Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog

…that you really don’t get to follow other events and posts well in the process. You are too busy getting to the events, finding out stuff, composing posts in your head, and trying to get your stuff up in a timely manner to think about what might be cool on the net. I haven’t even had a chance to look at Robert Stacy’s video he shot at the North End Brown Rally or his Worcester coverage.

Oddly enough the Washington times reporter in the background on Stacy’s first film filed her report on the Clinton Rally from my dining room table last night.

It’s an interesting but odd life that these reporter types lead.

Personally I think the action at events involves not so much the event as the people around it. Just watching people’s reactions and keeping your ears open in a crowded hall or a busy street.

For example at the Bill Clinton event in Worcester at the end while I waited for my son to attempt to get the president autograph (in vain) I stood quietly next to some much better dressed men from the Coakley Campaign who were apparently talking to Union guys from out of state. The gist was that the “Cavalry was coming” and they talked with the quiet confidence of gamblers who know which boxer is going to take a dive.

In my two days of travels and week of asking ordinary people about the race, that was the only thing I have seen and heard that suggests anything positive for Attorney General Martha Coakley chances.

After hearing that I couldn’t help but think about yet another passage from Tip O’Neill’s autobiography Man of the House:

…Several years later, Joe Conners, the election commissioner, confirmed my suspicions. He told me that they were sitting around at five in the morning, counting the ballots. “Curley was licked,” said Joe, “and we couldn’t let that happen. So we transposed the figures.”

“What the hell,” Curley had said. “They’re not going to protest it. It would mean a big fight, and that would hurt the party. They can’t afford to raise a stink.”

He was right. The next day, we were all set to go before the Ballot Law Commission and demand a recount. But before we could register a protest, Paul Deer, our candidate for governor, came to see me. “Listen,” he said “the party is already in bad shape. If we show people we’re a bunch of thieves, it will destroy us. In the name of party unity, please drop the fight.”

It was his answer to that request that began his path to the Speakership of the Massachusetts House and the long national career that followed.

Could something like that happen this time? Well it isn’t 1948 and the net changes a lot of things, quite a few eyes out there. I’m sure attorney general Martha Coakley would not be privy to any such thing…

…and anyway this is an election for a Federal Office so I’m sure that US attorney general Eric Holder would give the case the same diligence that he has given other election irregularity cases.

Update: These guys aren’t just whistling dixie:

1948 anyone? via instapundit.

Update 2:  Fixed spelling error