Governer reporting, updated every 30 seconds...

[Agschmid]

http://www.wbur.org/2014/11/04/live-massachusetts-election-results

[merrily]

1. On the bright side (I hope), Moulton won. And, though it was New Hampshire this time, Brown lost.

When Brown won in Massachusetts, he scared me. Not so much in Massachusetts, but because he was the Koch wet dream of a Republican Presidential candidate. Thanks to two Democratic women, the Kochs' will likely have to find themselves another wet dream. Although, I guess Brown could move to another state and try again, while whining about how the liberal northeast just doesn't get it.

Only the red states we subsidize financially get it, amirite, former Senator Brown?

[MADem]

2. Coakley has not conceded. If Baker wins, and he probably will, it will NOT

be a landslide--it will be by "Oh shit, I should have dragged my cousin and his friends to the polls" territory.

[seaglass]

3. Who is Evan Falchuk who got 70K votes? I just went to his website and it seems he is coming

from the left?

3% of the votes for Governor.

[MADem]

4. Jerky little asshole with a platform of "THEY" are the bad guys and "I" am the good guy.

His campaign commercial consisted of a message that said "They both suck, let's send MEEEEE to the corner office and we'll show THEM!!!!"

Show "them" what, I have no idea. I can't believe idiots voted for him. He was uninspiring on a good day. What he showed "them" is that a guy with no chance of winning can fuck over a state electing their first female governor, ever.

We should have "elephant screwed" the GOP, and run some jerky bug-eyed Republican Wingnut McFuckhead to capture the crazy vote on the other side.

Oh well.

[seaglass]

5. Is he the one with the we need a revolution ad? There was a crazy right winger on the ballot but

he got less than 1% - Scott Lively.

Ugh, I went to bed early last night and do not like waking up to this.

[MADem]

6. If we get three percent of the vote, we'll be a REAL party! Yeah, that's the ticket!

Stupid ass. He should have started out running for city council or something.

That's how you grow a party. I love these idiots who want to "start" their revolutions at the executive level--like they don't have to do the groundwork like everyone else does.

[merrily]

8. I don't know if he was trying to grow a party.

He seemed to be trying to get 3% of the vote to get the party on the ballot and he succeeded with 3.32%.

Being an unknown without either a big party or Koch type money backing him, he probably would not have gotten any free coverage at all unless he ran for Governor and he needed it. Maybe he met his goal exactly because he ran for Governor.

[MADem]

9. That is what he said in his commercial. He wants people to change their registration to his party.

He's rich, a multi-millionaire: http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/07/25/two-candidates-for-governor-report-million-dollar-jobs-health-care/SbFKEQorrCyzN94sVy72VM/story.html

He's looking at 2016. For what, I don't know. He wants to "field a number of candidates." He's trying to get people to sign up for his party.

He'll end up increasing GOP representation in the legislature if past performance is any indicator.

See http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2014/11/05/the-united-independent-party-official-and-evan-falchuk-work-has-just-begun/IXH0u6Z0nziFc430zNbZjJ/story.html

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/07/18/evan-falchuk-bold-vision-for-new-party/ajuuKl1MF0au99AQWfsI2I/story.html

[merrily]

10. And?

Last edited Sat Nov 8, 2014, 05:36 AM - Edit history (2)

Obviously, he wants people to join his party at some point. But I doubt that he expected to grow his party simply by running for Governor. That's what I meant. Whether that was the best first step toward growing a party formed a month before he announced for Governor is a matter of opinion.

Also obviously, he expected to lose and lose big. He also said in one version of his commercials that he needed 3% of the vote to get on the ballot and polling was showing it was "already there." So, he did meet his only immediate goal in running for Governor with room to spare.

As I said in my prior post, there were any number of first public steps he could have chosen. Running for Governor a month after he formed a new party was the way he chose and probably the one that got him and his new party the most visibility and free publicity the fastest. He ran for Governor, got on the ballot and lost, but we do know his name and the name of his party. And he continued to get buzz after election day.

http://www.masslive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/11/viewpoint_dont_overlook_evan_f.html

And he's raised interest and curiosity, even in DU's Mass forum.

I don't know that running for City Alderman a month out of the box and maybe losing even that would have yielded anything like those results.

In any event, he did what he did and he did achieve a lot in a very short time,given that he did not have a celebrity on the ballot. You think his running for Alderman would have served his new party better I am not so sure. In any event, he and his advisors chose a different route. We have no parallel universes in which to play out alternate scenarios. So, which move would have done his party more good in this amount of time is speculation and opinion.

Thanks for the info about his wealth, but I knew he had money. I did a little googling myself when I first heard of him. I didn't do a lot because I wasn't that interested, but it didn't take much research to find out he had money. (Reminds me of researching Deval Patrick, when I first heard of his run for Governor. Money and scandals popped up in seconds.)

Falchuck doesn't have Koch money, though. Not even Romney money. The Tea Party took a lot of money and that was not even a new party, just a big mouth wing of the Republican Party. But, I am not sure what his personal wealth has to do with whether running for Governor a month after he formed his party was smarter than running for Alderman. Not to mention that he probably has no desire to be Alderman. Now that the party is launched, he has a better shot of recruiting others to run for offices like that.

If running for Governor is all he ever does to try to build a party, though, then I'll certainly scoff right along with you, if we even have reason to be talking about him again. "Calling Falchuck, party of one." (Reference, Robin Williams' "Donner, party of fifty.&quot

We'll see.

[MADem]

12. In order for his party to remain viable, they have to not just get the three percent of the vote,

They also have to get people to sign up as party members--they need just a few K more people than what Martha lost by. If people sign up as affiliated with the UIP, they can then field candidates on the MA ballot in 2016 w/o any agita. They can't remain viable by just getting three percent on the 2016 ballot because we don't have a Senatorial race up for grabs that year, and it has to be three percent of a statewide election that keeps them in the running. They could run a Presidential candidate but that might be an iffy proposition, and getting members is a surer way to go.

They will have to run around begging people to join their team, to actually register as members. That, apparently, is the next step. They want people to have access to the party to run as candidates, and to the fundraising infrastructures available to recognized parties, they want the whole convention/nominating process exercise, and they want a spot on the voter registration form so people can tick that block.

This is a pretty complete summation of their goals: http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/11/evan_falchuks_independent_part.html

At the end of the day, a vote for these guys is a vote for the GOP.

[merrily]

7. I couldn't tell where he was coming from. During the one debate in which they

allowed "third" party candidates to participate, I thought I detect leftist ideas, but then I read he was centrist.



His real goal seemed to be to get 3% of the votes and he 3.32%. So, kudos?

It's hard to run with either a big party or a huge bankroll behind you, so I am not going to fault him much for not having made his bent clear. And, since he was running as an Indie, maybe he didn't even want to make it too clear. Then again, I didn't read his website. No chance I wasn't going to vote for Coakley. Maybe if polls had shown her 20 points ahead on Monday--but, even then I probably would not have risked it.

[merrily]

11. She caught a lot of criticism last time for conceding to Brown too early, but she was correct.

IIRC, she conceded once she saw some results from around the state, but especially how low turnout was in Boston. She did the math. She knew she couldn't win and therefore conceded, but, by then, everyone was picking her (and her campaign) apart for everything, instead of giving credit for getting it so quickly and being gracious enough not to prolong the agony for either of their respective families, teams and supporters.

Baker won by about 40,000 votes, not a landslide--slim, but not in recount territory.