Bay State Voters Not Happy With Patrick, Beacon Hill Corruptocrats

According to a new Rasmussen survey, Bay State voters are less than happy with the current crop of Corruptocrats, especially Governor Deval Patrick. Rasmussen has no dog in this fight, so the data is more trustworthy than others tainted by a connection to the The Globies:

When matched against Christy Mihos, the Democratic governor picks up 40% of the vote and trails the potential GOP nominee by a single point.

If Charlie Baker is the Republican nominee, Patrick’s support is little changed at 41% while Baker is favored by 36%. Baker is a health care chief executive officer who has not yet formally decided if he is entering the race.

In both match-ups, the number preferring “some other candidate” is in double digits, and roughly one-out-of-10 voters is undecided.

The fact that the numbers are so similar regardless of which Republican is mentioned suggest that the race so far is viewed as a referendum on the incumbent rather than a choice between competing alternatives.

Mihos ran an independent campaign in 2006 and picked up seven percent (7%) of the statewide vote. Patrick won the election with 56% of the vote while Republican Kerry Healey was the choice for 35% of voters.

Patrick has been plagued with poor job approval numbers in recent months. Currently, just 42% approve of the way he’s doing his job and 57% disapprove. Those figures include 11% who Strongly Approve at a time when 32% Strongly Disapprove.

Any incumbent with numbers like that is potentially vulnerable. So are incumbents who poll below 50% in early general election match-ups. Still, Massachusetts is a heavily Democratic state, and that will work in the governor’s favor.

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Patrick is far from the only politician struggling in the court of public opinion in the state. Seventy-one percent (71%) of Massachusetts voters say the state’s legislators deserve a pay cut. Fifty-one percent (51%) favor making the legislature a part-time job.

Just 26% of Massachusetts voters say the state’s health care reform effort, begun under Patrick’s predecessor as governor, Republic Mitt Romney, has been a success.

Patrick image: Boston Herald

The Felon’s Biggest Worry: Howie Carr!

Want to know what truly keeps WRKO’s morning felon Tom Finneran awake at night? It’s Howie Carr!

Thanks to a new court filing, the cows are officially out of the barn.

According to today’s Boston Herald, The Felon appears more worried about Howie Carr’s opinion of his punishment than virtually anything else:

“Here, we have a case where the evidence indicates that (Finneran) – a lawyer with an otherwise impeccable record for honesty and service to the commonwealth – had a moment of personal weakness,” attorney Arnold Rosenfeld contends in a document whose opening statement is a single, 172-word sentence.

And while he’s not mentioned by name, Finneran, who hosts a morning talk show on WRKO-AM (680), appears to implore the SJC to ignore the “ignorant criticisms” of Herald columnist and fellow ’RKO talkmeister Howie Carr when factoring in the public’s anticipated reaction to whether the disgraced pol gets the boot or the kid-gloves treatment.

“Whatever discipline the court imposes on (Finneran) is going to be criticized by those in the media who claim to represent public opinion, but who, in reality, regularly ignore the true facts of any situation and insult anyone and everyone,” Rosenfeld rails.

Tom Finneran: the Bay State’s official basketcase.

Felon image: Patrick Whittemore – Boston-Herald

One Morbid Day (Updated)

*** NEW AT EQ: Leftists Complain About Jackson Coverage, But See Smear Potential ***

**** ATTENTION WRKO MANAGERIAL NUMSKULLS: DUMP THE SOX PREGAME SHOW AND GO WITH A NETWORK FEED ON THE JACKSON DEATH! DO WE REALLY NEED TO EXPLAIN WHY? IF WE DO, IT’S TIME TO FIND A NEW CAREER. ***

Though I’ve never been a big fan of Howie Carr’s death pool, there are days like today when it pays off. In a morbid sense, that is.

Now, with Michael Jackson’s passing coming right during his program, it’s all death, all the time. The Irish sport pages, live and on the air.

Actually caught Howie wondering out loud whether Farrah Fawcett’s passing could be milked for one more segment, but I’m guessing The Gloved One put that dilemma to rest.

UPDATE: some media outlets are holding off for now on reporting Jackson’s death.

UPDATE: TMZ had it right all along- some networks were led astray by reports that he had gone into a coma. It now appears he was dead from the time paramedics arrived. Live BBC coverage is available here.

UPDATE: The Globies report some Boston-area stations have switched to Jackson songs in remembrance of the King of Pop.

Radio’s Lost Decade

Where does talk radio stand versus 10 or 12 years ago? After cleaning out some old files in recent days, I’ve been thinking about that quite a bit.

With many boxes to sort through, I’ve barely begun, but have already uncovered some radio-related items of interest. There are several talk radio convention attendee directories from the 1990s, for example.

What an eye-opener: most no longer work in radio. My best guess is that 80% or more (it could be 90%, but I want to allow more wiggle room) of these people have been squeezed out of the business by the executives who’ve ruined it, possibly forever. Others have passed away or moved on to something else. Many of the firms that employed them no longer exist.

Included in one box was a dinner program from the 1997 National Association of Radio Talk Show Hosts (NARTSH) convention held in Los Angeles. The late David Brudnoy (above image, apparently from a publicity photo) accepted an award and delivered a speech. I remember Jerry Williams keynoting another event, though I don’t believe it was during that particular convention. NARTSH was based in Boston but folded long ago.

The question: is radio better off without all of these people? In most cases, definitely NOT. Local talk was a lot stronger then and generated community buzz. Then, the path for hosts was to develop skills in small markets and move up to big cities when ready. But they were the first to be cut, all in the name of preserving top-heavy management.

Talk radio is strong today because a few very powerful syndicated voices dominate the medium. They’re carrying the rest of the industry.

Beyond that, there’s almost no bench. Time slots are now sometimes purchased by firms looking to distribute poor-quality programming.

Many of the remaining local hosts aren’t particularly good, but are willing to work cheap or have achieved some notoriety outside of the medium.

What a mess.

We Can And Must Do Better

Yes, if you’re a talk radio host, it’s great to have knuckleheads like Barney Frank and John Kerry nearby. But for the rest of us, their antics continue to reinforce negative views many Americans hold of Massachusetts and its citizens.

— Frank has actually gone back to advocating the very lending practices that caused the housing meltdown now playing in a global economy near you. From today’s Wall Street Journal:

Back when the housing mania was taking off, Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank famously said he wanted Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to “roll the dice” in the name of affordable housing. That didn’t turn out so well, but Mr. Frank has since only accumulated more power. And now he is returning to the scene of the calamity — with your money. He and New York Representative Anthony Weiner have sent a letter to the heads of Fannie and Freddie exhorting them to lower lending standards for condo buyers.

You read that right. After two years of telling us how lax lending standards drove up the market and led to loans that should never have been made, Mr. Frank wants Fannie and Freddie to take more risk in condo developments with high percentages of unsold units, high delinquency rates or high concentrations of ownership within the development.

Fannie and Freddie have restricted loans to condo buyers in these situations because they represent a red flag that the developments — many of which were planned and built at the height of the housing bubble — may face financial trouble down the road. But never mind all that. Messrs. Frank and Weiner think, in all their wisdom and years of experience underwriting mortgages, that the new rules “may be too onerous.”

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Fannie and Freddie have already lost tens of billions of dollars betting on the mortgage market — with that bill being handed to taxpayers. They face still more losses going forward, because in the wake of their nationalization last year their new “mission” has become to do whatever it takes to prop up the housing market. The last thing they need is lawmakers like Mr. Frank, who did so much to lay the groundwork for their collapse, telling them to play faster and looser with their lending standards.

— Maintaining his mean-spirited reputation, Kerry has made another “botched joke”, this time about Sarah Palin:

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. John Kerry must have been channeling his inner Letterman yesterday.

The Bay State senator was telling a group of business and civic leaders in town at his invitation about the “bizarre’’ tale of how South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford had “disappeared for four days’’ and claimed to be hiking along the Appalachian Trail, but no one was really certain of his whereabouts.

“Too bad,’’ Kerry said, “if a governor had to go missing it couldn’t have been the governor of Alaska. You know, Sarah Palin.’’

When Kerry and Frank make fools of themselves, we all look silly by extension. After all, Bay State voters continue to send these twits back to Washington. Why can’t we do better than this?

Imus, Kerry Pretend To Be Adversarial

It’s hard to argue with the cause: fighting prostate cancer. For Don Imus and John Kerry to pretend they’ve had an adversarial relationship, however, is just plain silly.

In Sunday’s Boston Globe, the decrepit talk fossil and snobbish Massachusetts Democrat co-authored an Op-Ed piece on the cancer fight, but led off with this historical rewrite:

WE’VE SPENT 15 years beating each other up on the air. But when the studio doors closed and that red light went off, we both had to confront far tougher words: prostate cancer. We both read the deadly statistics: 28,000 American men lost each year to this disease.

This “two longtime foes coming together to fight cancer” routine fails to mention that Imus endorsed Kerry on the air during the 2004 presidential campaign. Since then, Kerry has enjoyed regular appearances on Imus’s show, with no sign of “beating each other up” or anything tougher than pure fluff.

It’s been years since Don Imus was anything more than a boring establishment suck-up. His program is a great way to anchor a station that aspires to nothing more than 14th place in the local ratings, but otherwise, Imus is long past his sell-by date. No wonder he gets along so well with John Kerry!

Morning Joe’s Attacking-From-Within Approach Fails

Over at the Radio Equalizer, see how “Morning Joe” Scarborough’s “I’m a reasonable moderate in a sea of nasty right-wingers” approach has failed miserably when it comes to ratings and book sales.

Prosecutors Drop Charges Against Michael Graham

My guess: prosecutors realized the license foul-up that caused WTKK host Michael Graham to be arrested was actually the RMV’s fault (isn’t it almost always?), leaving them no reason to push the matter further.

More importantly, the prospect of allowing a radio talk show host to create a courtroom circus as part of an ongoing public crusade against the bloated, incompetent state agency probably didn’t appeal to the DA’s office.

From the Boston Herald:

“The criminal case may be done, but I’m not done fighting,” said Graham, who hosts a midmorning show on WTKK-FM (96.9). “My goal is the same – changing the policy so that more people aren’t stuck on the side of the road who did nothing wrong.”

Graham, also an op-ed Herald columnist, was arrested in Framingham in February for running a red light and driving with a revoked license. Graham said he didn’t know his license had been yanked because the Registry of Motor Vehicles doesn’t notify drivers after their licenses are pulled.

Registrar Rachel Kaprielian had sent Graham a letter in October saying she planned to suspend his license in 30 days unless he cleared up a car insurance violation in Virginia, where his license already had been revoked.

Boston Ratings Released: Another Brutal Month

With Boston now enjoying monthly radio ratings data that really counts, thanks to Portable People Meter (PPM) technology (which Obama laughingly opposes), we’ve never had a clearer picture of the true audience.

But PPM hasn’t been as kind to Boston talk radio as it has in other cities and today’s release of May data confirms the trend:

— WBZ is simply no longer the number one station in Boston. For May, it has taken third overall, behind WXKS-FM and WMJX-FM.

— With Sox games still foolishly split between it and WRKO, WEEI manages only seventh place, with a 5.1 share. Gone are the days when WEEI took first place heading into the summer.

— Tied for eighth with 5.0 is WRKO, which is an improvement from April’s 4.5, but flat with March.

— And in what might finally shake complacent suits at Greater Media, WTKK-FM could only muster 14th place. With a 3.3 share, WTKK’s ratings have fallen like a rock since last fall, when it had a more comfortable 4.1.

Let me guess: it’s all being passed off as a month without Severin. Always great to have an excuse, isn’t it?

Hack Holiday Battle Misses The Big Picture

In recent days, we’ve seen rapidly-rising anti-Beacon Hill anger channeled into a broad crusade against “hack holidays”, those quirky days off given mostly to public sector workers (especially in Suffolk County).

(Democratic State Rep Brian Wallace – Mark Garfinkel, Boston Herald)

After a lengthy, lonely war against Evacuation Day (St Patrick’s Day) and Bunker Hill Day (17 June) as government holidays, Howie Carr has now seen many others jump on the bandwagon. That’s clearly the result of a popular backlash against massive legislative corruption.

Heck, even the beleaguered Globies got into the act this year, not before explaining how a few other states also have strange holidays, however. But to any outsider, the number of vay-cay days here is truly astounding.

Predictably, Howie is crowing over all of the new attention paid to the cause. Nothing like having the news cycle wrapped around your finger!

What about the bigger picture, however? We might win the comparatively insignificant battle against two hack holidays, but the corruptocrats on Beacon Hill will still be laughing all the way to the bank. That’s because few are left to fight the “done deal” that will result in a 25% sales tax increase and an outflow of retail sales to New Hampshire and elsewhere.

Try explaining the “it’s hopeless” argument to Californian voters, who recently rejected a huge package of tax-and-spend initiatives pushed by Sacramento’s ruling class. The measures failed even in normally-kooky San Francisco. Why are we afraid of tackling the most significant issues?