In the poll, Deval Patrick’s unfavorable numbers outweigh his favorables, and a full 56 percent of respondents said somebody other than Patrick should be elected next year.

Still, Suffolk has the governor winning a three-way race with 36 percent of the vote; independent Tim Cahill and Republican Charlie Baker split the opposition vote, as expected. Patrick only needs 33 percent plus one; amazingly enough, at 36, he’s got a bit of a cushion.

Patrick, who once expressed a disdain for political mudslinging, already has hired the state’s top opposition researcher, David Stone, to keep any gubernatorial hopefuls against the ropes. “This is going to get nasty,” said Christy Mihos, a Republican candidate for the Corner Office. “He’s going after the Democrat Legislature each and every day, and these are folks that got him elected. He’s going to do whatever he has to do to keep his seat.”

It’s amazing the kind of journalism that can happen when both dailies aren’t exclusively devoted to slobbering all over Bunker Hill Day, no?

Over in the Globe, we’ve got the latest bit of (apparent) fallout to come from the Deval Patrick machine’s seemingly compulsive need to hurl fistfuls of dimes in every imaginable direction: A pretty devastating story about state Treasurer Tim Cahill steering a hazardous duty pension to an administrative worker who happens to be one of the treasurer’s fundraisers.

On the Herald‘s op-ed page, longtime Mitt Romney aide Eric Fehrnstrom says that, thanks to the governor’s staggering difficulties in managing the politics of State House egos (hey there, Jim Aloisi!), Patrick is inviting legislative Democrats to dump him at the convention like they dumped the Duke three decades ago. That would set up a primary battle that would essentially pit Cahill’s ethics against taxes and tolls. And no torrent of dime-dropping can help.

Patrick’s people want Cahill. They think they’ll be able to drown him in a series of unflattering front-page stories, or better. They think their own resume, which is less than unimpeachable these days, will be overlooked, and that they’ll be forgiven for being in office when the budget, and those shell-tastic property taxes, blew up in their faces. Because the gov’s a nice guy, and nice guys finish first, right?

Right?

Today’s Journal has a story about a bloody cage brawl that’s erupting between one of the world’s biggest casino operators, MGM Mirage, and the formerly-wealthy emirate of Dubai. The pair is halfway through construction of an $8.6 billion joint venture in Vegas, and Dubai is looking to pull out. The emirate is also witholding payments that will keep construction on the Vegas project rolling – putting MGM on pace to start defaulting on some $13 billion in debt, starting in May.

By now, it should be more than obvious that there’s nobody left standing who’s got the cash to buy a $300 million casino license from Deval Patrick, let alone sink $1 billion into a resort in Marlborough or Middleboro. Trump is bankrupt, and Sheldon Adelson isn’t far behind. And now you can officially add MGM to that list.

Good thing we’ve still got the Lottery, right?

Jon Keller and Boston Daily both note the release of some disastrous poll numbers for Governor Deval Patrick: A 28 percent approval rating, countered by 68 percent disapproval.

Yes, that sound you just heard was, in fact, Tim Cahill wetting his pants with delight.

There’s one important caveat that should go alongside these numbers, friends at the State House note. The robo-poll was of adults, not registered voters, and thus, it’s likely to skew more negatively than an actual election would, since elections require people to, you know, actually show up to vent their displeasure.

Even so, it took Bush six years to do as much damage to himself as Patrick has done in two. And Keller compares legislators who line up behind the governor now to passengers booking tickets on the Titanic.

Guess grownups can’t talk about taxes after all.

Today’s Globe significantly advances the intrigue around Tim Cahill’s persistent, and very public, preening. The treasurer will decide, by Labor Day, whether to challenge Governor Deval Patrick in a nasty primary fight, or whether it’s better to leave the Democrats altogether and make a run at the Corner Office as a tanner Christy Mihos.

Astute Hill and the Hall readers know the score. You know that Cahill’s been setting himself up as Ed King to Deval Patrick’s Michael Dukakis for forever now. You’ve just been waiting for somebody else to confirm it for you.  

Here’s what I wrote about Cahill’s ambitions back in July:

There are higher stakes than Cahill softening up Murray in the event that Patrick bolts Boston for Washington. There’s talk on Beacon Hill that Cahill has made up his mind that Patrick is beatable, and that he’s crowned himself the man to do the beating. (It won’t be the Republicans, after all.) The governor, who has suffered a number of unflattering comparisons to Michael Dukakis, could be in for the worst yet—a craven power-grab from the conservative wing of his own party. It’ll be 1978 all over again.

Cahill doesn’t believe that he can beat AG Martha Coakley or Congressman Michael Capuano for a Senate seat, in the event one opens up. It’s time for him to move up or get out, so he has to establish some high-profile differences with the competition.

That means making a tour of TV newsrooms and assailing Patrick’s apocalyptic sense of finance. The more Cahill can erode Patrick’s polling numbers, the more the Democrats will need him to ride in and rescue the Corner Office from Charlie Baker.

There’s a reason why nobody sees Coakley picking fights with the administration. One Beacon Hill observer quips, “It’s because she has no interest in his job.”

What’s remarkable is how well, thus far, the fiscal doom cycle has played into Cahill’s hands. Cahill’s best shot at unseating Patrick is to savage him over mishandling the end of the world, fiscally. And for that to happen, first, Cahill needed the world to end, fiscally. Last year, when he began laying these plans, he bet that the economy would fall apart, and that, when it did, he’d have the opening he needed.

Check that one off the list. The question is, now that Cahill’s got the financial chaos he needed, whether he can make the Ed King schtick stick.

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Patrick tells the News Service, “I’m running,” adding, “I fully expect there are going to be challengers, and that’s all right. Keeps my game sharp.” What about having to maybe pull a Dukakis and fend off a Democratic primary challenger? “Doesn’t matter to me,” a smiling Patrick shrugged.

Last week’s Hill and the Hall detailed how Mike Ross was able to wrap up the City Council presidency so early. But it’s the other side to that discussion — the why — that should really shake up city politics.

Mayor Tom Menino rode the council presidency to Kevin White’s doorstep. And, balky limbs and dust bowls permitting, he’ll ride it beyond. Michael Flaherty used the presidency to become Menino’s heir apparent. His five-year run atop the rostrum raised his public profile and expand his fundraising base so successfully that the mayor’s people decided they had to destroy the monster they’d created.

This year’s council president race looked to be so competitive because observers thought the prize—a spot second in line behind Menino at a time when Hizzoner’s future was uncertain—was great enough that no councilor with an outside shot at the mayor’s office (roughly half of them) would ever put a potential rival inches away from the very thing they themselves coveted.

The potential was great enough that ambitious councilors would avoid elevating a potential rival at all costs. Why let somebody else pull the trick Flaherty had already pulled?

Ross is young and has broad citywide appeal. He’s the type of politician that any councilor should want to keep out of the public eye—assuming that those councilors see futures for themselves beyond the council’s awful concrete walls. But Ross is about to step closer to the mayor’s office than any of his colleagues, and he’s doing it with their help and unanimous support.

He can thank Maureen Feeney.

The two-year term limits Feeney placed on the presidency didn’t just change the timing of the vote-wrangling and arm-twisting that surrounds the position. It also caused a fundamental shift in councilors’ perceptions of the presidency as a zero-sum position.

The councilors wanted to dump Flaherty two years ago because they felt they were “Enabling him to become mayor,” one says. That’s no longer the case. “It felt different this year,” this person says. Most people figured, “never in a million years would the young guys pick another young guy to be the leader.”

Some of the younger faces on the council were different five yeas ago, but the dynamic is the same. The body then was largely split along generational lines with the young members, backing Flaherty, cooperating and running the show.

Steve Murphy called the arrangement “a house of cards.” He predicted that competing ambitions would eventually turn councilors against each other. “It’s all bound to come down,” he promised the Globe. And he was right.

Some, frustrated by a lack of advancement, left city politics. Others backed Feeney in a bid to take Flaherty down a notch. But then Feeney changed the rules of the game.

Term limits have weakened the political potential inherent in the council presidency, and that means that councilors aren’t giving away their own futures by backing an equally ambitious colleague. It’s a bit like SALT treaties for small-time politics. Nobody is gaining an extraordinary advantage, so everybody’s free to trust each other again.

Because now, all the new council president is guaranteed is two years of reaction quotes in the dailies, and then a swift return to the back bench.

Barack Obama warned supporters yesterday against getting cocky in the final weeks before Election Day. “We don’t take anything for granted,” David Axelrod told the Times.

Seems like a perfect time to begin speculating about what will happen when Obama wins, taps John Kerry for a spot in the State Department or Defense or anything else that’ll save the 2004 presidential loser from worrying about Uxbridge, and Massachusetts finally gets the bloody Senate race we’ve been drooling after for four years now. That wouldn’t jinx the whole thing for everybody, would it?

So, hypothetically and not at all lustily speaking, if Kerry moves up and out, who jumps in?

Attorney General Martha Coakley would seem to be a sure entrant. She’s smart, effective and very well liked by both sides of the Democratic party. But with just over $115,000 in her campaign account, she has less cash on hand than the head of the RMV. That’s a hurdle that needs to be addressed.

War chest-wise, Treasurer Tim Cahill is in better shape—for somebody still schlubbing around Beacon Hill. He’s sitting on top of $312,000, and he’s widely believed to be interested in moving up.

The question is whether he guns for Kerry’s seat, or Deval Patrick’s. We reported back in July that Cahill was feeling bearish about his chances in an open Senate race and might be hedging his bets, beating up on Patrick and waiting for the governor to flub any response to a possible economic collapse.

Well, the damn thing went and collapsed on us, and thus far, Patrick is still standing. Cahill’s strategy may change if the governor continues to refuse to fall on his face for everybody to see. A run for Senate would vaporize the war chest Cahill has worked so hard to amass, but the streets of this town are lined with the bodies of pols who didn’t take the first shot that came their way.

Still, Cahill and Coakley would be fighting any Senate race uphill. The state’s Congressional delegation mobilized for Kerry’s imminent departure once before. They didn’t get to slaughter each other then, so they’re sure to be ready this time around.

There are two fewer contenders now: Marty Meehan took his $4.8 million in campaign cash and decamped to UMass-Lowell, while Barney Frank has ridden the Democrats  majority in the House to a plum committee chairmanship, and all the perks that come with that office.

But that just means that the remaining Reps see the numbers breaking in their favor. Most are well armed for the fight.

Bill Delahunt has $1.28 million on hand. Steve Lynch has $1.3 million. John Tierney: $1.3 million. Richard Neal: $2.1 million. Ed Markey, the delegation’s dean, is sitting on $2.6 million.

Then there are the Congressmen in the poor house. John Olver only has $157,000 to his name. Jim McGovern isn’t too much better off, with $333,000. And Mike Capuano, though sitting on top of a district overflowing with good votes, has just $887,000. Just $887,000.

Yeah, this is the same state where Deval Patrick shocked the political establishment and proved that grassroots blah blah blah. Coakley and Cahill should still get busy getting busy. They may soon find that a couple hundred grand—or even a million or two—doesn’t buy what it used to.

tk

(Cross-posted from Boston Daily)

(Cross-posted from Boston Daily)

Governor Deval Patrick spent the week pissing people off. Unlike all those other times, though, Patrick should be rejoicing at the sound of these wailing choruses.

The governor began the week by vetoing a multi-billion dollar pension increase for state retirees. Ralph White, president of the retirees’ union (62,000 members strong), pronounced his members “very, very angry” with the governor. At least the old people don’t have guns. The same can’t be said for the state’s cops, whom Patrick is about to squeeze out of roadside detail work, to the ire of the Massachusetts Police Association and the state AFL-CIO.

It’s critical that Patrick start burning the organized masses that got him elected. It’s one thing to cravenly cuddle up next to casino-hungry Teamsters; it’s another to be seen as fattening friendly interests’ wallets while the state’s fiscal death spiral accelerates. He can publicly disavow interest in the Corner Office all he wants, but an economic collapse – it’s a distinct possibility – would present State Treasurer Tim Cahill with an irresistible chance to take a run at Patrick.

Patrick should know by now that, impressive talking points pdfs notwithstanding, it’s public perception that will make or break him. The more he can be painted as a Beacon Hill Nero, tossing buckets of taxpayers’ dollars to political supporters while hard-working Americans have to stoop to visiting Sal’s Pizza three times a week just to feed their malnourished families, the more he opens himself to an insurrection.

And the surest way to guard against an insurrection will be to pretend, for just a little while, that he’s Mitt Romney – and, for the sake of this great Commonwealth, make sure to smile for the cameras while he smacks around a union or two. It’ll do more for his poll numbers in Haverhill than any super-sexy prime time speech ever could.

Filthy crook/hands-on office supply shopper John Buonomo has picked up a pair of opponents. They go really beautifully with that indictment (this fall’s must-have political accessory!)

The Buonomo saga makes a nice bookend to that other ludicrous race roiling southern Middlesex Country right now. In one corner, we’ve got D-list Aaron Burr/Alexander Hamilton fisticuffs (the term is used quite loosely). And in the other, there’s the hack who makes over $110,000 a year for the privilege of and handing plum jobs to his political supporters, and who, in spite of that generous compensation package, still feels compelled to swipe pocket change from the office copy machine. Even after he knows he’s probably under investigation.

But it’s the write-in Democrat challenging Buonomo who really makes this race a thing of beauty.

Meet Sean O’Donovan. He has engaged in perennial flirtation with higher office, but never risen above Somerville alderman. His consolation prize for missing out on cushier offices and fatter salaries: By staying in town, he’s able to grandstand against density in his own neighborhood while cramming condos into somebody else’s. And what if that somebody happens to be the relative of your Congressman (and former mayor)? No worries. That’s where your checkbook comes in.

According to reports, O’Donovan and the chair of Somerville’s zoning board have been sending money to each other for nearly a decade; most of the cash ended up in a charitable fund controlled by the chair. After the zoning board broomed through O’Donovan’s most recent condo proposal, over the objections of neighbors and one of O’Donovan’s Board of Alderman colleagues, one project opponent told the Somerville News, “This whole process has been all about politics and Sean O’Donovan’s connections. It became clear by the way he ran the meetings that [the zoning chair] wanted this project to go through.” One anonymous News commenter cast the race as a contest between “a petty larcenist” and “a grand larcenist.”

O’Donovan is a Democrat, but he told the Cambridge Chronicle he’ll be trying to get written onto the Working Families Party ticket. He hasn’t yet registered with OCPF.

Buonomo, as an officeholder, does have an active campaign account. And though he hasn’t raised any money since first half of June, he ended July with nearly $135,000 in the bank. According to campaign finance reports, Buonomo has spent roughly $4000 on yard signs and mailers over the past two months. Wonder if they’ll have to be reworked to reflect the Register of Probate’s new, uh, situation. “Vote Buonomo: You know it makes cents!” Or if, since the DA is after Buonomo for crimes allegedly committed while on the job, he’ll try to pay his lawyer’s bills with his political supporters’ contributions.

A word from the other side of the aisle: Buonomo’s prospective Republican opponent, Natick’s John Lambert, hasn’t had any activity at OCPF since his failed 2004 bid for the House. That race, part of Mitt Romney’s spectacularly unproductive bid to wrest the Legislature away from Trav, King Tom and Sal, saw Lambert burn through every last cent in campaign account – and then get steamrolled by David Linsky. Better luck this time!

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