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A MAN whose five-year-old daughter was stolen from her bed and raped by a teenage pedophile has warned the criminal he "will be waiting" upon his release. The father, who cannot be identified, today vowed to do "whatever it takes" to keep Samuel Paul Healey behind bars "where he belongs". "I have no emotion for that rock spider, he deserves everything he gets and more," he said outside court. "Should he be afraid of me? I think he should be more afraid of the people he's inside with." The Supreme Court ordered Healey, 23, serve 13 years jail, with a...

Enhanced resources for this story – press conference audio – are available at www.statehousenews.com STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, NOV. 28, 2007…..Former and current Republican leaders blasted one of their own on Wednesday afternoon, ripping the record of former Gov. Mitt Romney in front of the state capitol and touching off an intra-party scuffle that pitted former allies in the small Massachusetts GOP against one another. Tearing into the presidential contender’s fiscal handling of the state and touting former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani as a more reliable candidate, former Gov. Paul Cellucci and former Treasurer Joe Malone, once rivals in the...

This thread will continue right up till the end of the night. Focus on Mass./New England and nationally, too. Governorships, Senate/House, ballot questions...who will control the Senate and House nationally? Key races... keep it here!

Get out and vote tomorrow! And tomorrow's HC live thread will continue ALL NIGHT LONG as the results come in, locally and nationwide.

2 years ago today: The Kerry NON-VICTORY party in Copley Square On today's show---THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2 Howie will be broadcasting LIVE today from The Rustic Kitchen at The Radisson 57 Hotel in Park Square Boston. Come on by!!!!!!!! 1st Hour Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey battled to pin down rival Deval Patrick on taxes, crime and immigration last night, demanding that he “tell the truth” as she saved her strongest debate performance for their final prime-time clash. Did you watch the festivities? Do you think she can still win? 2nd Hour President Bush has hit the campaign trail for the mid...

Democrat Deval L. Patrick led Republican gubernatorial rival Kerry Healey by 25 percentage points in a new Globe-CBS4 poll that also indicates widespread dissatisfaction with Healey's negative ads and support for lower property taxes rather than the state income tax cut that Healey favors. Patrick led the GOP nominee, 54 percent to 29 percent, in the survey of 585 likely voters that was taken Sunday through Wednesday evening. Independent Christy Mihos remained a distant third with 8 percent, and Green-Rainbow Party candidate Grace Ross received 2 percent. Only 6 percent of the respondents said they were undecided. While the margin...

Mitt Romney, this is your fault. Maybe it’s not all on your head, but as we survey the impending Republican disaster here, your name is at the top of a very short list of suspects. Poor Kerry Healey. Perhaps she should have told you she wasn’t an Irish Catholic before you picked her as your running mate, but that was four years ago now. We all know it’s a Mitt Romney world, but still, couldn’t you have thrown her a few second-tier assignments? She never got a chance to define herself, because you never let her up for air. So...

Don't blame me, I voted for Kerry...Healey

The governor’s race plunged to a new low yesterday as charges flew of beatings, sexist insults and harassment between Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey’s orange-jumpsuit-wearing “Inmates for Deval” and rival Deval Patrick’s camp. Patrick staffers accused the Healey volunteers of taking their protest that he is soft on crime to the doorstep of his campaign manager’s Abington home, frightening the aide’s 12-year-old son. “It’s just pathetic. That’s the only word I can think of to describe it,” Patrick spokesman Doug Rubin said. “This is unfortunately the environment the Kerry Healey camp created where this kind of stuff is OK.”

Kerry Healey, struggling to close a gender gap with Democratic rival Deval Patrick, is unveiling a scathing new television ad linking Patrick's past efforts to seek parole for a convicted rapist with womens' fears of being attacked. The ad is drawing fire from women who support Patrick and victim advocates who said the Republican candidate for governor is pandering to women's fears in an attempt to draw votes and is ignoring the fact that the vast number of sexual assaults are committed by relatives or acquaintances, not strangers. The ad, set to begin airing on Thursday, features grainy images of...

Christy, it’s time to quit the governor’s race. Let me be blunt: You are a straw for Deval Patrick. Of course you deny it, but there’s an old saying that the best straw is the one who doesn’t even know he’s a straw. For anyone unfamiliar with the term, a straw is a candidate in a fight who drains off votes from the main challenger. Basically, a straw splits the anti-vote, so that even if a majority are against a particularly odious candidate, he still slides in. Christy is playing Ross Perot to Deval’s Clinton. But this campaign is not...

Political experts say Democrat Deval Patrick’s big lead in the polls was bound to shrink - but Republican Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey’s TV attack has helped narrow the gap. “Certainly the attack ads have contributed to that shrinkage. It’s a pretty smart campaign. She’s hitting him on law and order,” said Boston University professor Fred Bayles. Bayles said Patrick’s initial big lead was destined to narrow even without the TV attack because people start focusing on the race as Election Day nears. The latest poll puts Patrick ahead of Healey by a 13-point margin. Patrick’s lead took a big hit...

BOSTON - A new poll suggests the gap between Democrat Deval Patrick and Republican Kerry Healey is narrowing. The Fast Track poll done for WBZ-TV gave Patrick 52 percent support and Healey 34 percent. Independent Christy Mihos garnered nine percent, Green/Rainbow candidate Grace Ross one percent and four percent said they remained undecided.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy accused Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey of engaging in "gutter politics" in her campaign against Democrat Deval Patrick, declaring Saturday, "Make no mistake about it, this is swiftboating." The Massachusetts Democrat, appearing with his party's gubernatorial nominee in Hyannis, did not specify the reason for his criticism. But it came at the end of a week during which Healey criticized Patrick for supporting the parole of a convicted rapist, and during which she began airing a television commercial criticizing Patrick for helping a cop killer get his death sentence reduced to life imprisonment. "I've been in this...

This is an important election. It’s so important that I’m not calling Kerry Healey “Muffy” anymore. Two words sum up why this fight is so serious: Mike Dukakis. Deval Patrick is Mike Dukakis without the tank helmet. Pee Wee Dukakis, as we used to call him, was quoted last week as saying all the Democratic candidates came to see him, but “Deval listened.” Think about that. Pee Wee was referring to his advice to Deval on building an organization of idle, rich moonbats, but the fact is, Dukakis spoke and . . . Deval listened. No one has listened to...

CBS4) BOSTON According to the most recent Boston Globe / WBZ Massachusetts’ Gubernatorial Election Poll, Deval Patrick currently holds a wide lead in the governor’s race at 53 percent while Kerry Healey sits at a distant second place with 28 percent. Christy Mihos and Grace Ross are currently at six percent and one percent, respectively. Among undecided voters, 55 percent prefer Patrick, 30 percent prefer Healey, seven percent prefer Mihos and one percent prefers Ross.

Bringing the brief, postprimary lull in partisan rancor to an abrupt end, yesterday Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey’s campaign called on rival Deval Patrick to demand Democratic Party Chairman Phil Johnston’s ouster after Johnston accused Healey of “race-baiting.” Speaking to WCVB-TV’s Janet Wu in an interview yesterday, Johnston accused Healey of using immigration and crime as racially infused wedge issues. “I think the language that she’s using is - borders on race-baiting and I think that it’s fear-mongering of the worst sort and I think she ought to stop it,” Johnston said. “She should not run a campaign that plays to...

Kerry Healey fans say The Moonbats form the soul of Deval Patrick’s campaign. What’s a moonbat? “Just a left-wing radical who believes there was a conspiracy by George Bush and Dick Cheney and Haliburton to bring down the World Trade Center,” longtime moonbat analyst Howie Carr, my colleague, explained to me yesterday. “Someone who thinks the NSA is monitoring their phone calls, so Deval people can’t make phone calls because Dick Cheney is listening. They have trust funds and haven’t worked in 20 or 30 years. They’re on prescription medication. . . . The women? You will know them by...

Lt. Gov. Muffy Healey got what she wished for. Be careful what you wish for, Muffy. A pol called me yesterday afternoon. He’d been going from one polling place to another in his district. “You’re right about those Deval people,” he said excitedly. “I just saw two of them. Middle-aged guys, they rode bicycles to the precinct. They seemed to be in a trance. I think I’m frightened.” Said another pol: “We’re all frightened.” One of these guys was a Democrat, the other a Republican. That’s bipartisan fear. Yesterday was our Ned Lamont moment. But the difference is, Ned Lamont...

Dorothy Healey, a onetime labor organizer, civil rights activist and Marxist radio commentator who was chairwoman of the Southern California district of the Communist Party USA from the late 1940s through the 1960s, has died. She was 91. Healey, dubbed "the Red Queen of Los Angeles" by headline writers during her heyday, died Sunday of pneumonia in the Greater Washington Hebrew Home, said her son, Richard. She had been a resident of Washington, D.C., since 1983. The diminutive Healey, who stood just under 5 feet tall and once wore a pendant that pictured a clenched fist raised as a symbol...

Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey stood by her patron’s record on prison issues yesterday, endorsing Gov. Mitt Romney’s trip to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to “share” his ideas on penitentiary reform despite the fact that Romney’s state correction experience amounts to a photo op in a prison parking lot. “I think the governor, by appointing Kathy Dennehy, has taken great strides in reforming the prison system,” Healey said. “Dennehy has taken it on herself to implement wide-ranging changes” in the problem-plagued department. Department of Correction Commissioner Kathleen Dennehy is joining Romney on the trip. Dennehy was named commissioner in 2004 and oversees...

Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, the probable Republican nominee for governor, was interviewed Tuesday by the Globe's Scott Helman and New England Cable News's Jim Braude as part of a series of conversations with candidates for the corner office. The interviews are focusing on the candidates' backgrounds, as part of extensive coverage of their records and plans for the state.

--Decision seen hurting Healey-- Bolting from the Republican Party, wealthy businessman Christy Mihos said yesterday he will run for governor as an independent, a decision that delivers a blow to GOP chances of victory in November. Mihos concluded that the Republican Party establishment and its party rules for qualifying for the ballot were stacked against him, said a Mihos adviser who asked not to be named. Christy Mihos (right), Deval Patrick, and Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey at a Massachusetts Biotechnology Council gubernatorial forum yesterday. (David L. Ryan/ Globe Staff) Mihos's presence on the November ballot is widely expected to draw...

Mihos will run for governor as independentBy Tom Benner Patriot Ledger State House BureauBOSTON - Brockton native and convenience store magnate Christy Mihos will announce on Thursday that he is bolting the Republican Party to run for governor as an independent candidate, a campaign aide said.The decision by Mihos, a multi-millionaire and longtime underwriter of Republican office-seekers, comes as a major blow to Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, whose own campaign for governor stands to suffer now that there's a three-way race for the corner office.Mihos will make his formal announcement at a 5:15 p.m. press conference Thursday outside the State...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Local Blog To Gather Delegate Support For Christy Mihos Hub Politics (www.hubpolitics.com), a local news and commentary blog, has just launched the Christy Mihos Delegate Pledge Form for delegates attending the Massachusetts GOP State Convention in Lowell on April 29, 2006. In late January, Lt. Governor and Republican gubernatorial candidate Kerry Healey urged Republican Christy Mihos to run for governor as a Republican, rather than an Independent. In order for Christy Mihos to appear on the primary ballot, he must garner 15% of the votes at the State Convention. With about 3,300 delegates expected to attend, Mihos...

Wear blue. Watch the heavy makeup. Don’t be a polyester snob. Accentuate gracefulness. Convey strength - but not too much. As Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey lavishes hundreds of thousands on image polishing in her bid for governor, she would be wise to heed the advice consultants give to their female political clients. “Women walk a fine line because on the one hand you have to have people like you and think you are nice, but not be weak, and on the other hand if you look too strong then the B-word comes out,” said Democratic political consultant Mary Ann Marsh....

Just thought I'd start a thread to monitor the results of the Massachusetts primary. In particular, for the statewide races for Governor and Lt. Governor. Mitt Romney is a shoo-in for the Republicans but the big question is whether the voters will choose Mitt's appointed running mate Kerry Murphy Healey or renegade Jim Rappaport. If Rappaport can pull it out, it will be a bittersweet ticket as Romney and Rappaport have been slugging it out for weeks now. Still, I voted for Rappaport because he has firmly pledged to not support any tax increase whatsoever, unlike Kerry Murphy Healey. For...

BOSTON A new poll shows Governor Romney improving against Attorney General Tom Reilly among voters asked their preference for the 2006 election. The results come just weeks before Romney is expected to announce whether he'll seek re-election or launch a run for the presidency. The same poll finds Reilly leading Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey in a possible matchup. The survey shows Romney ahead of Reilly 41-to-37 percent. That's considered a statistical tie because it was within the poll's margin of error. It was conducted for the business group Mass Insight Corporation by the Cambridge-based market research firm Opinion Dynamics. In...

Governor Mitt Romney has promised to endorse Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey in the 2006 gubernatorial race if he decides to run for president, a top Republican Party official and a Healey adviser said. Healey secured the governor's promise of an endorsement after a series of private conversations between the two elected officials earlier this year, the two sources said. It was one of several aggressive steps Healey has taken to position herself as the potential front-runner for the Republican Party's nomination for governor next year. In the last few months, Healey nailed down the exclusive services of a sought-after GOP...

A majority of Massachusetts adults said Governor Mitt Romney should not run for president in 2008, according to a Boston Globe poll that also indicated Romney would face a tough battle if he seeks reelection to a second term as governor in 2006. Only 28 percent of those surveyed said Romney should seek the presidency, while 53 percent said he should not, and 19 percent said they had no opinion. Forty-eight percent said he would not make a good president if elected, and 33 percent said he would. The poll also found Romney facing some serious political problems at home...

Boston- Below is a transcript of today’s 10:30 a.m. Republican press conference. (Due to technical difficulties, the transcript starts during Lt. Gov. Healey’s remarks.) Transcript:LT. GOV. KERRY HEALEY (MA): ... the Democrats have misrepresented the President’s record just as they have tried to obscure the Senator’s record on so many important issues. In speech after speech we have heard nothing about Senator Kerry’s votes on the issues. We’ve heard nothing about his votes to raise taxes on social security that will hurt our elders. We’ve heard nothing about his votes to raise taxes on small businesses. We have heard nothing...

Polls have closed in the Massachusetts primary election, and candidates are waiting for returns to come in. Four Democrats fought for the gubernatorial nomination in the most expensive primary in the state's history, with more than $15 million spent. Two of the candidates -- Shannon O'Brien and Tom Birmingham -- were well-financed, a third -- Warren Tolman -- benefited from a court ruling, and the fourth -- Robert Reich -- ran a quirky campaign on a shoestring budget. Reich pulled an all-nighter, campaigning across Greater Boston from 7 p.m. Monday to Tuesday morning. He refused to put much of his...