OMGWTF: MA politics

I’m pleased, but not surprised, to see Deval win the Massachusetts Governorship. Hell, I had the champagne (excuse me, California sparkling wine: 2005 Sofia Coppola Blanc de Noirs) in the fridge last night.

But the down-ballot votes really surprised me.

Green/Rainbow candidate Jill Stein got about 18% for Secretary of State, and Working Families Party candidate Rand Wilson got 20% running for Auditor– those are huge numbers for a protest vote.

And then the ballot measures went negative, too. Item 1 would have allowed wine sales in grocery stores, and it seemed like a no-brainer to me, but it’s down by ten or fifteen points. Item 3, allowing child-care workers in state-subsidized operations to unionize, seemed like a shoo-in, too– MA’s an organized-labor state– but it looks like a loser too.

Massachusetts: land of contradictions and weirdness.