The Red Shift

 

What's in the water in the Northeast?

 

It was one week ago today that a dark cloud was lifted from our nation, and now a bright new future lies ahead. I can't wait for this dynamic crew to get to work in January!  

 

Of course, Massachusetts was out of step with the rest of the nation. Yet, there was actually a very significant shift towards the Republican party in our state's election results. In fact, the Republican shift in Massachusetts was the second most dramatic in the nation. 

 

Some of the Republican victories in Mass were quite historic, as in Fall River, which went for the GOP for the first time since 1924, when Northampton's Calvin Coolidge was elected president exactly 100 years ago. 

 

 

Here in the Valley, Granville in Hampden County led the way with the highest Trump vote percentage at 61%. Wales, traditionally a GOP stronghold, was second with 60%. The lake town of Southwick was next with 59% and then Chester with 58%. The city of Palmer came through for Trump with a 55% win, as did the town of Hampden. Voters in Agawam and the increasingly right-leaning Ludlow gave the GOP 53% of their votes, while Trump was narrowly victorious in both Ware and Westfield with a 51% win. Trump also came in first in West Springfield, but without reaching fifty percent.

In down ballot races, the corrupt Democrat Party machines have pretty much destroyed democracy in our Valley, so it was no surprise that the stale, do-nothing cookie-cutter Democrats all won their seats, most without opposition. Happily, there were a few bright spots, such as Pease in Westfield and Boldyga is Southwick. 

So how did Governor Healey respond to the voter stampede to the Right in her state?

She promised to do everything she can to block President Trump from removing any of the tens of thousands of illegal aliens that have invaded the state during the Biden/Harris years from any attempt to capture and deport them. Of course her saying that on national television means that all the illegals currently squatting in states that will encourage their removal now know they should flee to the Bay State, where Healey has assured them they will be safe. 

I wonder how that will work out for Massachusetts in the coming year?

Sad but still true, Massachusetts in general, and the Pioneer Valley in particular, will never experience a real renaissance until a majority of our residents finally learn to vote a straight Republican ticket. 

 

Northampton by night by Scott Coen. 

 

 

Northampton by day by Jeff Ziff. 

 

I'm surprised and somewhat dismayed to see that two downtown Hamp businesses, Shelbourne Falls Coffee and Mexcalito Tacos, have closed. 

 

 

Mexcalito had great tacos, but their prices were high. Shelbourne Falls had the most expensive cup of coffee downtown, but it was a charming place to hang and I'm sorry to see it go. Word on the street is that they were driven out by rising rents, and if so, it wasn't the first time.   

In any case, The Springfield Republican doesn't seem to be too impressed by the current downtown scene. 

 

Springfield's Merriam-Webster appeared in this morning's Rhymes With Orange by the Pioneer Valley's Hillary Price.

Springfield's Barney Estate, before and after. 

All in the Family

 

 

I was taken aback a bit recently when reading that newsy ad-rag The Reminder and came upon the following paragraph in an article about congressional candidate Nadia Milleron (above). 

Mileron questioned Neal's use of his son's public relations firm, Brendon Neal Strategies, at a cost of $4,630 per month. While she acknowledged it was not illegal, she said Neal could be spending his campaign funds in a way that benefits his constituents. 

Neal pays his son $50,000 a year to come up with "strategies?" To do what? Figure out how to beat penniless fringe candidates like Nadia Milleron? In any case, people give Neal campaign money voluntarily, so he's free to spend it how he likes without regard to whether it is being spent in ways that "benefits his constituents." Campaign money by its very nature generally goes exclusively to help the candidate get elected. 

What I found interesting though is that I had never heard anything about this relationship between Neal and his strategizing son before. Surely this was a detail from the article that deserved further scrutiny. However, I had no hope that any additional information would be forthcoming.

It turns out that I was very much wrong about that, as a whole lot of additional details suddenly exploded on the site of the digital political magazine Politico.  If you want, you can read all the shady details right here.  Typically, it took our timid local media three days after the bombshell release of the Politico expose to finally acknowledge its revelations.

 

 

The sad truth is that this kind of all in the family feather nesting is a long ingrained feature of our Valley political culture. A drunken brother-in-law needs a job with strong union protection? A lazy daughter wants a nice payday to relax as a City Hall bureaucrat? A son desires a position for which he has no known qualifications?  With the right connections, anything is possible. There is never a shortage of such types to be found in Pioneer Valley politics, especially in Springfield. Even the sainted former Mayor Charlie Ryan was accused of using campaign funds to give his daughter a well paid do-nothing job in one of his campaigns, as referred to in The Diary of J. Wesley Miller:

(Legendary activist Eamon O'Sullivan) insists he won't run Charlie Ryan's office for him this year like he did in 1995 unless he gets paid. He said he was shocked when he looked at the campaign finance reports for Ryan's 95 campaign and saw that Ryan's daughter was getting $900 a week working for her dad. Joe Napolitan ran up nearly $50,000 in consulting fees and Darby O'Brien also got paid fifty grand to do public relations work. These people were almost never seen during the campaign, yet Eamon, who was in the office every day, was never offered a dime.

But if the nature of Neal's fiscal relationship with his son is no surprise to anyone who knows how things work in local politics, the fact that these issues arose at all is almost the most interesting aspect of the whole scandal. Who had the juice to push these allegations onto the pages of a national digital magazine? Neal's challenger Milleron certainly had the motive, but no way did she have the juice. 

Milleron is essentially a one issue candidate who has been crusading for air traffic safety reform ever since her daughter was tragically killed in a plane crash. In the past she has pursued Neal so doggedly on the issue that she told the Hampshire Gazette that when Neal "saw me in the halls of the legislature, he screamed at me and told me he needed a restraining order against me." However, on any other issue she doesn't really have a platform beyond some vague left-leaning platitudes. Perhaps most significantly, Milleron has no money with which to challenge Neal's multi-million dollar campaign chest. 

What I really would like to know is who alerted Milleron to Neal's financial relationship with his son? It happened before the Politico article came out, as I first saw the scandal hinted at in The Reminder more than a week before the Politico piece was released. So who took that story from a tiny tidbit in a little local paper into the national spotlight? Here's my guess:

There are young and ambitious people in Valley politics who have been chomping at the bit for years to run for Congress, only to be frustrated by Neal's overpowering incumbency. Neal's 2022 challenger, Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse, fell into that category before Neal slammed him into political oblivion with a landslide defeat caused in part by a sex scandal critics accused Neal himself of orchestrating.

There are at least a dozen credible political figures in the Valley who would be extremely interested in that seat if it ever became open. It could well be that one or more of them are tired of waiting patiently on the sidelines for Neal to decide to retire (something he shows no inclination to do) so maybe they attempted to give Neal a little push towards the door with the help of some media allies. 

But has the scandal had any meaningful political effect? I doubt it. Milleron will probably get a higher percentage on Election Day than she would have gotten before the scandal, but I predict it will be no where near enough to take Neal out. More ominous for Neal is the rampant rumors that congressional Republicans will call for an official House Ethics Probe into the allegations, which would blow up the scandal to a whole higher level. Thus far no congress-critter has actually done so, but even if they do, nothing would happen until safely after the election is over. 

 

Flashback to 2017 - Here's an old pic I came across, Richie Neal is in the corner under the word HORNS.

 

Meanwhile, photographer Dennis Fenton captured this fantastic fall photo of Van Horn Park. 

 Clever lighting has turned the monument to Springfield's Hungry Hill neighborhood into a goblin for Halloween. 

 

The UMass Minuteman is all set with his Halloween companions. 

 So is the UMass Blue Wall cafeteria. 

A band playing outside Northampton's Iconica.

 

 

They too have joined the No on Five crusade. 

Foolishly banned books on display in the Forbes Library. 

 

 Hey, buy some doors why don't ya?

 

 

 

No on Five

 

Flowers and a flag in downtown Northampton. 

 

 Be there or be square. 

 

 

All around Hamp are political messages such as this one on Jake's.

 

 

And across the street at the Hotel Hamp.

 

 

Outside a Florence pizza parlor. 

 

The widespread opposition on display at restaurants throughout our Valley to Question #5 is counter-intuitive. After all, the purpose of the question is to raise the minimum hourly pay for restaurant workers to the same rate as all workers. So why are they opposing a pay increase?

Primarily because it would put a lot of restaurants out of business. Even Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, who is otherwise wrong on virtually all issues, sees the danger of this initiative. Amazingly, the Guvnah was a waitress herself back when she was still living in her native state of New Hampshire:

 

Gov. Maura Healey said Wednesday she’s voting no on a ballot question that would change the pay structure for tipped employees out of concern it would lead to restaurant closures. It’s a stance the governor says is informed by both her conversations with restaurant industry personnel and her own experience waiting tables in her teens and 20s.

“I think it’s important to vote no on this because I think you run the risk of closing restaurants and putting these workers out of work, actually, because the restaurant owners I speak [to] are not going to be able to afford this and they’re going to end up laying off people,” Healey said during her monthly appearance on Boston Public Radio. “In some instances, some have told me they’re just going to shut down.”

In Massachusetts, where the standard state minimum wage is $15 an hour, businesses can pay their tipped employees a lower minimum wage of $6.75 an hour.... Healey said she waitressed “on and off” between the ages of 13 and 24, including morning shifts at a diner and time as a cocktail waitress at the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom in her home state of New Hampshire.

 

I hope Healey gave better service to her diner and bar customers than she now gives to the taxpayers! In any case she's right - what good is a pay raise if as a result you become unemployed? This foolish ballot question is a classic example of what happens when meddlesome do-gooders decide that they know what's best for the workers better than the workers do themselves.  

Peacers outside the courthouse. 

There was a beautiful rainbow over the UMass Haigis Mall this week.

 

 

Republicans are the bravest kids on campus. 

 

 

 Color busting out at the Springfield Library.  photo by r. carpenter. 

Basketball Hall of Fame honorees wrapped around the columns of City Hall.