The Incredible Shrinking Massachusetts Electorate

The special election for U.S. Senate we had this week was so uninspiring that I resorted to voting the way I do in city council elections, by computing which candidate lives closest to me. The theory is that a councilor who lives closer will be more likely driving over the same potholes as you and therefore more likely to get those potholes fixed. There are a couple of obvious flaws in that theory, of course.



So how did the election turn out? Hardly anyone turned out. So few people voted for the two party candidates, only 1,168,068 combined in our state of 6,646,144 people, that the total would not have won any of the U.S. Senate elections in the last 30 years, including the special election in January 2010.

Year	Massachusetts U.S. Senate races	Democratic votes	Republican votes	Democratic margin
2013	Markey v. Gomez	642,988	525,080	10.1%
2012	Warren v. Brown	1,696,346	1,458,048	7.6%
2010	Coakley v. Brown	1,058,682	1,168,107	-4.9%
2008	Kerry v. Beatty	1,959,843	922,727	36.0%
2006	Kennedy v. Chase	1,500,738	661,532	38.8%
2002	Kerry v. Cloud (L)	1,605,976	369,807	62.6%
2000	Kennedy v. Robinson	1,889,494	334,341	69.9%
1996	Kerry v. Weld	1,334,135	1,143,120	7.7%
1994	Kennedy v. Romney	1,265,997	894,000	17.2%
1990	Kerry v. Rappaport	1,321,712	992,917	14.2%
1988	Kennedy v. Malone	1,693,344	884,267	31.4%
1984	Kerry v. Shamie	1,393,150	1,136,913	10.1%
1982	Kennedy v. Shamie	1,247,084	784,602	22.8%
	Massachusetts Governor races
2010	Patrick v. Baker	1,108,404	962,848	7.0%
2006	Patrick v. Healy	1,234,984	784,342	22.3%
2002	O'Brien v. Romney	985,981	1,091,988	-5.1%
1998	Harshbarger v. Celluci	901,843	967,160	-3.5%
1996	Roosevelt v. Weld	611,650	1,533,390	-43.0%
1990	Silber v. Weld	1,099,878	1,175,817	-3.3%
1986	Dukakis v. Kariotis	1,157,786	525,364	37.6%
1982	Dukakis v. King	631,911	549,335	7.0%

The drop in voting is so precipitous we may have found the new formula the U.S. Supreme Court says is needed for the Voting Rights Act.

What does this mean for Massachusetts politics? Well, first we will have another special election to fill the House seat of winner Congressman Ed Markey, and unfortunately I live in his district, so that's another trip to the polling precinct at the Cambridge Armory over the same potholed roads that aren't getting fixed.

Then we will have the 2014 elections, where there will be open race for Governor, assuming Deval Patrick retires after two terms or gets appointed to replace Eric Holder in the Obama Cabinet, while Ed Markey defends his new U.S. Senate seat. That will be a non-Presidential election year.

It may be time for the Republican Party to close up shop in Massachusetts, which would open the door for a third party to become a second party. As things stand, our idea of two party politics has come down to Italian Democrats v. Irish Democrats. I am neither, but tend to favor the Italians.

Occasionally we elect a Republican to broker the disputes between the Italians and the Irish, but that's really necessary in the state house on Beacon Hill, not in Washington, DC, so the Republicans have taken some really bad beats in some of those U.S. Senate races.

Governor Bill Weld, my all-time favorite Massachusetts politician wasn't really a Republican, or to be more precise was a Republican of the old libertarian school. The national Republicans hated him, and even went so far to block him from getting an Ambassadorship to Mexico because he might have once smoked a joint at a wedding weekend party. That block was supposed to help us win the War on Drugs, but very obviously didn't if you've followed what has been going on over the last decade in Mexico.

But, let's face it, the national Republicans hate Massachusetts, and what's the point of voting for a party that hates you. Even Mitt Romney, who was governor of this state, was forced to repeatedly diss us before the Republicans would give him the Presidential nomination in 2012. Really, what's the point?

That brings us to the Libertarians. Carla Howell polled 308,860 votes in 2000 on the Libertarian Party ticket, almost as many as the official Republican candidate Jack Robinson. In 2002, the Libertarian candidate Michael Cloud polled more than both of them. But the Republican voter base won't vote Libertarian, because they seem to think they have some chance of winning they really don't. And it's true that there is a crackpot factor when it comes to Libertarian candidates that has become part of the big-L Libertarian brand.

The Green-Rainbow Party has also fizzled in its attempts to break through. Jill Stein got 353,551 votes in her 2006 race for Massachusetts Secretary of State but only 32,816 votes in her 2010 run for Massachusetts Governor and 20,691 in Massachusetts in her 2012 run for President.

The good candidates who want to challenge the Democratic stranglehold should run as Independents.

So, for example, Scott Brown, who polled enough votes in 2012 to have won 7 out of the last 13 U.S. Senate elections, could simply announce that he has had it with both the Democrats and Republicans in Washington, DC. and run for U.S. Senate in 2014 as an Independent.

Also, it looks like Martha Coakley, my least favorite/most hated Massachusetts politician, may run for Governor in 2014 as the Irish Democrat. The Italian Democrats don't seem to have anyone yet, Mike Capuano being half-Irish, so I may have no one to vote for. But former Governor Bill Weld, who recently moved back to Massachusetts and bought a place in the Back Bay, could announce he is running as an Independent.

Year	U.S. Senate and Governor races	Democratic votes	Independent votes	Democratic margin
2014	Markey v. Brown	642,988	1,458,048	-38.8%
2014	Coakley v. Weld	1,058,682	1,533,390	-18.3%

Now that would be an interesting election.