It sure looks that way. As the Herald's Margery Eagan
noted yesterday, Mitt's
buffoonery at the Boston edition of Liberty Sunday probably won't help Healey with undecided voters who happen to be social moderates. And yesterday, during an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Romney
accepted Blitzer's contention that the Mass. governor's job would probably switch from red to blue this year:
BLITZER: So there will be a majority of Democratic governors as opposed to a majority of Republican governors?
ROMNEY: Oh, sure. I don’t think there is anyone who has looked at
the poll numbers that doesn’t think that will happen. You have got
states like New York and Arkansas that are blue states that have
Republican governors.
BLITZER: And Massachusetts.
ROMNEY: And Massachusetts. With governors not running for reelection
and so the math would say that’s going to be pretty hard for us to hold
onto all those states.
What's Mitt up to? Well, first off, a Healey loss
might look bad for Mitt if it's taken as a referendum on his administration. By classing Healey's hypothetical loss as part of a national trend, Mitt gets to do damage control in advance.
But there's another, more nefarious possibility here. Mitt has already
convinced the national press that his win in 2002 was remarkable, despite ample evidence that we love our Republican governors here in Massachusetts. And a Healey loss would lend credibility to this utterly bogus argument. After all, if Healey can't win--even though she's been blessed by her association with Romney--Massachusetts
must be rough for Republicans, right? I dare say Mitt might even incorporate Healey's loss into his national stump speech.
Honestly, I think Explanation #1 is the most plausible. Then again, Mitt is all about Mitt. If Romney and his advisers decide a Healey loss would help them, even slightly, they'll have no compunction about making it happen.