Notes From D.R. | Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene

In what could turn out to be a case of journalistic hubris run amok, the Bay State
press has effectively declared the 2006 Massachusetts gubernatorial election over, with Deval Patrick the winner. This means only one thing: if Mr. Patrick is not the actual winner on the night of November 7, the press will have to set the spin cycle on high in order to explain a Patrick defeat.

If Patrick wins, it will confirm Massachusetts as a citadel of progressive philosophy, a place where Mitt Romney’s social conservatism is considered an absolute anomaly. However, if Romney’s second-in-command, Kerry Healey, "comes from behind" to win, this result will indicate that not everybody in the state subscribes to the journal of liberalism. Many of Patrick’s supporters loathe Romney’s social conservatism and wish to send a message (via a Patrick victory) that Romney’s views are not tolerated in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. If the result of the election indicates that "Romneyism" is on some level embraced in the Bay State, such a result will be depressing for progressives.

Since a significant portion of Patrick’s supporters find it beyond comprehension
that a majority of voters would want to continue the allegedly failed Romney-Healey administration, they will have to concoct some sort of excuse in the event that Healey wins. The obvious course of action will be to suggest that the spirit of racial tension in Massachusetts has never been fully exorcised, and that a Patrick loss is proof positive that the state is still possessed.

Just as progressives seized upon the images of post-Katrina New Orleans to sell the idea that America itself hadn’t advanced much beyond 1965, so too will the left interpret a "surprise" Patrick loss as proof that the state as a whole is frozen in 1976. (It’s almost a lock at this point that if Patrick suffers a "shocking" defeat, the Boston Globe’s political cartoonist will come up with some sordid image representing the loss, such as Patrick being attacked with the American flag on Boston City Hall Plaza.) Patrick’s vagueness in debates, his controversial public- and private-sector past, and a concern about one-party dominion over Massachusetts government will not be cited as primary reasons for a Patrick defeat at the hands of the supposedly inferior Healey. Since progressives cannot countenance the thought of Healey beating Patrick legitimately (i.e., on the issues), they must–and will–find a nefarious narrative to explain a result they don’t like.

A few years back, OpinionJournal.com "Best of the Web Today" creator James Taranto coined the term "The Angry Left" to describe progressives who couldn’t get over George W. Bush’s defeat of Al Gore in 2000. The extreme consternation exhibited by the national left in the wake of the 2000 election will be on display in the Bay State if Healey "pulls off an upset victory." Healey would be well advised to study the first term of the Bush Administration and the way the President responded to unrelenting political attacks from progressives. She’ll have to defend herself in the same fashion if she becomes Governor.

UPDATE: More on Patrick. Plus, another excuse for a possible Healey win?

SECOND UPDATE: Margery Eagan and Jeff Jacoby on the campaign.