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ENVIRONMENT: The Boston Water and Sewer Commission is offering grants to homeowners of up to $8,000 to fund installation of “green roofs” that help reduce stormwater runoff and can also provide some insulation against summer heat. But the program has, to date, seen few takers, as Tavishi Chattopadhyay and David Abel explain. |
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By CommonWealth Beacon Staff |
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“Massachusetts Republicans’ numbers are dwindling, both in the state’s power structure, and in the rank-and-file party enrollment rosters. And lately, as the national Republican Party has tacked to the right, local Democrats have been making hay by ignoring whichever candidate the Massachusetts GOP throws against them, and simply dialing up generic attacks on the Republican brand.” |
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That seems to describe pretty well the challenging landscape facing SLOW ZONE Brian Shortsleeve and MAGA TRUMPER Mike Kennealy, the two Republicans vying for the right to go up against Gov. Maura Healey next fall. In fact, it comes from a CommonWealth article written 11 years ago – this week’s “Flashback Friday” dive into the archives. |
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In “Threading the needle,” which appeared in the magazine’s Spring 2014 issue, Paul McMorrow sized up the approach being taken by another Republican gubernatorial hopeful, this one back for a second bite at the apple after taking a drubbing four years earlier in his first run for the corner office. |
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As McMorrow vividly captured, this was not the Charlie Baker of 2010 – the angry guy who seemed to be drafting on the surge of tea party venom that, earlier that year, had improbably carried a little-known GOP state lawmaker into the US Senate seat once held by Ted Kennedy. |
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The 2014 Charlie Baker was kinder, gentler, and, frankly, more boring – if that’s a way to describe a focus on basic bread-and-butter issues that matter to people but don’t inflame ideological passions. “Baker is running a campaign that’s heavy on crossover issues that don’t have a Republican or Democratic solution. He’s trying to win independents and Democrats to his cause by floating above his party,” wrote McMorrow. |
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Baker told him that Republicans win in Massachusetts by “making the case on things that people care about: jobs, the economy, schools, the achievement gap. Those aren’t Democratic or Republican issues. They’re a platform on which to build a great state, and a great life.” |
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We know, of course, how the story ended. Baker eked out a narrow victory that year over Attorney General Martha Coakley before going on to win a second term four years later in a landslide. |
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What’s remarkable about the sizing up of the GOP challenge in 2014, with a national Republican brand that had turned toxic in deep blue Massachusetts, is that this all predated the arrival on the scene of Donald Trump. |
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As they vie for the GOP nomination, Shortsleeve and Kennealy have been offering up plenty of red-meat Republican jabs at Healey over issues like immigration and public safety. But history suggests the Baker playbook might be a pretty good general election model for whoever emerges as the Republican nominee – complete with all the backslapping and bad jokes Baker brought to traditionally Democratic venues like a Charlestown St. Patrick’s Day banquet, which forms the great opening scene in McMorrow’s story. |
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More from CommonWealth Beacon |
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DAY IN GENERAL COURT: State lawmakers announced a plan Wednesday to boost pay for the private defense lawyers who stopped taking new court-appointed cases more than two months ago over pay rates. But some dissatisfied attorneys quickly slammed the take-it-or-leave-it proposal as insufficient. Chris Lisinski of the State House News Service has more. |
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TRUMP’S MIXED MESSAGE: Even as housing advocates and developers alike cheered expansion of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit in the big tax and spending bill President Trump signed on July 4, it demonstrates a split-brain approach to affordable housing from the Trump administration, which is also trying to reduce rental assistance funding. Jennifer Smith has more. |
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This week on The Codcast, CommonWealth Beacon reporter Jennifer Smith and Todd Kaplan, senior attorney at Greater Boston Legal Services, set the stage for a new law changing the way broker’s fees in Massachusetts have been handled for the past decade. Starting August 1, the balance is meant to shift away from the renters and towards landlords when the property owner insists on a broker’s services. |
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ENVIRONMENT: Massachusetts environmental advocates are condemning a move by Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin to remove the overarching federal rule that allows for regulation of planet-warming emissions. (WBUR) |
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ELECTIONS: With three weeks until the deadline for submitting nomination papers, New Bedford is seeing a surge of interest among potential candidates for municipal offices. (New Bedford Light) |
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POLITICS: The US Department of Justice sent a letter to Secretary of State Bill Galvin last week, requesting a list of the state’s registered voters and other information for the agency’s Office of Civil Right’s probe of state election policies. (The Eagle-Tribune – paywall) |
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MUNICIPAL MATTERS: Plymouth is considering a $34 million plan to save the century-old Memorial Hall, which will have to be shut down within two years if action isn’t taken to repair serious structural flaws. (Plymouth Independent) |
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