Nov 5, 2008 1:07 pm US/Eastern
Obama Election Promising News For Mass.
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
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Sen. Barack Obama, Gov. Deval Patrick, Diane Patrick, Sen. John Kerry, Teresa Heinz Kerry celebrate during a rally at the World Trade Center in Boston in February.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Even though it appears the Democrats will fall short of the magic number of senators needs to break a Republican filibuster on party lines and break the DC legislative logjam, the election of a Democratic president is promising news for Massachusetts federal interests.
President-elect Obama, of course, is indebted to Senators Kennedy and Kerry for their early support of his candidacy; Gov. Deval Patrick was a national co-chairman of the Obama campaign; and Obama will need the support of key Democratic congressman such as Barney Frank and Ed Markey to play the inside game.
The bottom line: any expansion of federal spending is likely to benefit Massachusetts, reliant as we are on research grants and other forms of federal largesse.
But hold the champagne just a bit.
If
Kerry joins the cabinet, or if (God forbid) Kennedy is taken from us, our two wired-in senators will be replaced with freshmen (or women), wielding significantly less clout.
Patrick and Obama share Harvard Law and political strategist ties and helped each other on their respective campaigns, but are said by some to not necessarily be all that tight personally, raising doubt as to whether Patrick can necessarily extract unending support from the new administration.
And one look at the hemorrhaging red ink in the federal budget ought to tamp down expectations of a federal-spending tsunami here.
Candidate Obama vowed a line-by-line federal budget review to clamp down on waste and excess, and that might not help our cause much.
Plus, don't forget that we are already beneficiaries of exceedingly generous health-care funding from the feds, and Obama has plenty of other friends in more significant states he might want to please.
So, an Obama presidency is not necessarily guaranteed to answer all our federal funding wishes.
Add that to the long list of over-the-top expectations the new president will have to manage.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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