Responsible administration for a change?
Related: Patty Cake, Patty Cake, Baker's Man....
Baker's Mate
Governor's Cup
It doesn't get any better for the incumbent, either.
"Baker vows to make state more friendly to business; Rally kicks off Republican’s run for governor" by Carolyn Y. Johnson, Globe Staff | January 31, 2010
Yeah, the TAX INCREASES are NOT HELPING!
Related: EMC Moving Out of Massachusetts
The campaign kickoff drew loyal Republicans, but also unaffiliated voters, and some who said that in recent elections they had voted for Democrats - including President Obama, Governor Deval Patrick, and Martha Coakley....
Nearly all the 800 seats in Faneuil Hall were filled with people who braved temperatures barely out of the single digits. Some said they came just to hear what he had to say, while others were already making plans to volunteer for the campaign....
Ravi Vaithinathan, 38, who works in the financial services industry, said he thought that in the same way that frustration with the Republicans helped Democrats when Obama was elected, frustration with the dominant party would help Republicans in November.
“I hope he [Governor Deval Patrick] gets the fact we’re all angry,’’ Vaithinathan said....
I don't think he does.
Matt Skinner, a 26-year-old sales manager from Leominster, said he liked Republican Charles D. Baker Jr.’s platform in part because of his more liberal views on issues such as abortion and gay rights. Skinner said that he voted for Coakley in the Senate race, but was excited about Baker....
Yeah, that social stuff doesn't matter.
I've accepted it; the Globe should, too.
And maybe I'm still a fool because I see a WELL-MEANING and GOOD MAN:
Charles D. Baker Jr. spoke to an audience member after a speech yesterday at Suffolk University. Baker gave the first of four speeches this winter and spring by candidates for the office. (Wendy Maeda/Globe Staff)
And I take him at his word.
"Baker says governor’s seat is his sole intent; Says office not a political waypoint" by Stephanie Ebbert, Globe Staff | February 5, 2010
If elected governor in November, Republican Charles D. Baker Jr. says he will serve for as long as voters let him.
“I have no interest in serving in Washington,’’ Baker said, adding, in an allusion to the aspirations of the past several governors: “I don’t want to be an ambassador. I don’t want to write a book and I’m not doing this because it’s the next step on my political ladder.
“I’m doing this,’’ he said, “because I am worried about the future of the Commonwealth, and I think I have a lot to bring to it.’’
I believe him. I really believe him. Keep reading to see why.
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Baker cast himself as a cerebral, clear-eyed reformer who would streamline regulations and condense government agencies to make the state more welcoming to businesses and young people.
“I have 30 years of experience fixing things that were broken,’’ said Baker, who was brought in to stabilize the financially troubled Harvard Pilgrim Health Care in 1999.
Baker blamed the state’s current budget problems not just on the national economic crisis but on the state’s Democratic leadership.
You know, they HAVE BEEN RUNNING the LEGISLATURE with a vet-proof majority for a LONG, LONG, TIME!!!
After 16 years of Republican governance - and strong surpluses and rainy day funds - the state began depleting its savings even before the recession made the fiscal situation desperate, he charged....
He's right!
See: The Perils of One-Party Politics: The Problem
The Perils of One-Party Politics: The Ruling Party
The Perils of One-Party Politics: Massachusetts' Democracy
Massachusetts Speaker's Office
Why Massachusetts Needs Republicans
And despite the conflicts and disgust with politics, we need this good man in office.
A recognized policy wonk, Baker offered a somewhat apologetic tutorial on energy pricing and talked at length about regulatory overhaul, duplicative bureaucracy, and the esprit de corps he experienced at a once-foundering health plan.
Yeah, THIS is WHAT WE NEED here in Massachusetts!
His often cerebral discussion was tempered by an informal demeanor in the casual roundtable discussion. He joked that he is the product of a “mixed marriage’’ - his mother is a Democrat, his father a Republican - and that their kitchen-table debates convinced him early on that “checks and balances are a good thing.’’
Raised in Needham, Baker said he stayed for college in the Boston area, without mentioning that meant Harvard.
So he went to Harvard, so what? A lot of people do and the Glob doesn't make a big deal of it. The fact is HE STAYED HERE!!!
His biggest accomplishment at graduate school at Northwestern in Illinois was getting his Midwestern-born wife to move east and marry him, he said.
:-)
Funny!
As he tried to remember the fiscal year of one particularly nettlesome budget, he hesitated for a moment, put his pen between his teeth and bit down like a dog with a bone.
He's thinking hard and tearing into the problems with facts!
GOOD!!!
Though he played the intellectual on economic issues, Baker ducked a question about whether he agrees with the “scientific majority that climate change is caused by human activities.’’
Why should he agree with a lie?
“I don’t think whether I believe that or not matters in this conversation,’’ Baker said. “What I do believe is that our overreliance on foreign oil is a big problem for national security and the economy. People can fight that fight all day long. I can get eight professors from MIT on both sides of this issue and no one in this room will walk away understanding what they said about climate change.’’
Besides, he's running for governor not gardener!!!
Yeah, Globe has to heat up that fart mist -- especially in the kitchen.
Don't worry, Chuck can take it (and he knows the truth; all he has had to do is go outside).
"Baker ducks climate query
GOP gubernatorial candidate Charles Baker has a reputation as a smart guy, but he said last week he wasn’t smart enough to form an opinion on the hottest environmental topic of the day. Climate change: Does he believe in it, or doesn’t he?
PFFFFFFFT!
Climate is ALWAYS CHANGING because it is NATURAL for it to do so!!!
As for MAN-MADE climate change, that is a MYTH!!!
“I’m not saying I believe in it. I’m not saying I don’t,’’ he told the Globe on Friday, a day after dodging the question at a public forum on Thursday. “You’re asking me to take a position on something I don’t know enough about.’’
He added, “I absolutely am not smart enough to believe I know the answer to that question.’’
Asked during a speech at Suffolk Law School on Thursday whether he agrees with the “scientific majority’’ that climate change is caused by human activities, Baker ducked.
“I don’t think whether I believe that or not matters in this conversation,’’ Baker said. “What I do believe is that our overreliance on foreign oil is a big problem for national security and an economic point of view.’’
The answer caused jitters among some environmental activists, who point to Governor Deval Patrick’s efforts to encourage renewable energy and promote energy efficiency.
Related: Slow Saturday Special: Evergreen Turns Brown
Nice try, guv.
“We are unlikely to see such continued progress in renewable energy - or the associated creation of jobs that we have seen here in Massachusetts - from any candidate who can’t openly acknowledge climate change is even happening,’’ said James McCaffrey, director of the Massachusetts Sierra Club.
--more--"And if they can't smear him there, they go after the money?
"Baker finds campaign trove in health field; Business allies lift fund-raising" by Brian C. Mooney, Globe Staff | February 7, 2010
Yeah, so?
Over the years, the Shields family and employees at their medical testing network have been dependable contributors to Democrats in Massachusetts. But Thursday night, they will host their second fund-raiser for Charles D. Baker, the Republican candidate for governor and former CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care.
Oh, THAT is telling you a LOT right there!
Goodbye, Deval.
Only a rigging can save you now, and we likely won't buy it. It will just make us angrier.
It’s one of many examples of how Baker, in his torrid fund-raising drive, has mined with extraordinary efficiency the health care industry he left last July to become a candidate.
Look, I'm not thrilled about the $$$ in politics, etc; however, he has to get it somewhere.
A Boston Globe analysis of contributor reports shows that in seven months Baker’s campaign raised more than $122,000 in contributions tied directly to Harvard Pilgrim. This includes not only $43,000 in contributions from Harvard Pilgrim’s employees, directors, and affiliated companies, but also a broad array of vendors: its accountants, auditing firm, advertising agency, information technology providers, and consultants.
In total, Baker has raised at least $263,000 from employees of health-care providers, other insurers, and related businesses in the health-care sector. That’s about 10 percent of the $2.57 million he has raised overall.
Then why are they making such a big deal out of it?
In the case of Shields Health
Shields Health Care contracts with all the health plans in the state, providing one-fourth of all magnetic resonance imaging tests.
“He’s smart, he’s tested, and he’s experienced in a way we’re comfortable with,’’ said Carmel Shields, company vice president, who donated the $500 annual maximum to Baker in December. She also donated $250 to the campaign of Democratic incumbent Deval Patrick three days earlier. “A friend asked, and I’m loyal to my friends when they ask,’’ she said.
Translation: They are placing and hedging bets.
Is it good for business to have a friend in the governor’s office? “That’s not the reason we’re involved,’’ she said. “We’ve known Charlie for quite a while. We respect his judgment.’’
A top Baker campaign adviser, Rob Gray, said the contributions are an affirmation of the breadth of support Baker enjoys within the health care industry.
“By contributing, they’re helping to spread the word to voters who don’t know him as well,’’ Gray said. Baker’s donations from the health- care industry are roughly equal to what he has raised from small businesses, Gray said.
The Globe examination turned up at least 49 contributions totalling $16,100 from Harvard Pilgrim employees, another $4,000 from members of its board of directors, $4,750 from employees of its subsidiary, Health Plans Inc., a third-party claim administrator, and 33 contributions totalling $15,450 from Minnesota-based
Officials from America’s Health Insurance Plans, the national trade association, chipped in $2,800 and raised thousands more from members at a Washington fund-raiser last September. Baker was an unpaid member of the association’s board until his resignation from Harvard Pilgrim.
Baker’s fund-raising tentacles have also effectively reached those who work for companies that do business with Harvard Pilgrim. Employees at the accounting firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers, which does tax work for the insurer, made 62 contributions worth $25,950, nearly all from last November. Employees of Deloitte & Touche, Harvard Pilgrim’s auditor and CPA, and other Deloitte companies gave $9,550, and Hill Holliday, the insurer’s advertising agency since the early 1990s, accounted for $11,500 in donations. For the fiscal years 2004 through 2008, Harvard Pilgrim paid Hill Holliday an average of $8 million a year, according to the not-for-profit insurer’s annual reports to the Internal Revenue Service.
I'm just biting the bullet, readers. He has to be an improvement on this last guy -- he's been a three-year disaster.
Other major vendors of Harvard Pilgrim are also represented among the Baker contributors. For instance,
Employees of Hopkinton-based
Besides the Harvard Pilgrim-related contributions, the Baker campaign has reaped campaign cash in small bundles from many hospitals, health insurers, insurance brokers, benefits managers, and drug companies.
So he's all grubby like the rest of 'em?
Employees at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the state’s largest health insurer, have pumped more than $9,000 into Baker’s account, much of it at a fund-raiser last month hosted by Rina Vertes, the chief actuary at Blue Cross. Until she wrote Baker a check for $250 last November, Vertes had since 2002 given to nine other candidates, all Democrats, including $250 to Patrick in 2006, data show. She declined a request for an interview but through a company spokesman said she respects Baker and likes his positions on issues.
Baker’s inroads at Blue Cross are even more significant because CEO Cleve L. Killingsworth is a key fund-raiser for Patrick.
People like lining up with a winner.
Blue Cross spokesman Jay McQuaide said the company takes a hands-off approach to employee political activity. “We neither encourage nor discourage our employees from taking part in the political process,’’ McQuaide said. “Whomever they support is their business.’’
John Walsh, chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, said there is nothing inherently wrong with the concentration of Baker fund-raising in certain areas, but he said the campaign seems to be preoccupied with it.
“Charlie Baker was the CEO of an insurance company; that’s his network,’’ said Walsh, who managed Patrick’s 2006 campaign. “But there are voters who honestly wonder why, as this health-care debate has raged in Washington and been a matter of significance in the Massachusetts Senate race, Charlie Baker . . . has been silent.’’
We already have a law here.
Baker has several proposals aimed at reducing health-care costs. Most controversial is his plan to require providers to publicly disclose their prices for services, which are now considered proprietary.
See: Memory Hole: Why the Nation Doesn't Need Massachusetts Health Care
Yeah, CHUCK WOULD KNOW about THAT, what with being from the healthcare field and all!!
He also wants to convert the state’s MassHealth program for lower-income residents to a managed care system.
Hey, I'm not goo-goo over the idea, but you are not going to agree with anyone 100 percent. If you expect to, you are going to have a miserable experience on this earth. Besides, it is the guy's area of expertise.
Paul F. Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, said he is supporting Baker because of his experience as a Cabinet secretary in the Weld and Cellucci administrations, the turnaround of Harvard Pilgrim under his leadership, and their friendship, which has developed over the past decade. He said Baker’s success in raising health care money is not surprising.
“It’s because we know him well,’’ said Levy, who rose to prominence in the Democratic administration of Michael S. Dukakis and donated $500 last year and again in January to both Baker and his running mate, state Senator Richard R. Tisei.
“I think it’s because people in the field really respect him,’’ Levy said.
Asked if it was the first time he had given to Republicans, he replied: “I hadn’t thought about it that way, but I think it’s true.’’
Yeah, the governor's goose is cooked.
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