Here in Massachusetts, support for Governor Patrick is seen as an expression of loyalty to President Obama. (Patrick campaigned widely for the Obama in the 2008 campaign.) But the fact is that Patrick has been a flop from the moment he entered the State House. Then it was mostly symbolics. Since then, it has been real politics. Over gambling, over highways and by-ways, over budgets and over a series of sleazy appointments to offices that have not been filled for years and have no function. This is Massachusetts, after all.
The common talk is that Obama will rescue his friend and appoint him to something. In the last week or so, some people have even raised the prospect of Patrick being designated for the Supreme Court. Then there would be two undeserving black justices, one Republican, one Democratic. Don't worry it won't happen.
What occasions these grim observations is an article in today's Globe (yes, it has survived, for now, at least). "Patrick wants union givebacks," reads the headline on a front-page dispatch reporting that the governor had during the last two months signed on to 7% wage increases for tens of thousands of state workers over the next three years.
Hadn't he heard the bad news? Now, with great embarrassment he is up against the Service Employees International Union, American Federation of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees and National Association of Government Employees who will be damned if they're going to go back to their members and ask them to return what they had been promised.
People are talking about deflation. Many employees are being laid off, including in the public sector. And Patrick is giving 7% raises.
Yes, I know that the banks are doing really awful things also. And that they are public, too, at least for now.