Does Romney want Healey to lose?

Published Oct 18 2006, 02:05 PM by Adam Reilly

It sure looks that way. As the Herald's Margery Eagan noted yesterday, Mitt's buffoonery at the Boston edition of Liberty Sunday probably won't help Healey with undecided voters who happen to be social moderates. And yesterday, during an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Romney accepted Blitzer's contention that the Mass. governor's job would probably switch from red to blue this year:

BLITZER: So there will be a majority of Democratic governors as opposed to a majority of Republican governors?
ROMNEY: Oh, sure. I don’t think there is anyone who has looked at the poll numbers that doesn’t think that will happen. You have got states like New York and Arkansas that are blue states that have Republican governors.
BLITZER: And Massachusetts.
ROMNEY: And Massachusetts. With governors not running for reelection and so the math would say that’s going to be pretty hard for us to hold onto all those states.

What's Mitt up to? Well, first off, a Healey loss might look bad for Mitt if it's taken as a referendum on his administration. By classing Healey's hypothetical loss as part of a national trend, Mitt gets to do damage control in advance.

But there's another, more nefarious possibility here. Mitt has already convinced the national press that his win in 2002 was remarkable, despite ample evidence that we love our Republican governors here in Massachusetts. And a Healey loss would lend credibility to this utterly bogus argument. After all, if Healey can't win--even though she's been blessed by her association with Romney--Massachusetts must be rough for Republicans, right? I dare say Mitt might even incorporate Healey's loss into his national stump speech.

Honestly, I think Explanation #1 is the most plausible. Then again, Mitt is all about Mitt. If Romney and his advisers decide a Healey loss would help them, even slightly, they'll have no compunction about making it happen.