Anyone who cares probably heard this already, but it’s official, per the Boston Globe:
Scott Brown, who surprised the political world with his upset victory in the 2010 special election, announced Friday afternoon that he will not enter the special election to replace John F. Kerry…
Brown’s announcement was unusual. Rather than a formal press conference or statement, he initially released the news to the Boston Herald in a text message that said “U are the first to know.” His spokesman later confirmed the news to the Globe in a text that read “Not running.”
What an astute use of the new social media! will be the Media Villager cry. Bqhatevwr, Scottie.
Brown’s decision leaves the Republican Party scrambling to find a viable candidate for the June 25 election. To make the ballot, candidates must gather 10,000 certified signatures in four weeks. Brown had long been considered the party’s strongest and most likely candidate. The party may now turn to former governor William F. Weld or former lieutenant governor Kerry Healey. Beyond that, the list of credible candidates is thin…
State committeeman Steve Aylward said his fellow activists are upset that Brown bowed out immediately after his chosen chairman was elected to lead the party. Kirsten Hughes only narrowly won the chairmanship Thursday night, after a big push by Brown to get her elected.
“One of the reasons for voting for Kirsten was that Scott Brown was running for Senate and needed her to be there,” said Aylward, who supported Hughes’ opponent. “Now one day afterward, he decides not to run for it? I think I’m speaking for a lot of the grassroots activists who are going to say, ‘this doesn’t pass the smell test.’ ”…
Well, it proves that ex-Senator Centerfold is, if no Haaavad praFESsah, at least wicked smaahtah than he acted during his last campaign. Notice I do not say “we” won’t have Scotty to kick around, because this would seem to confirm that he’ll sooth his political jones by running for governor next year, like all the smart money was telling him. So us Massholes will be assaulted by those barn-coat-n-pickup commercials again, and there’s a reasonable chance I’ll be bitching about Governor Brown come 2015. On the positive side, there’s hella less damage Scotty can do back here in the Commonwealth (God save it!, as Mr. Pierce would say).
And while I have every reason to believe that Ed Markey will be the junior senator from Massachusetts this time next year, and will do what I can to make it so, it will be… entertaining… if Bill Weld ends up running. Weld’s sensible-moderate Republican career got derailed by Jesse Helms (R-KKK) in an early demo of the GOP’s rising Regressive Resentment strategy. He has no reason to love the Ignernt Ijiit wing of his party, and I doubt they’ll embrace his candidacy, either.
**********
Apart from toasting confusion to our enemies, what’s on the agenda for the start of the weekend?
dmsilev
Well, if the MA-GOP believes that recycling former governors is their best bet, I hear Mitt Romney is looking for something to do…
General Stuck
Judging from Brown’s tweets, he may have discovered cocaine is better than politics.
TheMightyTrowel
@dmsilev: I think my entire MA political activist family might spontaneously combust if that happens.
[TMT: sitting down in Oz proudly wearing her Obama/Biden say Elizabeth Warren for Senate shirt]
General Stuck
@dmsilev:
Romney is busy building a relationship with Harvey, his new pet wabbit.
dmsilev
@General Stuck: Strapping Harvey to the roof of his car elevator?
Spaghetti Lee
“Politician decides not to lose two elections in 8 months. Analysts shocked.”
Mnemosyne
So is it true that Subarus are the cars of old-hippies-turned-yuppies? Because the Subaru Impreza is making its way onto my short list of possible new cars.
eemom
nm
Jewish Steel
@Anne Laurie: Remember the other day when we discussed how the basenjis probably understand every word I say? A nice sentiment. But I’m afraid shit just got real.
jeffreyw
Thread needs moar kittehs.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: GET. IT. I rented one to drive home for the holidays and fell in love. So did my SIL, so much so that she bought one a few months later. My little brother still blames me for that, but hey it’s her money. You will definitely not be sorry except don’t expect stellar gas mileage. Mine wasn’t too bad honestly but they really do average about 27 mpg.
MikeJ
Last night I DVR’d Lee Marvin’s Point Blank, based on Donald Westlake’s Parker book, The Hunter. Going to watch.
General Stuck
@dmsilev:
For a nice European Vacation.
Davis X. Machina
@Jewish Steel:It’s good to know that the sentence “Basenjis are fighting the war on terror” is warming up in the bullpen in case “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously” can’t finish the inning.
JGabriel
Anne Laurie @ Top:
Particularly since Weld endorsed Obama over McCain in 2008.
.
Dee Loralei
One of my OFA friends is going to run for office, not sure which one yet. A few of us are going to her house Sunday afternoon to form the base of her campaign! I’m so thrilled for her. I think she’s running for state Leg., but I wish she’d run for Congress, she’s represented now by some hideous Republican Tbagger.
PeakVT
@Mnemosyne: That used to be Volvo, but they went too upscale and people lost interest in the brand. Subaru seems to be trying to follow the same route. Also, you should note that Imprezas have always been pretty thirsty for their size due to the 4wd.
TheMightyTrowel
@efgoldman: Lynch was/is my rep. I have spent the last few years sending letters about women’s righs, abortion, his duties as a democrat in the House and various other topics which never get responded to. I assume they see the foreign stamp and just tip it into the shredder. It still makes me feel better. I cannot stand the dude.
General Stuck
Speaking of wingnuts going off the deep end, if you feel strong tonight of mind and spirit, this is some distilled pure grade wingnut head explosion – take the plunge and listen.
These are not well people.
Mnemosyne
@Yutsano:
I’m currently driving a 1998 Toyota RAV-4, so 27MPG sounds pretty good to me (I usually get about 19-20 in the RAV). Consumer Reports gave it a glowing review.
I drove a lovely VW Jetta as a rental over the holidays, but I’m wary of VWs. They have this tendency to have one thing go wrong with them and then basically it all cascades until you’re taking the damn thing to the mechanic every weekend.
One of my bosses got the compact Prius and it’s completely adorable. I may have to at least test-drive it. The regular Prius is a little too much sedan for me, so I’ve been waiting for a compact one.
Jewish Steel
@Davis X. Machina: I’ll send it to prof Chomsky and see if it passes muster!
Seriously, I despair future anthropologists having any hope deciphering our late-stage capitalist cornucopia.
Amanda
Charlie Pierce’s take on this wonderful, imo, news is per normal golden:
LOL
Old Dan and Little Ann
I shook the hand of Dave Foley from “Kids in the Hall” about 2 hours ago at a comedy club. Any liberal Canadien who makes fun of Sarah Palin is okay with me. I’ve only seen a handful of comedians live. Real Doozies, too. Carrot Top, Barry Williams from The Brady Bunch, and Screech from “Saved by the Bell.” Christ, that’s a pathetic list.
Amanda
HTML clearly hates me…and no way to edit, eh? Sorry, all.
BillinGlendaleCa
@Mnemosyne: I’ve had a Jetta for 27 years, needs a clutch job. Other than that, works great. I have know people with mid 80 VW’s that had electrical problems. The wife got a Hyundai Elantra about 9 months ago, she’s quite happy with it, though she thought she’d get better mileage(she does a lot of city driving).
Davis X. Machina
@Jewish Steel: There was a time there when I was pretty sure the basenjis were running the war on terror.
I judged an extemp round years ago, back in Bush I days, where the poor kid pulled a brain-fart and was suddenly speaking about National Security Advisor Spuds McKenzie — instead of Bud McFarlane. I gave him top points in the round.
As a theory, re GOP fopo, it saved the phenomenon, and what the hell else do you want, an egg in your beer?
Jewish Steel
@Davis X. Machina:
Oh, man. It would’ve been hard to keep a straight face.
Mnemosyne
@PeakVT:
I’m a pretty low-mileage driver, so MPG isn’t as essential for me as it is for other people. My current car is 15 years old and I barely have 88,000 miles on it.
Since I do tend to keep my cars for a long time, the recent Subaru ad campaign that had people talking about how long they’d owned their Subaru was pretty much aimed directly at me.
@BillinGlendaleCa:
I saw your condolences for my dad in another thread, but it was too late to go back and thank you for them, so I’ll thank you now.
My best friend has a diesel Jetta and she loves it to death, especially since she has to commute from Laguna Niguel to Santa Monica. Still, I’m wary. Plus the steering column is in kind of a weird position and I kept whacking my knee on it whenever I got in the car.
LeftCoastTom
@Mnemosyne: I own a 2005 Outback Sport (basically, Impreza body), and am considering the 2014 Forester.
I’ve been very happy with my Subie, its very reliable with 130K miles, my reason for wanting something other than the Impreza Sport to replace it is that I want additional ground clearance for rough dirt roads (and the current Impreza Sport has slightly less clearance than my current car).
SatanicPanic
Friday is always beer and darts
Suffern ACE
@Mnemosyne: wait until next year when the revised wrx is released to bring it in line with the current imprezza. Then you can do hippie-turned-yuppie with a midlife crises.
AHH onna Droid
@TheMightyTrowel: Amen, bruddah, Lynch is a piece of slime. Pay back what you borrowed from the taxpayers with interest and then we’ll talk.
Cacti
He’s waiting to run for governor.
Even if he won Kerry’s old seat in a special election, he’d be running again in 2014.
He wants a full term in office.
pat
I traded my 2000 Saab 9-3 hatchback, 147,000 miles, for a 2013 Jetta Sportwagon TDI 6 speed manual, and I’m pleased that it is getting 37-38 mpg. The best I did on the Saab was 30, pure highway, and usually 25-26. Could not see trading for a lesser car (subaru) without at least getting 30-40% better mileage. So I’m happy.
Got a three year no-interst loan and 3 year maintenance.
BillinGlendaleCa
@Mnemosyne: Being that I’m height challenged, rarely run into anything with my legs.
@efgoldman: The Korean cars had problems early on, I hope they’ve improved. Otherwise they may get yelled at in Korean.
Xecky Gilchrist
@Mnemosyne: I’m a pretty low-mileage driver, so MPG isn’t as essential for me as it is for other people.
This is exactly my situation (current vehicle 18 years old, 76K miles) and I’m well convinced my next car will be a Subaru, though I’m thinking Outback because I’ll need some carrying space. Here in Salt Lake City there are a zillion of the things around – they’re enormously popular with skiers.
Mnemosyne
@BillinGlendaleCa:
That’s what was so weird about it — I’m 5’2″, so I rarely have issues like that. But the steering column was oddly low.
But the cabin was really, really quiet. Almost eerily so when compared to my RAV-4, which was a very noisy car even before it passed its 15th birthday.
General Stuck
Sunrise in the high desert. One of the more unusual ones. http://www.flickr.com/photos/oxpecker/8436336069/in/photostream/lightbox/
Steeplejack
@MikeJ:
Have you ever seen it before? It’s very good and holds up well.
Jewish Steel
@Xecky Gilchrist: There were uncountable multitudes of them in Seattle when I lived there. You might be in danger of losing it in a large parking lot.
jeffreyw
@General Stuck: Fixt
Suzanne
I need makeup advice. I need some new lipstick or gloss. I want good coverage and long wear, but very moisturizing without being sticky. AKA the Holy Grail. I have a hard time buying budget makeup because I can’t try it on first. Advice gratefully accepted.
Xecky Gilchrist
@Jewish Steel: Ha, that could totally happen here.
Someone from out of town told me that where he was from – and I forget where that was – the Outbacks and other Subaru wagons had the reputation of being the favorite car of lesbians. No idea why. But when he got here he thought he was in the Valley of the Amazons or something.
General Stuck
@jeffreyw:
Thanks jeffrey
Steeplejack
@General Stuck:
Link fixed for your beautiful photograph.
ETA: Never mind.
James E. Powell
Giving up a credible shot at the US Senate for a shot at governor down the road doesn’t strike me as the play of a confident politician. We might be unduly discounting Scott Brown’s butt-hurt at the emphatic rejection he experienced. Losing to old Aunt Lizzie isn’t a good war story to chew on when your pounding beers with the boys.
Here’s the thing about Scott Brown that gets overlooked. He’s a dick. He’s always been a dick. He got elected because the whole fucking country, including the usually reliable Massachusetts was going crazy. The economy was in the tank, the government was shoveling billions to bankers while everyone else was sweating their credit card bills, and there was a black man in the White House. Well, the country, even some of the crazy parts, got over that.
People that are giving him the edge in a campaign that is a very long way off, political campaign speaking, are just like the people who said that the 2012 Republican nomination was Palin’s for the asking.
He’s a dick. No more, no less.
jeffreyw
@jeffreyw: Ah, ya beat me to it. Looks better letter boxed, anyway.
SatanicPanic
@General Stuck: Very nice
LeftCoastTom
Question…why? What “charms” do MA voters see in Senator Cosmo? I mean, I’m pretty sure that if Arnie were to run against Jerry Brown for his old office in 2014 we wouldn’t be doubting the outcome, and as I recall MA was slightly more pro-Obama than CA. We have our loons, and while I didn’t vote for the recall that put Arnie in office (nor did most Bay Area residents, but we were alone in that) I at least understood why he won back in the day. But, I don’t see what’s remotely likeable about Sen. Truck Nutz. Would the charms be more apparent if I weren’t 2500 miles away?
jeffreyw
Plays a mean pinball.
Mnemosyne
@Xecky Gilchrist:
I think I’ve heard that, too. Hopefully the wedding ring on my finger would dissuade any hordes of lesbians from pursuing me.
Subarus seem to be fairly uncommon here in the Los Angeles metro area. Around here, it’s Toyotaland, unless you’re a recent immigrant from Armenia, which apparently carries a requirement that you lease a Mercedes.
Jewish Steel
@Xecky Gilchrist: Sensible ladies, sensible cars.
General Stuck
@jeffreyw:
What a sweetie!!
Xecky Gilchrist
@James E. Powell: He got elected because the whole fucking country, including the usually reliable Massachusetts was going crazy.
Too true. We need to figure out how to have this shit stop happening in the census-year elections.
@Mnemosyne: hee hee
Been a while since I’ve been in So. Cal. I used to live in Redlands in the 80s, and the automotive oddity it had was a high concentration of Karmann Ghias.
Xecky Gilchrist
@Jewish Steel: Sensible ladies, sensible cars.
Yeah, that sounds right.
Omnes Omnibus
@pat: I get mid-30s on the highway with my 2006 9-3.
jeffreyw
Needs moar kittehs.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
I don’t know. I think it varies depending on the region. In Vermont and Colorado, they’re considered very sensible cars that do well in the snow while getting better mileage than a truck. In Southern California, I expect they’d classify as a bit more of an affectation.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: Subies and Saabs are very popular here in Madison. Virtually every Subie is covered in lefty stickers.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
I can vouch for the Armenian bit. Wealthy Chinese people seem to like them, too, though I think they tend to buy rather than lease. I think of Hollywood types as preferring BMWs if they’re in the middle of the food chain or Bentleys if they’re at the top.
Roger Moore
@jeffreyw:
Are you sure about that? She looks like she has plenty of kittehs to deal with about now.
NotMax
To those who expressed incredulity when I said some time back that Brown wouldn’t run…
Neener, neener.
:)
Omnes Omnibus
I just found out today that a friend of mine from college is joining Kerry’s staff at State. Cool.
Yutsano
@Roger Moore: BMWs are called the Seattle Civic for a reason. Little fuckers are everywhere and I swear they take something out of the brain that makes every driver of one an asshole.
I looked at one when I was car shopping. I was underwhelmed.
mdblanche
Ugh. I’m watching some media roundtable on PBS Boston and it’s like a funeral on there. Their friend’s husband’s not running, much hand-wringing on the Republican Party’s behalf, much bitching about Senator Warren hitting their friend’s husband below the belt by nationalizing the race, tied in with complaints about the decline of local media. People are now reading the New York Times every day apparently. People who get their news from the Times aren’t going to learn that a Hub man was killed in a nuclear blast if New York is also destroyed.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Roger Moore:
In 1998 I bought a new Forester. It was a good car, but here in SoCal the AWD was about as much use as teats on a a boar hog. The car was later destroyed when a one-ton truck rear ended me at the Orange Crush. Recently bought a year-old ex-rental KIA Sportage. It is an excellent car for our needs. Gets good mileage too.
Redshift
Since it’s an open thread, I thought I would mention (for anyone favoring the theory that Ken Cuccinelli would have to pretend to be a moderate to win), that he’s going to have a book coming out that, among other things, doubles down on Romney’s “47%” sentiment. That was a few days ago.
However, in response to criticisms that he was echoing Romney, Cooch insists that he’s not, because Romney was dismissing the government moochers as potential voters, whereas Cooch believes that he can get votes from the people he describes as having been suckered into dependency.
Well, that certainly clears it up.
Omnes Omnibus
@Redshift:
Really? How odd.
Suffern ACE
@LeftCoastTom: I’ll wade into that. In Massachusetts the solved their medical insurance coverage issue years ago. A lot of those places that have lots of uninsured don’t exactly strike the Massachusetts gentleman as pulling their own weight when it comes to solving those problems and why should the Massachusetts citizen give a rats ass that Texas or Missouri can’t find their healthcare butts with two hands?
AA+ Bonds
Weld or Healey? They’ve lost.
Redshift
@Dee Loralei: Awesome! One of my friends from the Dean campaign is running for the state legislature. It is, IIRC, the most Democratic district currently represented by a Republican, so she has a good shot. As soon as I’m getting a paycheck again, I’ll be doing what I can for her campaign. She’ll make an excellent delegate.
max
And while I have every reason to believe that Ed Markey will be the junior senator from Massachusetts this time next year, and will do what I can to make it so, it will be… entertaining… if Bill Weld ends up running.
1) I’ve been reading all day about how I was supposed to be afraid of Brown. I wasn’t. I was afraid of MA Dems blowing things off what with this appointing caretakers and running in off-year elections and crap. Bit of a lack of killer instinct there (and with the national dems too).
2) Anyways, now that that bullet’s dodged, how may we help bury Lynch, whom I suspect I would find even more annoying than Brown? Do we need to send money? I am happy to send money.
3) I don’t see how Weld gets nominated, but I’m not from Mass. If he does though, I’ll take it, because we should have liberalish Republicans in Blue states. Helps make up for the fucking blue dogs.
max
[‘Some wish to campaign hard. I desire that our opponents wish they had been fed feet first into a tree chipper.’]
TheMightyTrowel
@Yutsano: Ugh. BMW drivers. It’s a fucking universal law of physics: you get behind the wheel of a beemer and your brain turns to mush and vitriol.
Redshift
@Omnes Omnibus:
He’s an odd guy. I can’t wait until the whole book comes out. However, he is apparently an excellent campaigner, so as nutty as he is, we’ve got our work cut out for us.
Suffern ACE
@mdblanche: that is sad, indeed. And I agree. If there was a nuclear explosion, there is a good chance Times readers won’t know about it, either. That sounds like a B-15 below the gold story.
Redshift
@TheMightyTrowel: Indeed. I am often moved to recall the old joke of “What’s the difference between a BMW and a porcupine?”
Yutsano
@TheMightyTrowel: It’s a tie for me between Beemers and Audi drivers. Both seem to suck massive donkey balls around here. Although the Hyundai who blithely cut me off this morning was kind of awesome in that not-awesome sort of fashion.
@Redshift: :: snort ::
Steeplejack
@Redshift:
The pricks are on the outside of a porcupine.
AA+ Bonds
William Weld, 2006 Libertarian Party gubernatorial candidate for the State of New York,
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: Escalade and Expedition drivers.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: They just suck period.
Open thread subject: NYD has the flu. He’s been hospitalised in the base clinic for the past week with a high fever. Fortunately it broke tonight, but damn I got worried about him. This flu season ain’t fucking around.
AA+ Bonds
It would be pretty funny if William Weld lost as many Senate elections as Erskine Bowles has. Sort of a 1997-to-the-toilet arc.
TheMightyTrowel
@Yutsano: Here in yon capital city of the upside down continent what you really have to avoid are the cars with electric blue plates. Those are the ‘diplos’ – diplomatic plates – they can do anything, park anywhere, drive any how they want and the police can’t do shit. Also most are dirty foreigners like me, but unlike me they don’t have to prove they have driving on the Aussie side of the road skillz to drive. As far as I know, they don’t even need a license.
Anne Laurie
@LeftCoastTom:
Here in Massachusetts, frequently it’s not about “charm”, it’s about “pissing off the same people who piss us off”. (Yes, I confess that’s one reason I chose to move here when I grew up; the politics of resentment is my native tongue.) Scott Brown ran & won on the “I’m not one of those Ivy-League suits who just tanked the global economy” platform (& by never never never mentioning that he was running AS A REPUBLICAN; he was loudly offended whenever some rude Democrat brought that up). But by 2012, Massholes knew he was a Repub who’d vote against MA interests; outside donors had lost interest in ‘taking Teddy’s seat back’; and most importantly Elizabeth Warren had actually fought against the suits who tanked the economy. Brown held on to the Idiot Vote, and the perennial 27%, but he could no longer disguise himself as a Real BlueCollar Guy.
He could still win the gubernatorial race, though. The prospective Democratic competition at the moment is divided into niches, and “we” have a habit of picking Repub governors for their novelty value, to counterbalance the overwhelmingly Democratic state legislature. If Brown does run, I half expect his campaign ads to paint Romney as a Democrat!
Yutsano
@TheMightyTrowel: Most don’t, as they are exempted from Australian law due to the wonderful institution that is diplomatic immunity. NYC has the same issues because of the UN, but there is very little that can be done short of lodge a formal complaint at the offending national’s embassy. Which promptly gets filed in the circular bin for further processing. It’s really just a convenient excuse to be an asshole really.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: It tends to be exponential when the CD plate holder drives a Beemer.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: Or any sort of luxury car. Which they all seem to drive honestly.
Anne Laurie
@mdblanche:
The NYTimes bought the Boston Globe, our “smart” paper, back in the late 1990s, with the express intention of destroying it & forcing Boston newspaper buyers with above-primary-school reading skills to switch to the NYTimes. The geniuses behind that strategy didn’t quite succeed — apart from contributing to the current disasterous financial situation at the NYTimes — but they did turn a lot of faithful subscribers into people who got all their news on the internet.
Spaghetti Lee
@Anne Laurie:
And that story can’t be told without mentioning Martha Coakley, can it? I mean, enough people have dumped on her, and from what I hear she’s good at behind-the-scenes type stuff if not campaigning, but, well, I’m not even from Boston, and when I heard that she made fun of people who wait in long lines for Red Sox games or something, I figured it was all over.
Anne Laurie
@efgoldman: Yeah, I have a Sunday-only Globe sub that gets me internet access… and the weekly coupons/advertising flyers (old skool, me). But I prioritize the Washington Post over the NYTimes, because I ain’t forgiving Sulzberger’s Suits.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: This is one of the reasons I think AGs, DAs, and judges should not be elected. Being a good politician has little to do with being good at the actual job – hell, it can often be at odds with it.
mdblanche
@Anne Laurie: Well, those drippy panelists still haven’t figured out what happened. To them, the idea that people would read something not published in their home town on a daily basis was as unexplainable as it was unnatural. They probably can’t figure it out because they’re too parochial to grasp the idea that something that happened in far off New York could affect their daily lives.
neoconstantine
not that anyone asked for my opinion but here it is anyway.
for many reasons, i think that john cole, with the sincere and heartfelt thanks of a grateful readership, should accept an emeritus position and what is called in my union “honorable withdrawal”.
anne laurie, betty cracker and others can reinvigorate and refocus the blog and continue john’s work.
Thor Heyerdahl
From the Grauniad Stephen King: why the US must introduce limited gun controls
karen marie
@MikeJ: Westlake was/is the best.
@VividBlueDotty
@efgoldman: I guess I got super lucky with my 2003 Hyundai Elantra. After nearly 10 years, over 100,000 miles with spotty maintenance (not bragging, just fessing up) I have replaced nothing but tires, battery (once) and bulbs.
Dee Loralei IPhone
@Redshift: very cool. We’ll need to share tips on this, getting activists elected without the Lodestar being on the ballot
Closeted epistemic (formerly Lojasmo)
@Mnemosyne:
Just remember, a front wheel car with snow tires is demonstrably better at both braking and turning than an AWD car with all season tires.
Unless you get snow tires on your subaru, you’d be better off with a cheaper FWD car with snow tires.
Subarus are nice cars, though.
ETA: Craptastic CVT unless you get a manual, also, too.
Closeted epistemic (formerly Lojasmo)
@Mnemosyne:
COMPARO VIDEO
aimai
@James E. Powell:
He is a dick. But he was like a Mannequin of what, in their hearts, Republicans like to think they look like and talk like. My personal feeling is that Lynch might even try to run as an Independent–if he can do that without renouncing his seat in Congress–and pick up the Scottie voters that way. He is a scary, skinny, agressively jerky white guy who plays the same “white ethnic” card that Boston Pols usually play but if another Scott Brown sprang up–good looking, from the burbs–he’d be toast.
japa21
@General Stuck: I didn’t listen to Levin’s rant, but the comments are downright scary. These are very sick people. One of the comments, speaking of Obama and the Dems was short and to the point:
And that was one of the milder ones.
J.
@jeffreyw: That is an awesome photo — complete with Balloon Juice mug!
LeftCoastTom
@Closeted epistemic (formerly Lojasmo):
If you drive in western mountains, FWD will usually require chains, 4WD/AWD with M+S (includes all season) usually will not.
4WD/AWD really helps when you’re going up steep hills w/ snow and ice.
LeftCoastTom
@Anne Laurie: Ah, OK. This does suggest that the panicked appeals for campaign money on behalf of Coakley that showed up on DKOS during the special election weren’t a good idea, not just because she was shitting the bed, but because outsiders had no good way of figuring out whether donations were likely to do any good.
Rex Everything
From “wicked” to “hella” in the same paragraph? Christ, AL, are you from Boston or Seattle, which is it?
Rosie Outlook
@Suzanne: Revlon Moon Drops is moisturizing and lasts about 4 hours on me. All mass market stores except Target these days will let you return makeup if it’s not the right shade. What I usually do is go to Nordstrom’s, find a shade I like, get a sample, then trot off to Walgreen’s or CVS and find the drugstore match.
Lancome’s lipstick lasts for about 6 hours, but it’s a bit dry . And, if you feel you must spend a lot of money rather than buying the Revlon, go to Sephora, the little store within a store at Penney’s, where you can test a zillion lipsticks.
As long as we’re on the subject, last fall the (very expensive) Nars company put out a pretty shade of lipstick called Autumn Leaves, which is an exact duplicate of Revlon Abstract Orange. (Revlon has been around way longer than Nars.)
grandpa john
@Mnemosyne: If you want something really compact, try a Smart car.