Maybe We Can't

Plagued by his own plummeting polls and playing to empty seats at a high-roller Hub fund-raiser, President Obama acknowledged yesterday that his close friend and political alter ego Gov. Deval Patrick faces a rough road to re-election.

“There really should be no doubt that this guy gets a second term. But let’s be honest. This is going to be a tough race,” Obama told a room barely half-full with 125 deep-pocketed Democrats who ponied up $6,000 for Patrick and the party. “Re-election is not a foregone conclusion because times are tough.”

In the most liberal state in the nation they can't even scrounge up 800 people for a swanky Presidential event?

Wow - what a swift blow to the aspirations of the Democrats from a year ago.

Patrick Puts T Fare Hikes on Hold After Being Caught Swindling Commuters

Price-Gouging Thieves at the Patrick Administration are looking around to see who they can throw under the bus now

Aloisi said yesterday that fare increases are off the table until the completion of an independent review of the T’s finances....

In June, Aloisi said at an MBTA meeting that the agency was so in need of new revenue that public hearings on fare increases should be speeded up.

But in recent weeks, the administration began painting the increases as the brainchild of Grabauskas. Last Thursday, after Grabauskas resigned, Aloisi said the increase would be reevaluated, following an independent review of the MBTA’s management to be completed by Nov. 1.

“I want those fresh eyes, and I want that independence,’’ Patrick said in an interview yesterday. “And frankly, just so there is absolutely no confusion, I have directed the secretary to suspend any more of those workshops until that work is done.’’

The call for a "fresh pair of eyes" came after Patrick gave Grabauskas $300,000 to take the fall. What Patrick didn't count on was Grabauskas releasing his trail of emails saying the 30% fare increase described as "urgent" wasn't actually needed.

Grabauskas told the Globe he was pushed out in part because the administration feared he would question the need for fare increases at yesterday’s hearing.

Patrick sidestepped questions about the issue yesterday.

“I’m not going to get into a tit for tat with a discredited former manager,’’ Patrick said. “This is not about Dan Grabauskas, try as he might to make it so.’’

But rivals say the administration has made a series of blunders in transportation. House minority leader Bradley Jones, Republican of North Reading, and Senator Richard Tisei, Republican of Wakefield, sent a joint letter to Patrick yesterday calling for the ouster of Aloisi, citing “a series of decisions and actions . . . that have been shortsighted, fiscally imprudent, and in some instances have risen to a level of gross negligence that have jeopardized the safety of our Commonwealth’s citizens.’’

Voters in Massachusetts are not the sharpest tools in the shed, but I'm having a hard time visualizing Patrick winning another election in 2010.

Time will tell!

Patrick Want's to GPS Our Cars

This ought to give a boost fledling auto industry, eh?

What we need is surveillance on who is paying who's mortgage and sliding money across the table at No. 9 Park up on Beacon Hill.

I'm praying that the luminary who suggested Patrick propose the VTM comes up with several more crackerjack ideas.

There's something to be said for to pitching him a few more doozies.

How about a 27 cent tax and tracking devices on birth control pills?