Thursday, May 01, 2008

Raining On DiMasi

You think that these days, when Sal DiMasi staffers step onto their front porch to retrieve the morning newspapers, they pause to savor a few extra moments of believing that they will spend the day talking about budget and legislation issues? (And do you think Deval Patrick aides are finding renewed appreciation for the local press corps?)

The Globe stays hard on the Speaker's case today with a Frank Phillips foray into the Jay Cashman connection; much of it has been previously reported, but Phillips does a nice job making a front-page case out of it.

On the paper's op-ed page, Joan Vennochi lines up and knocks down the "arrogant" speaker, charging that "DiMasi arrogantly refuses to acknowledge the risk of his friendly entanglements."

Over in the Herald, Casey Ross once again mixes it up about House members mixing it up over who will succeed the man who has said he will be Speaker for a "long, long, long, long, long, long time."

And soon you'll be getting news of Peter Torkildsen's press conference, which is taking place as I write, at which, I am told, the state GOP chair will be trying to raise the Speaker's various scandals to the level of crimes and misdemeanors worthy of AG Martha Coakley's attention.

DiMasi did, however, get some love yesterday from the BC Eagles' champion hockey team, which gave him a commemmorative jersey. No word on whether he gave them a list of folks to apply a few rough checks on while they were in the building.

BTW, I'll be on NECN tonight talking about the DiMasi Chronicles with Jim Braude.

5/1/2008 10:42:13 AM by David S. Bernstein | Comments [1] |

Friday, May 09, 2008 3:16:06 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Any chance the Boston Globe and the Governor's office has an interest to see the Speaker fail? Does creating as much hype about his recent mis-steps help the once dead issue of casino gambling? Of course, an honest answer to both of these questions is "yes". There are a lot of extreme liberals and casino-industry supporters who would not like anything more than to see Governor Patrick succeed. This means it would be beneficial to tear down the one person who stands in his way. That the Speaker is a moderate/conservative Democrat is all the more reason to loathe his stand. Casino gambling is what is driving this agenda to hurt DiMasi. Do you realize how much the casino industry stands to gain in Massachusetts? Do you realize the social and economic costs that would be created by casino gambling? Massachusetts would never be the same from such a short-sighted policy. As a political writer, you should be well aware of these forces at work and what the true agenda is. Can you tell me how Representatives Rogers and DeLeo (possible successors as speaker) actually stand on casino gambling, not their last vote on the matter but actually where they stand? We all understand that the casino industry has unlimited resources to throw at any proposal to further their cause.

Steve

Comments are closed.