Here's some batter as an appetizer:
"Union settles illegal campaign gift case
The federal political action committee of a major food union made illegal state campaign finance contributions between 2006 and 2008 and has paid $3,500 to resolve the matter, according to the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance. The Active Ballot Club of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union made prohibited contributions of $5,000 to Governor Deval Patrick’s Victory Fund on May 31, 2006; $15,000 to the Massachusetts Democratic State Committee’s account on Oct. 13, 2006; $5,000 to the Kenneth Donnelly Committee on Nov. 4, 2007; and $10,500 to the Douglas Belanger Committee in March and August 2008, according to the Office of Campaign and Political Finance. State law does not allow federal PACs to make contributions to Massachusetts candidates and political party committees. State campaign finance regulators said recipients were unaware the gifts were from a prohibited source (State House News Service)."
Related: Seventy-First Fund
We need to get rid of that corrupt s***ter, Bay Staters!
And this is the guy!
"For starters, Baker jabs at Patrick; Uses fiscal critique to launch campaign" by Matt Viser, Globe Staff | July 30, 2009
Republican Charles D. Baker Jr. officially entered the governor’s race yesterday, filing his paperwork with the state and then swiftly launching into an attack on Governor Deval Patrick’s handling of the budget and economy.
Baker immediately pledged not to raise taxes and said he would try to repeal the recent increase in the state sales tax, which will go from 5 percent to 6.25 percent Saturday, if he is elected.
Patrick, who signed the sales tax increase last month, dismissed Baker’s criticism.
Related: Governor Patrick Phooling Himself
Arrogant prick.
Patrick told reporters yesterday afternoon:
“That’s a message that is stuck in the past, that is stuck in rhetoric.... I keep meeting people who actually want the schools to be funded, who actually want our healthcare experiment to succeed.’’
He's disgusting!!!
Governor Guts State ServicesPigs at the State Trough
A Slow Saturday Special: Statehouse Slush Fund
Biotech Giveaway Was Borrowed Money
Massachusetts Residents Taken For a Ride
Slow Saturday Special: Day at the Movies
How many times I gotta put 'em up?
Baker’s candidacy, which he informally announced earlier this month, jump- starts the 2010 campaign as Patrick faces low poll numbers and declining state revenues....
Please read: Patrick's Plummeting Polls
Baker.... is seen by many of the party faithful as the leading Republican challenger, but he is largely unknown outside political and business circles.
Doesn't matter: ABP -- Anbody But Patrick
He seemed comfortable in the spotlight yesterday, with a ready smile, several jokes, and light banter with reporters during a 19-minute press conference.... But Baker’s background in finance, which can make him seem wonkish, was also on full display as he spoke of the state’s unfunded pension liability and a financial instrument known as a swaption....
Good!
See: Massachusetts Democrats Keep Making the Same Mistakes
Now watch the Globe try to blame Baker for the Big Dig!
It was clear, on Baker’s first formal day in the race, that Patrick’s financial stewardship will be a central issue in the campaign.
YOU BET IT WILL BE!!!!!!
“I think he let the budget get away from him, and once the budget gets away from you, really bad things happen,’’ Baker said. When asked what needs to be cut from the budget, Baker said that “everything should be on the table,’’ including scaling back the state’s landmark healthcare initiative.
“I would start with a head count,’’ Baker said. “We have cities and towns that are laying off and furloughing people all over the place and we don’t even have a hiring freeze in place at the state level.’’
Even before the press conference, Democrats pounced on Baker’s candidacy. Lieutenant Governor Timothy P. Murray released a statement saying that the Republican is “nothing more than an overcompensated insurance executive who placed profits over patients at the expense of hard-working families and employers in Massachusetts.’’
Ahem: Why the Nation Doesn't Need Massachusetts Health Care
Murray also criticized Baker’s involvement in the financing of the $15 billion Big Dig, saying, “if you look up crisis in the dictionary, you’ll find a picture of Baker and a narrative on the Big Dig financing scheme.’’
WRONG!!!!!!!!
I am SO DISENCHANTED with the self-serving, s***-spewing liberals of this state!
Baker sought to distance himself from the project yesterday, calling it a “bipartisan headache.’’
“I do think it’s kind of ironic that I’m being criticized for my small role in the Big Dig, when one of its chief architects and enablers is the transportation czar for the current administration,’’ Baker said. Patrick’s transportation secretary, James A. Aloisi Jr., is a former general counsel for the Turnpike Authority and drafted the legislation that put the authority in charge of the Big Dig.
Don't they just make you sick? And yet they are BLAMING Baker?
It was also clear yesterday that Baker is attempting to position himself as the kind of Massachusetts Republican voters have favored in the past: fiscally conservative, but socially moderate. Baker said he supports abortion rights and same-sex marriage, adding: “My brother’s gay, and he’s married, and he lives in Massachusetts, so I’m for it. Is that straight enough?’’
On one I don't care anymore; on the other, hey, read: My Abortion Evolution
He also said he supports the death penalty, which puts him at odds with Patrick....
I do now for killers, perverts, and looting politicians.
Still won't stop me from voting for him (Schilling a Busher).
“I’ll vote for him because he’s someone that has always appealed to me as being out for the greater good above all else,’’ Schilling wrote. “This state is in dire need of exactly that right now.’’
Can't argue with that.
Meanwhile, Patrick failed to gain a full-throated endorsement from one of the state’s top Democrats. Senate President Therese Murray, asked whether Baker or Patrick would better manage the economy, said, “I have no idea,’’ the State House News Service reported.
But will she support Patrick next year?
“I’m a Democrat,’’ she said, repeating those words when pressed. “I’m a Democrat.’’
Then how do Republican governors keep getting elected?
"Some in GOP hoping Baker frees party from shadow of Romney" by Scott Helman, Globe Staff | July 30, 2009
Well, looking back now, I really miss Mitt.
When the last Republican governor, Mitt Romney, left the State House to run for president, many Massachusetts Republicans celebrated his ambition and wished him well. Some in the GOP, though, had a different message: Good riddance.
They thought he had been selfish, that he had furthered his own political career at the expense of the Republican Party in his home state. They felt that Romney’s growing focus on social issues - namely his outspoken opposition to gay marriage, abortion rights, and stem cell research - damaged the GOP brand in the Bay State, which had historically emphasized fiscal conservatism and moderate social positions.
That's the way the Globe would like you to remember it. Of course, it's a lie.
“One thing that hasn’t worked well for Republicans all across New England is the tilt toward social issues that the national party has taken,’’ state Senator Richard Tisei, then the incoming Senate minority leader, said as Romney was preparing to leave the State House in 2006....
And look at the shape we are in now!!!!
Baker, judging from his early steps in the 2010 campaign, will try to thread the Republican needle of old, expressing socially moderate views but positioning himself as a fiscal conservative.
I care more about the fiscal stuff.
Look for him to embrace the Romney messages of competent management and fiscal responsibility, while deliberately eschewing Romney’s socially conservative rhetoric, which was always designed to appeal to the Republican base nationwide. In filing his papers yesterday, Baker offered hints of this tack. He immediately pledged not to raise taxes, even saying that if elected he would try to reduce the state’s newly increased sales tax, which will go from 5 percent to 6.25 percent Saturday. “Read my lips: No new taxes,’’ Baker said, never mind that the pledge was made infamous when George H.W. Bush broke it.
What's your point, Globe?
Baker also called for “a complete overhaul of the way the state builds the budget and manages its affairs. I’m going to make that my primary priority.’’ But what’s not going to be a priority? Pushing a socially conservative agenda. Baker went to great lengths to cite his bonafides as a social moderate, if not a social liberal. Not only did he say he supports abortion rights; he said he believes in gay marriage, for personal reasons.
“My brother’s gay, and he’s married, and he lives in Massachusetts, so I’m for it,’’ he said. “Is that straight enough?’’
Yeah, for me. Don't know about the Globe.
Notice how they had to work the gay thing in twice?
He added, “I’m not going to participate in national discussions and national politics; I’m interested in what happens here in Massachusetts. I’m very comfortable with my party in Massachusetts.’’
Related: It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To
Whatever one thinks of Romney’s legacy here, it is abundantly clear this early in the race that Baker seeks to carve a different path.
To the same end, one citizen hopes.
--more--"
Of course, the pro-Patrick Globe will spend the next year looking for dirt on the guy:
"State aided Baker’s business triumph; Harvard Pilgrim a key credential" by Megan Woolhouse, Globe Staff | August 5, 2009
.... Competitors credit Baker for the way he tackled a problem not of his making.
That's the best you can do?
James Roosevelt Jr., chief executive of Tufts Health Plan, said Baker showed “strong leadership.’’ But like Johnston, Roosevelt said it was the “unusual method of debt financing’’ that ultimately saved the day, referring to the revaluing of real estate and loans.
Harvard Pilgrim emerged from receivership after five months, although limited state oversight continued until 2006. During those years, the insurer paid off debt and worked to keep subscribers from defecting with a $500,000 radio ad campaign featuring Baker’s confident presence. By March 2000, the efforts appeared to be working. Harvard Pilgrim had paid more than $388 million of its debts to hospitals and other healthcare providers.
He saved the company and he's getting s***?
But there were other major setbacks. Partners HealthCare Inc., the state’s largest healthcare system, demanded increased payments from insurers in exchange for allowing patients access to their network. Partners’ hospitals, including the prestigious Massachusetts General Hospital, had already cut a deal with Blue Cross for higher payments and were pressuring Tufts and Harvard Pilgrim for the same.
Ahem: Why the Nation Doesn't Need Massachusetts Health Care
Yeah, but it is about our health, not $$$$!
Baker objected. He had already raised prices and he feared additional increases would cost the company members. He also criticized what he called “the Partners effect’’ - other providers realized they too could increase their rates, forcing everyone’s healthcare costs to go up.
Oh, I'M LIKING THIS GUY!!!!!!
In an interview last year, Sam Thier, Partners’ former chief executive, recalled meeting with Baker and Reilly at the time. Thier said they painted a bleak picture of Harvard Pilgrim’s finances, calling it their “End of Western Civilization as we know it’’ presentation....
Terrorists are getting healthcare in Mass.?
In the end, Partners won.
And WE LOST!
By June 2001, Harvard Pilgrim agreed to pay steep fee increases. Baker passed on the costs to employers, charging premiums that were 10 to 15 percent higher. By 2002, membership dropped to 751,000 members, a 10-year low.
What else was he supposed to do?
Baker did not back off of criticism of Partners, testifying at a 2003 Federal Trade Commission hearing that Partners and other healthcare providers’ growing market power had made them “virtual monopolies.’’ And his criticism of Partners continued into last year, when Baker in a series of stories by the Globe’s Spotlight Team blamed dominant providers like Partners for inflating healthcare costs in the state.
Related: The Boston Globe Shuts Off Its Spotlight
Explains a lot, doesn't it?
Partners’ chairman, Jack Connors, referred to Baker as “a first-class human being’’ and “formidable candidate.’’ “We, on the providers side, have very good relationships with the CEOs of major plans,’’ Connors said in a recent interview. “It doesn’t mean we spend a lot of time hugging and kissing.’’
Yet to this day, tensions between Partners and Harvard Pilgrim appear to persist. At a November Arthritis Foundation of Massachusetts dinner honoring Baker with a lifetime achievement award, Partners executives were noticeably absent from the audience of about 400, even though Connors bought several tables.
I like you, Charlie!!!!!!!!
One of the missing Partners executives was Baker’s brother, Alex, chief operating officer at Partners Community Healthcare. Charlie Baker said recently that his brother had a scheduling conflict, and that despite what some might believe, Partners’ absence did not signal a rift....
I believe him; however, if his stance has caused a rift in the family, more power to him.
Almost ready to come out of the oven, readers!
