Entries in MassPoliticsProfs by Jerold Duquette

The Globe’s resident wingnut has written another Gem. This time he’s trying to help Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s damage-control efforts in the wake of his feigned ignorance of President Obama’s religion.  Jacoby thinks that, on the one hand, the 2016 Republican presidential prospect shouldn’t have to respond to questions about the president’s religion, and on the other hand, shouldn’t be expected to know that President Obama is a Christian. A tall order to be sure and Jacoby comes up well short.  For an example of an intelligent analysis of this issue from a conservative perspective, read this offering from New York Times columnist Ross Douthat.  The contrast should make the editors of the Boston Globe weep.

If the Democrats coalesce early around Clinton and use the head start to frame the election in party and policy-centric terms; as a referendum on Republican Party control of all three branches of the federal government (a frame that will almost certainly be abetted by both the performance of the Republican-controlled 114^th Congress and the ongoing GOP nomination circus), then the danger to Democratic chances of giving Clinton a “free ride” to the November ballot should be minimal.

Apparently, some Massachusetts Republicans are a bit disgruntled over many of Governor Baker’s choices so far.  How could these Republicans not have seen this coming? Apparently, they thought Baker’s campaign dog whistle on welfare reform was a coded message assuring them that everything else he said on the campaign trail was a ruse. 

All the recent excitement about who might be running for the Republican presidential nomination next year has been difficult for me to take seriously, and not just because so many of the GOP aspirants would be unserious candidates. With all that we have learned about the salience of party identification for voters, particularly in federal elections, I just can't see any Republican nominee being able to make the case that a Republican House, Senate, Supreme Court, and President is what Americans need or want in 2016.

It’s time for opposition parties in Congress to either get serious about these responses or to stop producing them. They should be sending their leaders to deliver these speeches and using the time to either sketch out a few disagreements or to provide an actual rebuttal to one major element or theme from the President’s speech.

Dan Payne’s Boston Globe op-ed (“The scandal double standard”) is a good one and is worth more than a casual read. He succinctly describes the illogical differences between the public’s perceptions of political versus corporate misbehavior. The capacity of the public to ignore (or quickly forget) corporate waste, fraud, and abuse that ultimately costs taxpayers billions, while becoming apoplectic over comparatively minor (and in some cases imaginary) scandals in the public sector is indeed stunning and sad. Corporate officers should be held to standards of conduct no less exacting than government officials in part because they are, like government officials, stewards of publicly created entities.

While the likes of Rudy and Rush try to scare white people into supporting conservative pols or policies, others go about their race baiting differently. Jeff Jacoby’s latest column is an excellent example of such a different approach. He isn’t scaring his target audience; he is justifying racial resentments by patting them on the back and assuring them that critical introspection on race in America is entirely unnecessary. Jacoby props up racism by declaring that racism (which he refers to tellingly as “white racism”) has disappeared as a potent political weapon.

Police officers are extremely powerful and important government officials. The character and quality of our democratic society depends mightily on the skill and discretion of those professionals sworn to “serve and protect.” Despite the undeniable import of law enforcement, and despite the outpouring of sympathy and professed respect Americans lavish on police officers in the wake of tragedies like the recent murders of police officers, American police officers remain under-paid, under-trained, and under-appreciated by their fellow citizens. They are extremely visible on our streets and highways.  They are the subjects of more movies and TV shows than any other profession by far.  They are our friends, relatives, and neighbors, and yet we continue to expect these men and women to perform one of the most difficult and essential functions in a free society with inadequate compensation and training, and without the respect we afford to other professionals among us.  Make no mistake, defensively rallying around the police after a tragedy is a very poor substitute for the genuine respect owed to professionals.

Globe columnist Scott Lehigh recently wondered if the Democratic State Committee Chairman, State Senator Tom McGee, is the right guy to lead the party into the Charlie Brown Era. Will McGee's status as a Beacon Hill insider hamper the party's efforts to compete with a Republican governor well positioned to make being a Beacon Hill insider politically disadvantageous?  If so, the ability of the Democratic legislature to effectively govern with a Republican in the corner office over the next two years (not to mention the fate of 2016 candidates for state house and senate seats) might depend on not being too closely associated with entrenched insiders on Beacon Hill.

Let me gently suggest that Democrats on Beacon Hill (including Chairman McGee) need not lose any sleep over these concerns.