According to a poll released yesterday, the first elected African American governor of Massachusetts is extremely unpopular and in danger of losing his re-election bid next year:

When matched against Christy Mihos, the Democratic governor picks up 40% of the vote and trails the potential GOP nominee by a single point.

If Charlie Baker is the Republican nominee, Patrick’s support is little changed at 41% while Baker is favored by 36%. Baker is a health care chief executive officer who has not yet formally decided if he is entering the race.

In both match-ups, the number preferring “some other candidate” is in double digits, and roughly one-out-of-10 voters is undecided.

The fact that the numbers are so similar regardless of which Republican is mentioned suggest that the race so far is viewed as a referendum on the incumbent rather than a choice between competing alternatives.

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Democrats often tell us that one critical difference between the two parties is that the Democrats are more giving and compassionate. I’m not sure if that’s true in general, but it’s true in at least one important respect: Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is giving Republicans a huge political issue.

The State of Massachusetts faces a severe budget shortfall, and Governor Patrick is using nearly $1 billion in porkulus cash and reserve funds to keep the state running a few more months. Yet despite being in dire fiscal straits, Patrick is giving free cars to welfare recipients:

In Gov. Deval Patrick’s Massachusetts, if you’re on the dole, you may be eligible to get a free car. So much for the budget Armageddon they keep talking about at the State House.

Let the taxpayers worry about those billion-dollar deficits. If you’re on welfare, come on down!

Nice enough that the layabouts get a free car - plus the state picks up the tab for insurance, excise tax, title, registration, inspection, and approved repairs. The absolute frosting on the cake is a free AAA membership…

Supposedly, these free welfare cars will enable the non-taxpayer to get a job. If they lose the job, the state comes down hard on them - we the taxpayers will not reimburse the cost of insurance after the first six months. If the client quits work or is laid off during the first 12 months, all transportation benefits end, but the client will still keep the car.

If I didn’t check to confirm this is true, I would have thought it was a joke. How can Massachusetts justify such handouts while it’s unable to pay its bills? It seems that one answer is the federal ’stimulus’ bill, which is allowing the state to overcome the shortfall and continue to provide programs like this one.

Some of you may recall that many of the themes used by Barack Obama in his presidential campaign, and even some of the words that came off Obama’s TelePrompter, were first tried out by another David Axelrod client, Deval Patrick, in Patrick’s successful run for Governor of Massachusetts in 2006:

Three years later, one poll says the voters of the deep-blue Bay State haven’t gotten the Change they Hoped for, and they want a recall, with Patrick locked in a dead heat just for renomination:

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