First, the Turkey of the Day was unquestionably
Hub Politics, which 1. insisted that the race would be relatively close and 2. reacted to Patrick's victory with overheated screeds like this:
While there may not be a Republican in the Corner Office, today was not
about electing change. There is no change. Today in Massachusetts,
democracy killed democracy. The voters of Massachusetts rejected
two-party government; they rejected debate in the arena of ideas; they
rejected the positive, and believed the negative.
Um.... Whatever makes you feel better, guys.
And now, the Big Winner Award goes to:
Blue Mass. Group, which finishes the '06 election season as the 800-pound-gorilla of web-based political coverage in MA. The live-blogging from Patrick's post-election fete left me a bit cold, but that's less a reflection on the way BMG did it than on the genre itself, which is really, really hard to do well. (Maybe we can put a moratorium on live-blogging in '08? Or at least take it down a notch?) On the other hand, the reports from across MA were fantastic, and testify to just how influential BMG has become. Kudos, guys.
What else.... The Herald's
Daily Briefing did a nice job reporting Boston's ballot shortage first, and the Globe did well to get a full-fledged article on the subject up on
Political intelligence just a few minutes later. Also, the Herald's Kim Atkins was the first to report that exit polls
portended a huge Patrick victory (no surprise there). But my favorite daily-paper-blog material came from the Globe's Matt Viser, who demonstrated a keen eye for idiosyncratic detail at the Healey and Patrick shindigs. (Love the bit about the melons carved into kissing swans at Healey's event, Matt.) Tell you what: let's all do the live-blog thing again in two years, but only if we collectively agree to come up with more gems like that.
Any major omissions? Care to agree/disagree? By all means, do.