These are hard times for the people of Massachusetts.
It must be tough to sell out your integrity to root for a Super Bowl team that got caught cheating earlier in the season, but it has got to be worse to watch the supposed Greatest Team that Ever Played lose to a wild card team from the weaker conference. Oh well, at least New England Patriots fans were encouraged by the image of their strong leader, their coach, as he stood his ground on the sidelines supporting his players—at least for 59:59 of the sixty minutes of game time he was supposed to be standing there.
A bad Super Sunday was followed by a bad Super Tuesday for the people of Massachusetts. Despite endorsements from famous Senators Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, and the state governor, Obama lost to Hillary Clinton. What does it say about Obama that all of this star power could not put him over the top? What does it say about the stars that their power was not sufficient to get the job done? What does it say about Clinton that her Senate colleagues wanted to take a stand against her, especially given that she is the front runner? What does it say about this Website that instead of giving answers, I’m just asking a bunch of questions?
Finally, it was a bad week for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. He went from being just one of several candidates that Republican conservatives did not really trust to being the last best hope for many of those same conservatives. But such hopes have been lost. Not only did the number two man in the Republican race drop out, he spent $35 million of his own money before making that decision. Maybe all of that talk about how he was such a good businessman and could make great decisions about managing the economy was a little overly rosy.
Yep, these are hard times for the people of Massachusetts.
Maybe things will get better soon. Maybe the Patriots have stopped cheating, and they will win the Super Bowl next year anyway. Maybe Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama can convince Democrats that one of them is Howard Dean (the one Democrats wanted to date), John Kerry (the one Democrats wanted to marry), and John Edwards-circa 2004 (the nice guy that Democrats just wanted to be friends with) all rolled into one. Maybe John McCain can convince Republicans that he is not such a bad guy after all (or Mike Huckabee can prove he is not just a southern candidate). Maybe…
NOTE: Tim Holder’s appearance at Carpe Librum has been cancelled.