Poll Puts Dem in Lead for Mass. Governor

[cal04]

Democrat Deval Patrick holds a commanding lead over Republican Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey in the Massachusetts governor's race, a new poll of likely voters shows.

Patrick had the support of 55 percent of voters surveyed, compared with 30 percent for Healey, according to the Boston Globe/WBZ-TV poll, published Sunday. Independent candidate Christy Mihos received 7 percent, and Green-Rainbow Party candidate Grace Ross had 1 percent. About 6 percent of respondents were undecided.

The poll of 525 likely voters conducted Sept. 26-29 by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center and has a 4.3 percent margin of error. The response rate to the telephone survey was 20 percent.

The candidates are set to square off in three debates before election day, the first on Tuesday.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Massachusetts-Governor.html

[bluestateguy]

1. Massachusetts must have really hated Dukakis a lot

To think that Massachusetts (where I lived for 4 years in college) has not had a Democratic governor since 1990, and Mike Dukakis, must suggest that the state really detested him by the time he left office. Of course, Democrats had a long string of bad nominees Mark Roosevelt (1994), Scott Hoshbaugh (1998) and Shannon O'Brien (2002). But it appears as if Massachusetts has gotten over it, and Democrats have picked a good nominee.

[welshTerrier2]

4. Dukakis wasn't the issue; Bulger was ...

i think the parade of republican governors was mainly due to the abusive, partisan influence of Billy Bulger tyrannically controlling the overwhelmingly Democratic legislature ... many independents (i.e. unenrolled) went with republican governors to act as a check on Bulger's partisanship ... we also ran a string of fairly weak candidates ... btw, a minor correction, the 1998 candidate's name was Scott Harshbarger ...

Deval Patrick will be very, very tough to beat this year ... i've met him ... he's a really good guy ...

[MannyGoldstein]

2. After Willard's Pulled His Bullshit

Muffy has no chance of winning, unless she publicly moons Willard (Mitt). At least I'd vote for her then. Probably.

[Chico Man]

3. Finally!

Thank god, I'll keep my fingers crossed

[welshTerrier2]

5. minor correction ...

i believe there will be 3 ADDITIONAL debates before election day ... the "first" debate (of 4) was held last Monday ...

here's a thread about what DU'ers thought about that debate: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=158&topic_id=10028&mesg_id=10028