Governor Mitt Romney has announced via press release that his candidacy has been endorsed by Senator Wayne Allard of Colorado.

"Senator Allard's record of leadership and commitment to change make him a valuable addition to my campaign team. In Congress, he has fought to restrain spending while working to ensure that Americans are safe at home and abroad. Senator Allard understands, as I do, that we must bring innovation and transformation to Washington if we are to meet the new generation of challenges facing our country today," said Governor Romney.

Senator Allard joins Senators Bob Bennett (R-UT), Larry Craig (R-ID), Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) among Governor Romney's supporters in the U.S. Senate.

"After reviewing Governor Romney's impressive resume and having the opportunity to visit one-on-one with him about his vision of innovation and change for America, I am proud to announce my endorsement of him," said Senator Allard. "Governor Romney will bring a much needed breath of fresh air to Washington, something the country really desires."

Read more about the endorsement at Mitt Romney's campaign website.

Senator John Kerry told us in January that he would not be running for president in 2008.

He lied.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) reopened the door to a possible 2008 presidential campaign during a book signing in Denver and then again, in an interview with 9NEWS.

The 2004 Democratic nominee told a crowd of more than 250 at the Tattered Cover bookstore in lower downtown Denver that he had no desire to endorse any candidate for the office right now, choosing to wait to see how they addressed the issue of global warming.

...while answering a question from a viewer on the program YOUR SHOW about why he chose not to run, Kerry said he had decided it wasn't the right time.

"Could that change?" Kerry said. "It might. It may change over years. It may change over months. I can't tell you, but I've said very clearly I don't consider myself out of it forever."

When asked whether he expected that decision to change in time for the 2008 race, Kerry said, "If suddenly the field changed or the dynamics of the nation shifted, who knows? You might look at it differently, but I don't see that. I don't foresee that. That's not where I am today and that's not what I'm doing."

I would love to see Senator Kerry take another stab at it. Why not? We could all use a good laugh.

Early March saw Deval Patrick upsetting veterans when he removed the Department of Veterans Services from his Cabinet. Now, over a month later, Patrick issues an executive order to create a 35 member advisory council on veteran services.

The council, with up to 35 members, is expected to review and assess state and federal laws and programs relating to veterans and report back to the Patrick Administration.

It will also report on current services to veterans in the Bay State, including health care, education and housing.

Is this an attempt to heal the wounds created by nixing the veterans' affairs adviser from the cabinet, or is it just a way to add up to 35 new hacks to the payroll under the guise of caring for veterans?

Boston Mayor Tom Menino, who has reigned over Boston without any effect on the upsurge in violence, is criticizing former Governor Mitt Romney for being a member of the National Rifle Association and claiming to be a lifelong hunter.

An infuriated Mayor Thomas M. Menino yesterday slammed former GOP governor Mitt Romney for boasting about his National Rifle Association membership and "bragging" about shooting varmints with a semiautomatic, even as his former capital city is besieged by gun violence.

"How could you be hoping to talk about public safety in this country when the proliferation of illegal guns is at an epidemic stage and you are proud to say I am a gun proponent," Menino said.

"It's nothing to brag about for votes. That's what he is doing. He wants to use this as a way trying to get votes, bragging about guns."

Well Mr. Mayor, weren't you the one who made the claim in a campaign ad that you have been effective as mayor in reducing crime, yet, violent crime is up 11% in the Hub. It was you and then Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O'Toole who kept blaming the rising crime on everything else. It was you and O'Toole who presided over rising crime rates, and not enough police officers making it on to the streets. It was your pathetic gun buyback program that did nothing to reduce gun violence. Like you said Mr. Mayor, the new cops coming to the force this year, it's only part of the solution--what else do you got?

Once again Mr. Mayor, you are blaming someone else for your shortcoming. You are the mayor of Boston, not Mitt Romney. This is your quagmire, Mayor Menino.

The State House, that is. His governorship has been closely resembling the candidacy of former Attorney General Tom Reilly, and now Governor Deval Patrick has a new chief of staff has he begins to move out of the so-called "honeymoon period" and on passed his first 100 days.

Governor Deval Patrick has tapped his top campaign adviser, Doug Rubin, to replace Joan Wallace-Benjamin as his chief of staff, a move aimed at ramping up his senior staff with politically and media savvy aides, senior administration sources said yesterday.

Patrick is shuffling his staff as he tries to recover from a tumultuous first 100 days in office, during which he made a number of missteps that have weakened his political position on Beacon Hill and damaged public confidence in his ability to handle the job.

Rubin's appointment as chief of staff, which takes effect Tuesday, will give Patrick what many of his critics and supporters say has been lacking in the governor's office in the critical first months in office: a strong hand to guide him through the political minefields on Beacon Hill and to shape the administration's media operations.

Rubin will serve in the top post at least through the budget season, which generally ends in July, and perhaps into the fall. His tenure will depend on how much he is needed and how quickly he can get Patrick's inner circle working effectively, an administration source said.

Ramping up his senior staff with politically and media savvy aides... Yeah, that's a good idea, those are your two weakest areas. Deval Patrick Watch notes a recent phone call made to Deval Patrick, and no, not another shady Ameriquest phone call.

Everyone is trying to jump on the anti-Imus bandwagon... They waited for Obama's response, and got it.

Now we have the response from the nation's only black governor Deval Patrick.

Gov. Deval Patrick launched into an angry condemnation of radio host Don Imus yesterday, jumping into a growing national controversy by denouncing the "careless insults" Imus and others use to belittle minorities to entertain listeners.

"I'm sick of this," Patrick told the Herald. "I'm sick of the careless insults that get hurled around. I'm sick of the lack of respect. And why? Because you can't make a point about a basketball team without talking about them that way?"

"It has nothing to do with being (politically correct)," Patrick said. "It has to do with respect and saying, 'We don't accept that kind of thing.' "

Patrick said he will continue to use his office to denounce intolerance, but he said positive change will only come when all political leaders do so, not just those who are black.

"The real message will come . . . when it's not just black folks saying Imus should be reprimanded," Patrick said. "It will come when everyone else says, 'Wait a second, that's not who we are and that's not what we do.' "

Well, Mr. Governor, will you ever be reprimanded for your crime fighting suggestion to tell kids of inner-city Boston to "pull your pants up"? Had a white governor had made that suggestion, could you imagine the outrage? Better yet, had a white Republican governor had said that, could you imagine the outrage?

How come Deval Patrick can use a stereotype against inner-city youth without being called on it?

Never mind, I already know.

More over at Deval Patrick Watch.

Of the many slogans and gimmicks we heard from the Governor-elect Deval Patrick over the course of his campaign was that he was going bring transparency back to Beacon Hill.

Transparency. A funny word.

Is transparency trying to purport the campaign co-chair as a random supporter in an online testimonial?

Is transparency meeting with legislative leaders behind closed doors...twice?

Is transparency forgetting to tell the voters about the true extent of his relationship with a convicted rapist, including a $5,000 donation for a DNA test?

Is transparency making his transition team sign confidentiality agreements in an attempt to prevent leaks?

Dozens of volunteers named to transition "working groups" by Governor-elect Deval Patrick were required to sign unusual confidentiality agreements intended to prevent them from leaking sensitive information to the press and the public.

Patrick's aides said yesterday that the confidentiality agreements were designed to protect the privacy of job applicants who are seeking work in the incoming administration. But the language of the agreement is sweeping, and several members of the working groups said they believed the agreement also covered their deliberations on policies ranging from crime to the state budget.

In an administration that has pledged transparency and openness, several working group members said in interviews yesterday that they were confused by the agreement, though most said they signed it nonetheless.

You thought you were getting "no ordinary leader," well, think again. You got another run-of-the-mill politician, who tells you what you want to hear during the campaign to get elected, and then turns his back on everything when in office. And you believed him.

This "confidentiality" agreement states the following:

I understand that, as a volunteer for the Patrick/Murray Transition Committee, I may learn of information relating to the campaign and that any such information is to be treated as sensitive and confidential. I hereby agree to maintain the confidentiality of any information that I may learn as a result of my work as a volunteer for the Patrick/Murray Transition Committee and not to disclose any such information to anyone outside of the Patrick/Murray Transition Committee.

So much for "transparency." You just got hoodwinked.

I asked it once, I'll ask it again, how can 1,230,065 people be so dumb?

Deval Patrick's newly appointed secretary of administration and finance was involved in a "highly questionable banking deal at Massport," the Boston Herald reports.

Leslie Kirwan, tapped by Patrick as secretary of administration and finance, was Massport's CFO when a lucrative banking services contract was funneled to Wachovia Bank in 2004 through a "fatally flawed" bidding process, according to a report by state Inspector General Greg Sullivan.

"This (process) created a clear conflict of interest and an appearance of bias," the report stated, referring to Massport's decision to hire Wachovia's consulting arm to administer a procurement that "not surprisingly, led to the choice of Wachovia Bank."

The report concluded that, while the banking contract was superior to Massport's previous arrangement, the authority did not conduct an open process. In response, the authority pledged to re-bid the contract in 2007.

Kirwan, who was interviewed during the inspector general's probe, could not be reached for comment on the report yesterday, but a Patrick aide said she was not intimately involved in the hiring of Wachovia, a move that was approved by the authority's board of directors.

Last week, the Boston Globe reported that the law firm of Greenberg Traurig will be hosting a reception for Deval Patrick's new chief of staff, Joan Wallace Benjamin. Greenberg Traurig is no stranger to politics, the Globe notes, and even has lobbyists in Washington, most notably, Jack Abramoff (but you had to dig real deep into the story to find that out). This wouldn't be something to raise a stink about, but you know that had the tables been turned and a Republican appointed chief of staff had a reception held in his or her honor by a the firm connected to Jack Abramoff, it would be front page news.

And we haven't even delved into the whole notion that all these connections to lobbyists and backing out of lobbyist sponsored breakfast forums are destroying Patrick's alleged "outsider" image.

I certainly have not been the biggest advocate of Gov. Mitt Romney's prospects as a presidential candidate. However, as of today, Romney is the only conservative candidate I would be comfortable with. While big Republican names like Sen. John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani are also being touted, they are Republicans, not conservatives -- at least not conservative enough. And, yes, there is a difference between being a Republican and being a conservative.

Mitt Romney is making a strong appeal towards the base of the Republican Party, because he knows that in order for a Republican to win, you've got to appeal to the conservative base. Anyone who listens to Rush Limbaugh will tell you the same thing: Republicans win when they are truly conservative, not some kind of watered down moderate.

Mitt Romney has declared "I'm a conservative Republican, there's no question about that....I'm at a different place than the other two." He's absolutely right, looking at the current crop of presidential hopefuls on the Republican side, particularly McCain and Giuliani.

The Corner Office is gone, and we lost one seat in the Senate, and two seats in the House.

While part of the blame can be put on the shoulders of the voters, I have not forgotten the role of the Massachusetts Republican Party in this year's defeat, in the Corner Office and in the legislature (which saw three more seats lost by Republicans).

The Massachusetts GOP did not make a gallant effort at putting candidates on the ballot this time around, and worse than that, they offered zero support for the local level candidates. Where did all the money go this election year? The money went to Kerry Healey, a candidate who compared to the candidates for the House and Senate has more money than God. Kerry Healey didn't need money from the Party, she didn't need her hometown Republican City Committee to empty their bank account to pay for the rent of a satellite office in Beverly, when that money could have gone to the candidates being fiscally snubbed by the Massachusetts GOP. Too many candidates who truly represent the average person couldn't fight real campaigns because they didn't get the financial support of the Massachusetts GOP, all because money that could have gone to them went to someone who makes so much money that she felt uncomfortable revealing the specific number publicly. Way to let go of a stereotype.

There needs to be changes in the Massachusetts Republican Party that need to be done immediately--things I've been waiting to say for quite some time now, that seems pretty prudent to begin to enumerate now.

To borrow a little bit of a headline from the UK's Daily Mirror from a few years ago: How Can 1,230,065 People Be So Dumb?

I remained hopeful, yet realistic, in the waning hours of the election. Hopeful that Massachusetts residents would realize the gravity of the decision they were making, and do what was best for the Commonwealth. I was wrong.

We are now faced with four years of Deval Patrick. Four years of one-party rule. Four years of hubris. Four years of sound bites. Four years of slogans. Four years of Deval Patrick. While there may not be a Republican in the Corner Office, today was not about electing change. There is no change. Today in Massachusetts, democracy killed democracy. The voters of Massachusetts rejected two-party government; they rejected debate in the arena of ideas; they rejected the positive, and believed the negative.

The night of the election, I joked with my fellow Republicans that we should all just get up and leave Massachusetts and "just let the Democrats have it."

So it looks like Deval Patrick's supporters have committed a "tit-for-tat" in response to the isolated behavior of some Healey supporters who took it upon themselves to demonstrate in front of the house of Patrick's campaign manager John Walsh, over a week ago. This caused a bit of controversy because of the protest occurred in front of Walsh's 12-year-old son.

Deval Patrick's camp went nuts last week when Healey supporters clad in orange jumpsuits picketed a campaign manager's house and allegedly berated the man's 12-year-old son.

But according to the Healey camp, Patrick's sign-toting minions committed a similarly ugly foul recently . . . on Healey's kids.

Sources close to Healey said Deval supporters camping out in Beverly recently "harassed" the lieutenant governor's children, ages 11 and 14, as the kids walked to a friend's house.

The kids were not harmed, but a source said they were upset by the incident.

Patrick campaign adviser Doug Rubin said, "If that did happen, we do not condone it. We would hope our volunteers would act more professionally."

When Healey supporters committed a similar infraction, Healey issued an "apology" that was not really an apology. Frankly, I don't see why a candidate needs to directly apologize for the behavior of passionate supporters. Now, Doug Rubin's "non-apology" is a bit more interesting to examine, because the Patrick campaign demanded an apology from Healey, and saw her non-apology as not sufficient enough when they were asked by Kim Atkins if Healey had apologized.

The Boston Herald is reporting that aides to Deval Patrick don't think that his personal debt will be a detriment.

As Deval Patrick angles for the Corner Office, he is carrying $6 million in mortgages on three properties, but aides insist he'll have no problem making ends meet on a $140,000 government salary.
With monthly bills of $38,000 for his home in Milton and a palatial estate he's building in Western Massachusetts, Patrick's finances recall the personal debt scrutiny received by former Gov. Paul Cellucci, who was sharply criticized for taking a college teaching job to supplement his modest salary.

Cellucci was forced to take the $30,000-a-year side job to help pay down $700,000 in personal debt, but Patrick is vowing not to seek outside employment if elected.

"Absolutely not," Patrick campaign adviser Doug Rubin said when asked if Patrick would take a paid position on a corporate board or another part-time job as governor. "Deval will be full-time."

One thing that Governor Mitt Romney and Lt. Governor Kerry Healey get very little credit for was their forgoing of their salaries for the past four years, a move that saved the Commonwealth probably about a million dollars. The Patrick campaign has said that Deval will take the $140,000 tax-payer funded salary, despite the fact that his campaign suggests that the Patrick family's finances are in good order.

Rubin shrugged off any suggestion the couple could be overburdened, saying: "Deval and his wife have been blessed and are in a strong financial position. Deval has accumulated assets and reserves commensurate with his positions as a top executive at two Fortune 100 companies, and Diane continues to be well compensated through her law practice. Any suggestion to the contrary is simply wrong and not based on the facts."

"There is absolutely no question that they will be able to maintain themselves and their family, and their homes in Milton and Richmond, if Deval is elected governor," Rubin added.

If things are going so great for Deval Patrick financially, why wouldn't he put his $140,000 a year salary into, let's say, lowering property taxes, or putting police on the beat, or hiring a few new teachers? All things that he says he will do, but has yet to tell us how he will do it. You would think he could cut the taxpayers a break and let them keep $140,000 a year, just as Kerry Healey and Mitt Romney did during their administration. If Deval Patrick can't maintain the lifestyle he's chosen without that governor's salary, perhaps he should do what the rest of us regular people do, adjust your standard of living to accommodate your means. Yeah, I doubt that.

It seems like there is some doubt to Deval's ability to keep up with his lifestyle should he not be elected governor. Can we really trust someone who will spend spend spend his own personal wealth (without the means to plan properly for it) with taxpayer's money?

The man who started it all came back to the Bay State yesterday to campaign for Kerry Healey and warn voters of what is to come with a another Dukakis liberal in the Corner Office.

Former Gov. William F. Weld - the GOP star who sparked the 16-year Republican reign in the Corner Office - came back to Massachusetts yesterday hoping some of his election magic will rub off on candidate Kerry Healey.

Weld, known as liberal on social issues but fiscally conservative, warned against rampant spending he said would come with a one-party State House if Democrat Deval Patrick wins the governor's seat. "It's my understanding Gov. Healey's opponent has declined to take a 'no new tax' pledge, or to rule out a potential increase in the income tax," Weld told reporters in the downtown headquarters of Healey, the lieutenant governor. "And I'm here to say that that is potentially corrosive to the employment in the state. I consider that a major jobs issue."

While the merits of bringing Weld into the mix is debatable, his warning is valid.

Deval Patrick never seems to be on the side of the victim. We saw this in the case of Benjamin LaGuer, Carl Ray Songer, and we can see it in this story that the Boston Herald is now reporting on.

As the Justice Department's chief civil rights prosecutor, Deval Patrick made the controversial decision not to criminally prosecute an FBI sniper who shot and killed an unarmed woman as she held her infant daughter in her arms during a 1992 standoff in Ruby Ridge, Idaho.

The incident, in which U.S. Marshall William F. Degan of Quincy and the wife and son of white separatist Randy Weaver were killed during an 11-day standoff, is cited by experts as the spark that started the anti-government militia movement that exploded after the standoff in Waco, Texas, less than a year later.

In 1994, Patrick, the Democratic candidate for governor who was then assistant attorney general, concluded there was insufficient basis to prosecute FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi for shooting and killing 43-year-old Vicki Weaver. Horiuchi had testified that he opened fire on the woman's husband and his friend, Kevin Harris, when he thought they were about to fire on an FBI helicopter.