We all look forward to a substantive debate tonight between Democratic candidate Martha Coakley and Republican Charlie Baker. In that spirit I asked some of the smartest people I know – my colleagues at MassPoliticsProfs and at UMass Boston – for some debate questions. You’re welcome, Jim and Margery.

This past spring, I put together a hierarchy of Massachusetts political endorsements.  As we approach election day, I am republishing with some updates.  One big caveat; No one endorsement is a game changer.  Elizabeth Warren couldn’t save John Tierney, Michael Dukakis couldn’t boost Mike Lake, and Mitt Romney couldn’t bring more Republicans into the Legislature in 2004.  Candidates and conditions (statewide and national) matter.

At the end of almost every episode of “South Park,” Kenny McCormick suffers a gruesome death. Journalistic stories about campaign gaffes and Martha Coakley’s 2010 campaign should suffer the same fate. Unlike Kenny though, they should stay dead.

Akilah Johnson’s piece in today’s Boston Globe nicely describes the political debate over Charlie Baker’s reintroduction of the welfare reform “issue” into the race for the corner office. Democrats argue that it’s a classic dog whistle intended to rally the base in the home stretch of the race, while Republicans argue that welfare reform has been and is an important issue of great concern to their constituents.  Who’s right?  Both sides are right.

Charlie Baker has been defending himself from charges that he has a "compassion deficit." Where does Massachusetts reputation for compassion come from and is it sustainable?

Evan Falchuk is not going to be elected Governor in November.  But that was never his goal and not a sufficient reason to ignore him or disinvite him from televised political forums.

Several commentators have speculated that the good economic news of late is too late to save the Democrats from defeat in the midterm elections next month. While this may be the case in US House and Senate races, it may not be true of two very competitive New England Governor's races. Connecticut governor Dan Malloy and Massachusetts' Democratic gubernatorial nominee Martha Coakley are nursing very small leads in the latest polls and are ramping up their "get out the base" operations for the final stretch.

Last week was a good one for democracy in Massachusetts, I felt, not for the gubernatorial campaign which was both tawdry and tedious; but because I had jury duty.