interview tonight at 11pm with a local body language expert analyzing the candidates for governor to believe it.

And do check out his online analysis of the Brown/Coakley race. Fascinating.

 

Comments (10)

  • Mar-11 - wmasscowgirl Don Khoury - ah Patches, yesterday? Clinton's "I did not have sex with that woman?" John Edwards...  Show Full Comment
  • Mar-11 - DonKhoury KathyD, There is a new post at the link that Jon provided which addresses among others the...  Show Full Comment
  • Mar-10 - andyme Suck it up, Coakley was defeated because of her stance on issues. Why is it that in Taxachusettes...  Show Full Comment
Mar 9, 2010 9:12 PM

Attention, Fellow Towerheads

Posted by Jon_Keller
To hold you over until our next local vaccination on the 24th. See you at the Wilbur!
 

Comments (1)

  • Mar-10 - KathyD I'm looking forward to being funkafized that night. They better have room in the aisles to dance,...  Show Full Comment
Mar 8, 2010 11:23 PM

Oscar Depoliticized?

Posted by Jon_Keller
 

Check out this take on the Oscars and how they reflect a retreat from knee-jerk political correctness. Then watch my piece on the subject from tonight's 11pm news, posted in the box to the right shortly.

Your comments below.

 

Comments (10)

  • Mar-10 - ChrisNH With Leftists in power across all government, and Hollywood being nearly radical Left itself, the...  Show Full Comment
  • Mar-9 - Jon_Keller Debbie...no offense taken, your feedback, critical or otherwise, is always appreciated.
  • Mar-9 - ellen Maybe the reason is a new generation that's in power that have become more Independent then...  Show Full Comment
Mar 6, 2010 6:04 PM

Patrick's Re-Election Problem

Posted by Jon_Keller
A fool's errand?

“I am an optimist. But not a foolish one.”

          - Gov. Deval Patrick in his inaugural address, Jan. 2007

  

If that’s really true, then we can surely expect an announcement soon that, after careful consideration, the governor has decided to pull a Delahunt and get out while the getting’s good. Tim Murray, come on down.

But after 38 of the more foolishly-handled months in modern-day Massachusetts political history, an educated guess is there will be no such wise retreat. Like the B-52 erroneously dispatched to bomb Moscow in the Cold War thriller Fail Safe, those in the know say the Deval Patrick re-election campaign is past the point of no return.

Efforts to abort the mission by anxious Democrats all the way up to the White House have been rebuffed by the dismissive pilot. A bright, ambitious man with no apparent thirst for spectacular failure, Patrick nonetheless is clinging desperately to saffron-thin threads of hope that his opponents will split the anti-Patrick vote, that the economy will somehow turn around in time, that he will be swept back into office by a grateful Red Sox nation after he leans out of his box seat and interferes with a foul pop during Game 7 of the World Series, enabling the Sox to get the extra at-bat they need to squeeze out a win.

 Most elections featuring an incumbent turn out to be a referendum on the incumbent, and this one is no exception. The most recent poll repeats the same story we’ve been seeing for two years now – substantial majorities of voters don’t like the way the state is heading, don’t approve of the governor’s performance in office, and don’t want to keep him around for another term.

Why? In a counter-intuitive twist on the old cliché, Patrick’s failure has a thousand fathers.

Before he even took office, the governor-elect needlessly antagonized the news media by lambasting a gathering of newspaper publishers as clueless cynics who had – despite their generally fawning coverage of his campaign – “missed” its transcendent nature. (This was the first of many moments in which the congenial, humble listener-par-excellence persona of the campaign was stripped back, like the yuppies in the Foxwoods ad peeling off their regular selves, to reveal thin-skinned petulance.)

And in his first act as governor he telegraphed how easy it would be to roll him by restoring hundreds of millions of dollars in state spending vetoed by outgoing Gov. Mitt Romney, including $100,000 to build a new gazebo on town land in Braintree, a structure likely coming soon to an attack ad near you. This clue was seized upon by the public employee unions, who conned Patrick into giving them veto power over potentially cost-saving pension and health-care reforms, and easily coaxed him into trying to stifle genuine education reform by burying it under a costly, phony “readiness” bureaucracy.

Browse the Daily Digest on the State House News Service website (subscription required) and it all comes rushing back to you, the seemingly unceasing string of blunders that have become engraved in the electorate’s consciousness so irrevocably, they are evoked by single words or phrases, the way jazz fans recall Ella or World War II vets speak of The Big One:

The Caddy.

The drapes.

“A failure of human understanding.” (What caused 9-11.)

Marian Walsh.

“Trivial” criticisms.

Jim Aloisi.

The gridlock snowstorm.

The book deal.

The robo-call for Dianne Wilkerson.

Gas tax.

Sales tax.

Candy tax.

And so on. (Add the ones I missed in the comments section below.)

During one early media availability, Patrick told a group of us: “You’ve never seen a governor like me before.” But that wasn’t true. We had all seen Jane Swift, a well meaning but under experienced bumbler unable to learn from failure, respond constructively to criticism, and break her own fall. This governor is busy making those memories fonder than they have any right to be.

Every major political figure and activist I have spoken to privately about Deval Patrick over the last three years, every one of them Democrats, most of them folks who could have and should have been allies he could now rely on as he seeks re-election, has told me the same story: He pretends to listen, but really doesn’t. You meet with him about something important, and think you have a reached agreement on the way forward, and the next day you read in the paper that he’s done the opposite. He needlessly antagonizes you, then acts shocked and offended when you call him on it. He acts like he’s entitled to treatment that everyone else has to earn. You don’t want to bring him bad news or offer constructive criticism, because he gets on his high horse and treats you like the plague from then on.

I’ve cleaned up the language they used, in most cases. None of those people, or their people, will be with Patrick in November. Enough of them may well relish the chance to send a message to him to give protest candidate Grace Ross the 15% she needs at the Democratic Convention in June to make the September primary ballot. Don’t ask me to tell you who they are, but you could call up Tim Cahill and Charlie Baker’s campaign donor lists and figure some of them out for yourself.

But those are the insiders. What about the “grassroots” voters that Patrick and his Titanic crewmates insist they are now busy energizing for the re-coronation? Outside of a meager crew of true believers and sophomoric online groupies, they likely fall into one of two categories. There are folks who simply will not buy Patrick’s painfully labored reinvention as an outsider, a reformer, an independent soul, by God, a….Scott Brown Democrat, because he is a powerful incumbent, not an outsider; he had to be pushed by political backlash into “signature” reforms like the flagmen (he didn’t even know what police details were when he took office, and couldn’t stand charter schools until they became the key to getting desperately-needed federal education funds); and he rides around in a Caddy, not a pickup truck. And there are folks who might support him again if they weren’t so anxious and angry about being unemployed, a condition his administration has done little to remedy. 

Keep in mind, all this fear and loathing set in barely 17 months after the same electorate swept Patrick into office with high hopes and good feeling, and well before the economy fell off a cliff. It has calcified into a profound dislike for a once well-liked Prince Charming during a time when he has had control of the bully pulpit and an array of clumsy foils to play off of, including a scandal-plagued Legislature and an inept Republican Party.

Anti-Patrick sentiment has become a huge, hardened boil that the governor has just eight months to lance in the face of focused, withering criticism from opponents with more than enough dough to get their message across. His flacks like to play pretend that an economic recovery is going to bail him out, touting each sliver of hopeful economic news as if it’s word of Lindbergh’s safe landing in Paris, their tweets rendered ridiculous by each subsequent wave of fresh economic decay.

And the split-vote theory? It could happen. None of his challengers have yet demonstrated a capacity to light up the night sky with hope, and flood the streets with milk and honey.

But this election isn’t about them, and my guess is it never will be. It’s about getting rid of a failed politician whose freshness date, dismayingly, seems in hindsight to have begun expiring as he left the stage on election night. Patrick is said by sources close to him to be well aware of how bleak his re-election prospects are, but is forging on nonetheless. Give the man the due his life story demands, he knows what it’s like to be counted out and isn’t going to let that stop him.

An optimist, yes. But not a foolish one? I doubt it.

 

 

Comments (25)

  • Mar-9 - KathyD tk918: So are you saying that Republicans are Americans and Democrats are not? Or that Democrats...  Show Full Comment
  • Mar-9 - JBGabriel Jon, It just may be that His Excellency is reading your blog. The headline today in the Worcester...  Show Full Comment
  • Mar-9 - TruthSeeker10 I don't know. I like Gov Deval Patrick as a person. I did not vote for him. I'm disappointed...  Show Full Comment
Mar 3, 2010 1:34 PM

Hang In With Me Please

Posted by Jon_Keller
Friends (and others)....light blogging here for a couple of days as I deal with a death in the family. Please check back this weekend for a big new post on the governor's race, suitable for use as early-season garden compost after reading!
 

Comments (4)

  • Mar-5 - andrea deepest sympathies on your loss.
  • Mar-4 - Jon_Keller Thanks folks, and to those who've e-mailed me privately too. Your kindness is much appreciated.
  • Mar-4 - baileyislandgirl Hi Jon, I am sorry to hear that. Please accept my sympathy and take as much time as you need....  Show Full Comment
Mar 2, 2010 2:28 PM

Talking Politics

Posted by Jon_Keller
Watch out, status quo
As we noted down the stretch of the US Senate race, talk radio is resurgent as a major political force around here, one candidates ignore at their own risk.

Double down on that warning now that WRKO has shrewdly hired veteran political strategist Charley Manning to take over the midday slot being vacated by Rush Limbaugh. Manning is promising a heavy emphasis on local politics. As a Milton native, double Eagle, and veteran of the local political wars, Manning has instant credibility; his Republican roots and libertarian/conservative philosophy should quickly make him a favorite of the talk radio crowd. (I know I'll be listening, and not just because he's an old pal.)

Add in the successful recent debuts of two new midday shows on WGBH-FM, hosted by Emily Rooney (full disclosure, I occasionally appear as a paid panelist on her weekly "Beat the Press" media show) and Callie Crossley, the recent move of politically-savvy Margery Eagan and Jim Braude to mornings on 96.9 FM (where conservative talkers Michael Graham, Jay Severin and Michelle McPhee keep the pot boiling all day), and the strong political emphasis of  Dan Rea on his top-rated WBZ Newsradio 1030 "Nightside" show, and it seems talk radio around here is more robust than it's been in years.

Just in time for the election. Here's a prediction -- the gubernatorial candidate who makes the best, most aggressive use of these varied platforms will have a leg up in the fall, a la the indisputed king of the call-in, Sen. Scott Brown.
 

Comments (6)

  • Mar-3 - wmasscowgirl Have no idea who these guys are, and so, nope, not going to listen! Not like they braodcast...  Show Full Comment
  • Mar-2 - BostonIrish Jim Braude does not entice me to listen in the least. He could have the first extraterrestrial...  Show Full Comment
  • Mar-2 - stanleyramon Yes, what channel would the liberal talk shows be on? I have trouble getting to sleep at night...  Show Full Comment
About Jon's Blog

WBZ-TV Political Analyst Jon Keller is full of opinions, and he isn't afraid to share them. Check back often for Jon's unique take on the world of politics, with some occasional pop culture thrown in.

Email Jon Keller or follow him on Twitter.

Code of Conduct: no out and out name calling or use of slurs, vulgar language, and any troll like behavior. Differences of opinion and challenging others’ viewpoints are encouraged, however; doing so in a way that is meant to insult or demean a specific person or group of people will not be tolerated. Off topic discussions within the blogs will be removed to keep the conversation focused on the topic at hand. We reserve the right to delete any comments that cross the line as deemed by our management staff. Read our complete terms of service.

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About the Author

Jon Keller is widely regarded as the top political analyst in New England.  He is a favorite of the region's viewers because he is smart and witty, and he asks the tough questions everyone wants to have asked.  The politicians respect him too because he has a distinguished reputation for being fair, accurate, and dedicated to serving viewers.  Although 'Keller at Large' primarily tackles politics, Keller also makes social and cultural commentary on news of the day and pop culture.
Read his complete biography.

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