Black Lungs And Inconvenience Stores In The Bay State

Posted on May 14, 2010 by Campaign Outsider

Thursday’s Boston Globe reported that Massachusetts wants to “force stores to post graphic signs vs. smoking.”

Such as the one to the left, which appears in New York City stores.

The signs are modeled on a nothing-left-to-the-imagination campaign in New York City, where signs showing the health effects of smoking began sprouting in 11,500 shops last December. Massachusetts health authorities provided copies of the New York City posters as an illustration of what their campaign will look like.

Discuss among yourselves whether this is all well and good, but note the penalty for defying the proposed state mandate:

Retailers who refuse to display the signs within 2 feet of tobacco displays and cash registers could face fines of $100 to $300.

Great, except is that $100 to $300 a day? A month? A year? A lifetime?

Makes a difference, no?

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Boston Globe Un-Unlikes Martha

Posted on May 14, 2010 by Campaign Outsider

Post in haste, repent at leisure.

The hardworking staff’s rare midday post on Thursday, which detailed New York Times op-ed bridesmaid Gail Collins’ drive-by snarking of Martha Coakley, went up before we caught that day’s Boston Globe Coakley-palooza.

Page One headline about Martha’s Mulligan Tour:

Unopposed Coakley goes all out
Does the meet, greet she’d been accused of shunning

Yeah but graf:

She remains stung by the impression that many voters formed during her Senate campaign — that she was aloof, that she took them for granted, and that she didn’t want it badly enough.

But wait – there’s more. Globe op-ed columnist Joan Vennochi also jumped on the Coakley Express Thursday, albeit in a less upbeat fashion.

Headline:

For Coakley, a lonely reinvention

Vennochi’s yeah but graf:

She was lampooned on “Saturday Night Live’’ and ripped apart in post-mortems that used words like complacency, entitlement, and incompetence to describe her failed strategy. Hell hath no fury like a political party scorned by the electorate. Massachusetts Democrats are still bitter over the GOP win and they still blame Coakley for running a poor campaign.

But never accused her of being “unpleasant.”

Gail Collins, take note.

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Gail Unlikes Martha

Posted on May 13, 2010 by Campaign Outsider

New York Times op-ed bridesmaid Gail Collins takes a whack at Arlen Specter in today’s piece, which explores the limits of Barack Obama’s support for the embattled born-again Democrat.

The president appreciated Specter’s help in shoving the stimulus bill over the finish line last year, when the senator was still a Republican. And he really did love the fact that Specter’s party switch gave the Democrats what would turn out to be a very temporary 60th vote in the Senate. But he is not so grateful that he is going to go to Pennsylvania to campaign for him and risk adding yet another political carcass to the list of uncharming Democrats who went down the drain while clinging to his coattails.

Collins then does a little drive-by snarking on a couple of other pols.

(Martha Coakley, Jon Corzine, Arlen Specter. What’s with all these unpleasant people running for office? I have a very clear memory of politicians as lovable rogues. Or at least reasonably affable rogues.)

Lord knows Coakley verbified herself with that stinker of a race against now-Sen. Scott Brown (R-Scott Brown). But “unpleasant?” I dunno.

Maybe we should have a Facebook faceoff between Gail and Martha. Let’s check the numbers:

Martha Coakley Facebook page: 4980 friends, 15,489 like her profile.

Gail Collins Facebook page: No friends listed, 2203 like her profile.

Sometimes it’s the truth that’s unpleasant.

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MyCrawl

Posted on May 13, 2010 by Campaign Outsider

Consumer technology these days is the Incredible Ego Machine.

Exhibit I:

Sony Bets on a Countertop View of the Web

From the WSJ review by Katherine Boehret:

This week, I tested a product that represents Sony’s attempt to wade into a new category: the $200 Dash (sony.com/dash). This gadget, labeled by the company as a Personal Internet Viewer, is like a digital photo frame on steroids. It’s meant to run in the background of your life, cycling through on-screen data, slide-show style, while sitting on a kitchen counter, desk or nightstand.

Sort of like the crawl across the bottom of the screen on ESPN, CNN, or NECN.

Except the Sony version is MECN.

Huh. That’s pathetic.

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Heartache Bruin

Posted on May 13, 2010 by Campaign Outsider

Is it just me, or have the Boston Bruins been only about 80% there in the last three games?

Over that span, the Philadelphia Flyers have outplayed the Bruins in every aspect of the game – you know the litany: taking the body, strong on the puck and et cetera – but especially in intensity and focus.

(Philadelphia Inquirer Game 6 victory lap here.)

Yes, Tuukka Rask stopped a penalty shot around the 14:00 mark. And yes, the Bruins – finally! – scored around the 19:00 mark.

But tell us, hockeyheads: Should Tim Thomas start Friday’s game?

Regardless, Campaign Outsider Official Prediction™: The B’s lose Game 7.

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King James Bobble

Posted on May 12, 2010 by Campaign Outsider

The Cavaliers really spit the bit last night, eh?

(In related playoff news, someone absolutely should’ve invoked the mercy rule in the Chicago Blackhawks 5-1 elimination drubbing of the Vancouver Canuckleheads.)

Full disclosure: I didn’t see the whole Celts-Cavs Game 5, but every time I checked in, Cleveland looked more like Leaveland.

That would apply to the whole team, but especially to LeBron (3 for 14 from the field) James, who likely has played his last game in Burn On Big Rivertown.

New York Times take:

If this was goodbye, it lacked any sentiment, affinity or warmth. If LeBron James is destined to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers, he will have departed in a fog of disappointment, to a shocking chorus of boos.

But to a welcoming chorus of huzzahs elsewhere, as this week’s New York magazine cover attests:

Then again, given his – maybe – (dying) swan song in Cleveland, you gotta wonder whether the King James Bubble has burst.

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Matthew Gilbert Intervention

Posted on May 11, 2010 by Campaign Outsider

I yield to no man in my admiration of Boston Globe television critic Matthew Gilbert, whose reviews I have disagreed with exactly once – when he called the British version of “Life on Mars” protagonist Sam Tyler, as I recall, “weasely.”

(Can’t find the link – search for yourself.)

But Gilbert’s review of this past weekend’s Betty White episode of “Saturday Night Live” has me very concerned.

Lede:

The weekend’s “Saturday Night Live’’ was the most consistently good episode of the series in years. Ooh, what a little Betty White can do. And guest visits from Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Ana Gasteyer, Maya Rudolph, Rachel Dratch, and Molly Shannon didn’t hurt, either. Every sketch was funny and had forward momentum — qualities that are generally missing on the show these days. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t want an episode of “SNL’’ to end.

Outside of White’s monologue, the SNL show struck me as crude and puerile, especially the “muffin” skit, which was absolutely toe-curling, as my former colleague Emily Rooney might say.

Matthew, I beg you, get some help.

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Carlo Rotella Is A Comer

Posted on May 11, 2010 by Campaign Outsider

Nice piece about pride-of-Chelsea heavyweight champ John Ruiz by guest columnist Carlo Rotella in Monday’s Boston Globe.

Representative sample:

Even hardcore Boston sports fans didn’t take much notice of him. Boxing isn’t as popular now as it was in the days of Rocky Marciano or even of Marvin Hagler, but Ruiz, who was never a big talker or a thrilling give-and-take puncher, was particularly unequipped to seize the attention he deserved from his hometown. It would have helped if his name was McRuiz or Ruizetti, but even that might not have done it.

It’s hard to explain Ruiz’s virtues to people who don’t care about boxing, and even to many who do. Few noticed that he was stronger, better trained, and tougher than almost everyone he fought. His sturdy, smooth-muscled body didn’t have the blown-up bodybuilder look commonly associated with heroic strength, and he didn’t knock opponents into next week. More than anything, he was stubborn. Exercising a terrible workmanlike patience in the ring, grinding and banging and shoving and hauling, he wore down an impressive roster of more spectacularly gifted fighters who were typically favored to beat him.

Nice.

Rotella, director of American Studies at Boston College, is also currently producing standout commentaries for WGBH radio.

This guy’s good. Keep an eye on him.

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Homonym o’ the Day®

Posted on May 11, 2010 by Campaign Outsider

From Monday’s Wall Street Journal report about the purging of three-term Utah Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Tea Bagged):

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine said the ouster shows the GOP has “handed the reigns to the tea party”

Whaddaya think? Queen of England? King of Sweden?

Your monarch goes here.

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It’s Good To Live In A Two-Newspaper Town (U.S. Census Edition)

Posted on May 10, 2010 by Campaign Outsider

Saturday Boston Globe: Nothing about the 2010 U.S. Census.

Saturday Boston Herald: Something about the 2010 U.S. Census.

Lede:

The feds spent millions to convince citizens that participating in the Census was as American as apple pie – but many of the T-shirts, hats, bags and other swag they handed out during the campaign were actually made overseas, the Herald has learned.

Graphic:

Enter Massachusetts Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Stephen Lynch). Sunday Boston Herald headline:

Rep. Stephen Lynch seeing red over China swag

Lede:

An outraged Massachusetts lawmaker is calling for a congressional probe of the federal government’s purchase of foreign-made census propaganda with taxpayer cash, the Herald has learned.

U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-S. Boston) is requesting an investigation into the spending by the U.S. Census Bureau on the heels of a Herald report revealing that census swag including hats, T-shirts, toys and other trinkets were made in China and Honduras.

Not to get technical about it, but doesn’t the Herald mean “foreign-made census paraphernalia?”

Regardless, a big Campaign Outsider round of applause for Stephen Lynch, our Department of Opportunism Solon of the Month.

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