1980 General Election Map - Blue for Republican - image via screenshot: US Election Atlas. org - see 1984 at bottom of article
The major storm that has shut down much of the east coast has left the majority of Massachusetts unscathed – Western Massachusetts which had been hit hardest last October by a freak snowstorm, saw little power outage. Meanwhile Tech Crunch has reported that a server hosting major blogs: Huffington Post, Buzzfeed and Gawker, have gone down due to a flooded basement in a building where their server is hosted (HT: , James World at Wordpress) In the final week prior to the national election, the anti-Romney “articles” coming out of Huffington Post, specifically ”As Governor, Mitt Romney Was Slow To Respond to Disasters in His State”, with a small summary suggesting that “some of the state’s local politicians” said this was the case. One has to take the Huffington Post, a blog, with a huge grain of salt. During Romney’s tenure as Governor, there was indeed natural disasters, of course, it depends on how one addresses each scenario as it unfolds – Romney preferred readiness and Massachusetts had one of FEMA’s highest ratings for preparedness under Romney’s stewardship of the Commonwealth. That said, with Massachusetts Politician’s being mainly Democrat, one might not have to go far to find one who might “stretch the truth” a bit in order to get a “jab” in for Incumbent President Barack Obama.
Those same politicians’ may have their hands full in this effort. Local and Cable media in Western Massachusetts ran political ads across most networks noting specifically citing the woes of the country and President Obama, while not directly naming Mitt Romney as an alternative, the messages were quite clear. There are two running from one pro-Romney PAC in several New England States, Including Massachusetts according to a Boston Globe article six days agohowever, this blogger, taking a break from the weather channel, flipped over to watch the popular drama, “Revolution” , to find several ads running that, although did not specifically mention Mitt Romney, the message was quite clear there need to be a change in leadership. As of this point, the advertisements (there were two of them, one tax related, one debt related) could not be found in a YouTube search. ) Western Massachustts television stations, may be picked up in New Hampshire, but, it is more likely the Boston affiliates would do a better job of reaching that “swing state”. The point, there may be a majority of Democrat identified politician’s, but the electorate in MA has a 51% plus majority of unenrolleds, often making the Blue State a surprise as far as statewide and national elections are concerned. The buy referred to by the Globe, (one of the few newspapers in the Bay State who endorsed the President over Mitt Romney), may or may not have included that particular ad, but it is doubtful, only because it does not mention Romney as an alternative. Therefore, the 10 electoral votes and the popular vote which are a given to any Democrat, no matter the decade, may be in need of being protected. In 1980 Jimmy Carter was remiss in protecting a state that was “safe democrat”, which Reagan took in both the 1980 and 1984 elections. That may have been an anomaly, however, the mood on the ground see Democrats up to their eyeballs in the Warren Brown race – which is now, according to polls, tied. They are not, in any way, paying attention to the state that rarely sees a visit, let alone television spots for major candidates. With the exception of ads run during the 2008 primary challenge and the 2008 campaign when cash was no object, there are rarely national ads run in the Massachusetts Markets, especially Western Massachusetts, where on might not except to find a conservative.
Those Massachusetts residents watching popular programming and the 11 PM newscast (with the exception of the 200,000 or so residents without power.) were watching thoughtful, non-aggressive, ads that just made one think.
It may have no effect at all, but those unenrolled voters that make up the majority in Massachusetts, might be worth targeting – and someone may just have figured that out.
1984 General Election Map of Massachusetts - image screenshot from USElectionAtlas.org>
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