Election Round-Up & My N. Bedford Times Interview

I was interviewed by Jack Spillane of the Standard Daily Times yesterday for an article he wrote on Deval Patrick's victory. Specifically, he wanted a younger voter's perspective and also someone from the netroots. I thought it was a great article - particularly because my favorite professor, Dr. Kenneth Manning, acknowledged one of the key components to this new progressive movement: the netroots. In 2004, I took a seminar with him on Campaign and Elections; we'd frequently chat about what we each thought Democrats needed to do to win. Back then, he maintained it was sticking to the center on issues, "getting the biggest slice of the pie." I thought it was taking principled stances, similar to the Republicans, except without the whole morally repugnant part. Granted, my position has become slightly more sophisticated since then - as I've grown to appreciate the renewed progressive movement in this country - but I think with candidates like Deval Patrick, Ned Lamont, Jon Tester and Jim Webb popping up all around the country I may have been right. These candidates appeal to the population not because they're tied to the netroots, but because they offer a message of hope and accountability.

Finally, since I wrote a gazillion blogs yesterday, I'd like to make a little election round up:

1. Call it a pre-election celebration: Deval's New Bedford Rally last Saturday with some pictures (including one of him and I).

2. I asked people to vote and they did. Over 420,000 of them for Deval alone.

3. A last minute Chris Gabrieli ad!

4. Virginia Buckingham proves just how influential she is, which just may be less influential than I am. Hey, at least my guy won!

5. Some post-election thoughts, including sympathy for the Devil Jane Swift.

6. Town-by-town analysis. I'll be writing more on this later - well, more analysis - because it interests me that a city like New Bedford would be way more pro-Deval than Fall River and I want to know why.

7. CBS called it for Deval when there was just 4% of the precincts reporting.

8. Kerry Healey lies like a rug - and certainly didn't improve her chances with her "victory speech." If there were more than a hundred people at her "rally," I'd be shocked.

9. So much for the theory that Cape Wind would hurt Deval in Cape Cod; he won the entirety of Barnstable County (by a sizable margin). Oh - and he was probably strongest on Nantucket.

10. Deval speaks, Kerry Healey quivers.