A President from Massachusettes? As if!

Gov. Mitt Romney from Massachusetts hoped to bring the Republican revolution to the state. He failed miserably, and may have hurt his political ambitions in the process:

In the only real election error made around these parts, Gov. Mitt Romney set the bar too high for his Republican candidates, misreading the politics of the state, the appetite of voters for sound bite "reforms" and the ability of first-time candidates to defeat established incumbents.

Many Republicans didn't even come close. Here in the State Senate district that covers Westborough, Rod Jané managed to garner only one-third of voters. In fact, one of the closest challengers in 2004 state legislative races was Democrat Katherine Clark, who secured 45 percent in Middlesex and Essex counties against 20-year incumbent Richard Tisei. This is not a good sign for the state GOP.

On these very pages before the election, I wrote that Romney had mistakenly "presumed that people would forget about health care, education, the state of our local economies and rising property taxes, and instead focus on the gimmicks he's made the mark of his tenure - taking on Billy Bulger, merging the Mass Highway Authority, boycotting Big Dig tape-cutting ceremonies, to name a few."

I painted a scenario that saw, "a governor weakened by an inability to meet the mark he set for himself and facing a resurgent Democratic Legislature - under the new management of Sen. Robert Travaglini and Rep. Sal diMasi - with a mandate to drive real reforms across the state."

The situation couldn't be worse for the governor. And since I'm batting 1.000, I'll make another prediction: Romney won't be around to run for governor in 2006.