For a guy who was Administration & Finance Secretary for four years, Charlie Baker’s not so good with numbers.
Witness his latest TV spot in the Massachusetts governor’s race.
Did you get that?
21,000 Massachusetts jobs lost last month alone. The greatest jobs loss in 20 years. Enough to empty most of Fenway.
The visual: An aerial shot of Fenway Park with the crowd wiped from left (field) to right.
Only problem: Depending on your source, the official capacity of the Lyric Little Bandbox is 37,373 or 37,402 or 38,805 or 39,928.
Even taking the lowest number, 21,000 is 56% of capacity. Hardly “most of Fenway.”
Is this the worst distortion Baker has foisted on the Bay State public during the last 15 months?
Absolutely not.
But it might be the most insulting.
Campaign Outsider 
Hmmm. I’m certainly no fan of Baker, and less so of his campaign, but most usages of “most” I’m familiar with mean “greater than half”. So how is 56% “hardly ‘most'”?
(I’d agree if Baker had said “almost all” instead of “most”, but he didn’t.)
I dunno, Steve. I’ve always taken most to be “almost all.” Not “barely more than half.” But that’s just me.
Technically correct. Right now you could empty Fenway if Massachusetts lost something like a dozen jobs. There will be 82 times next year when there will be more than 21,000 people in Fenway, but at some point just before and just after each game there will be exactly 21,000 people in the stadium; it’s a mathematical certainty. That’s 164 times a year. And Baker is only claiming that Fenway will be emptied once–he’s being far too modest!
PS: If you think this is the silliest argument you’ve heard recently, you haven’t been watching enough campaign commercials.