Left In Lowell

According to this press release from the campaign of Green-Rainbow candidate for Secretary of State Jill Stein, incumbant Bill Galvin has agreed to a debate with her, after dodging his opponants throughout the primary and now the general. But I thought the post was a joke: Galvin agreed to debate - but for only five minutes.

Five whole minutes! Golly Gee Wilikers, Bill, thanks for caring enough to give your very best. What in the hell are you afraid of, you coward?

I’d hate to be your wife, if you consider this quality time. You have now officially lost my vote. This is ridiculous. I encourage you all to send a message to the arrogant sitting Secretary of State and vote for Jill Stein. My loyalty as a Democrat ends with a candidate who refuses to comply with basic decency.

Always predictable, always on script. The Sun endorsed Healey today. Here’s where we have fun!

Unfortunately, Healey’s qualities have been blurred by a campaign that did well to expose Patrick’s weaknesses on key issues but did not work hard enough to highlight Healey’s many strengths. Healey the governor will be far superior to Healey the candidate.

Translation: pay no attention to the Healey behind the curtain! She had no control over the tone of her adversarial campaign. She’ll be much better when dealing with her adversaries in the legislature! No really…hey…where are you going?

Her 50-point plan is a detailed blueprint for how she will govern, while her Democratic opponent, Deval Patrick, has been evasive about what he will actually do and how he means to do it. He speaks generally of bringing “hope,” but we can’t help but wonder how expensive that hope will be to the taxpayers of Massachusetts.

Translation: We can’t do our homework, or read a website with all sorts of position papers which began to be published long, long ago. Nope, no idea what Patrick is going to do. Because we’re lazy and can’t be bothered to actually read anything the Patrick campaign publishes or listen to what Patrick has said on any number of his Q & A sessions or stump speeches. We can only handle information in nice little bullet points or in Powerpoint presentations. Patrick has nice bunting at his events, though.

On education, Healey supports merit pay …

Translation: We’re anti-union! Anything to stick it to those evil, evil teachers.

It is clear Healey understands the concerns and needs of Massachusetts taxpayers and municipalities. She knows residents need good schools, lower taxes and safe neighborhoods, and she will strive to provide those necessities.

Translation: We can’t do math. Roll back the income tax! Spend less on everything! And get better results!! No need to invest in new infrastructure to build our economy…or on our crumbling school systems…or those roads, or nothin’.

Healey would fight for lifetime parole for Level 2 sex offenders, to reinstate the death penalty for felons convicted of killing law-enforcement personnel, provide loan forgiveness for students pursuing in-demand careers like engineering and forensic sciences, and to make housing more affordable for first-time home buyers. Unlike Patrick, Healey has concrete plans that, with the support of the Legislature, will allow such changes to occur without piling more taxes on overburdened residents.

Translation: Told you we were no good at math! Lifetime parole won’t cost the state any more…just the new parole officers to track them. Ditto for the death penalty! Everyone knows it’s cheaper to execute them dang criminals! Nevermind that data, put it down. And making housing more affordable - all you gotta do is wish real hard, and ask developers nicely. That won’t cost the state a dime! Neither will loan forgiveness for students!! And don’t look at your local property tax bill, ‘kay?

Oh, and you do remember we told you Healey will be a better leader with her adversaries in the legislature even though she’s been a real b–ch leading her campaign. Right? Right?

There’s a lot to be said for checks and balances in government. It’s the reason the GOP has held a lock on the corner office for 16 years.

Translation: That’s working for us real good! Republicans lost seats in the legislature and Romney constantly gets overridden. It’s such good foil, that balance argument. And the more Democrats in the legislature, the more we can use it!!

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Honestly, that was too much fun for one post. Though the Sun’s endorsement wasn’t as silly as the Herald’s, it provided all sorts of amusement for me. Most predictable second-rate newspaper on the east coast…

‘Bout freakin’ time, too. I haven’t heard one good word about Fernandez, even from people who completely disagreed with me on some of the other contentious city personnel issues we’ve been dealing with this past year.

New blood, new accountability, huge opportunity for Lowell.

[HT: my coblogger Mimi in comments.]

Via Blue Mass Group’s sharonmg, this article at Computerworld goes over a lot of information about the pros and cons of e-voting (like, hacking vote counts and no paper trail) all in one place. sharonmg is one of the online editors of the magazine. Some tasty excerpts:

One-third of us will use voting machines that have never before served in a general election. Legal challenges to paperless DRE (direct-recording electronic) voting technologies are proliferating across the country, and as computer scientists demonstrated earlier this year, hacking challenges to many of these machines can bear fruit even faster than demands for recounts.

Election-reform watchdog groups haven’t kept pace with the massive funding influx and official support that the move to electronic voting has experienced. (Nor, critics say, have they enjoyed the close relationships that exist between many of the e-voting suppliers and government officials in charge of framing the rules for the acquisition of such machines.)

This article goes state-by-state, as well as into the players, problems and issues. There’s tons of information to sift through here. Is Galvin finally going to do his homework, or do we have to take to the streets to save the integrity of our elections in Massachusetts?