Charlie Baker

Wednesday

John Pietro

Republicans blow their chance to win in Massachusetts

It was a surprise to no one that Geoff Diehl won Tuesday's Massachusetts Republican gubernatorial primary. It was expected, but it puts an end to any chance of having a Republican in the governor’s seat come 2023. Diehl’s opponent, Chris Doughty, ran on a moderate platform modeled after incumbent Republican governor Charlie Baker. Baker is one of the most popular governors in the nation, with an approval rating of 74 percent — in a state that voted for Joe Biden by a margin of 33.5 points — so he is doing something right. There is no getting around the fact that he is not particularly conservative, especially on social issues, but he is a tempering force on the progressives that dominate Beacon Hill. Indeed, Baker is the only elected statewide Republican.

Sunday

Grace Curley

America’s governors and the vagueness doctrine

If we have learned anything over the last few months it is that emergencies, like beauty, are in the eye of the beholder. The ruling elites have been as shifty and duplicitous about what justifies enacting emergency powers as the FBI has been about what warrants investigating angry parents at school board meetings (and before them, Trump campaign operatives for their Russian 'collusion’.) One feature of all these police-state excursions into unbridled power never changes — vagueness. It is so much easier to move the goal posts when there are no lines drawn on the field. The COVID-19 pandemic served as the all-encompassing key to unlocking 'emergency powers’ for politicians and unelected government bureaucrats.

governors