Just got back. I talked to a good Father, good friends and family members that are shrinkologists and I still cannot find the plan or the logic in a wonderful life gone so soon. At his point any plan or logic is beyond my understanding ergo I will not write about it again until I do.
I spent days with old friends, many that I have not seen for years. In and out of conversations the main topic was Scott Brown. Those of the old school scoffed that a Republican had no chance while the converted dreamily smiled that Brown will win. For the most part those I spoke with wouldn't understand Massachusetts politics if it bit them.
I believe Brown will win the election, but I am not sure that he will win the count.
On the plus side, absentee ballots had to in and logged before the machine knew it was in trouble. Without the multiple voters and the dead Coakley loses a vast edge. With all the typical union thug money and boots on the ground Coakley gets back some edge, but the electorate seems to have finally tired of the same old schtick. Polls, always unreliable, and anecdotal evidence such as yard signs and die hard Democrat neighbors who are voting for Brown can't tell the real story. Massachusetts has produced winners before that were 9 points down before the election, but won by 4.
The real election will be in the precincts after the polls have closed and might be decided by the (re)strength of the Kennedy machine that has become somewhat complacent. With the death of the Lion of the Senate, Dearest Teddy, still fresh in some minds the machine may creak and move into action. Still, the machine may have lost its lust with the last of the Kennedy boys gone.
One can't really get the gist of successful political tactics while sipping drinks at the yacht club with someone else's wife. The younger Kennedys might be counting on the Southies to do their magic, but are the Southies still in the game? Will they turn their rough and tough minds and fists to politics once again to ensure a group of swill sipping punk kids of the older generation will stay in power? If it were me, I'd tell them it ain't rain making them wet.
Will the army of Kennedy volunteers rise one last time like Napoleon's ghost army to protect the first family of Massachusetts? Will the numbers runners fill the back counting rooms to fill the ballot boxes with the correct number of correct votes precinct by precinct? Have they this time even taken the time to make those numbers add up in just the correct ratio?
I don't know.
One thing I did learn on this trip is that when a sad, unshaven old man in a dress coat two sizes too large approaches airport security, he gets through security a lot faster than those less tired and better groomed. I presume that in the footnotes of the TSA manual there is mention of the fact that there are no unshaven Jihadists.
