Fairhaven marked a point of no return for Charlie Baker early on election night. The South Coast town, with a September unemployment rate of 10.2 percent, went narrowly for Republican Scott Brown in the special US Senate election that rocked the nation in January. But it was one of the first communities to report its […]
Robert David Sullivan
Posted inArts and Culture, Politics
Backwater of the universe
Banned in Boston: The Watch and Ward Society’s Crusade against Books, Burlesque, and the Social Evil By Neil MillerBoston, Beacon Press, 209 pages It’s easy to be smug when you live in the state with the most educated population, some of the best schools and universities, and one of the most vibrant literary scenes in […]
Posted inPolitics
Deval on the defense
Four years ago, the Democratic Party reached a new apex in Massachusetts with the landslide election of Deval Patrick as governor. And the demographics seemed to portend further happy days, with Democrats doing especially well among growing populations such as non-whites, urban residents, and college graduates. New voters were another source of encouragement, as exit […]
Posted inUncategorized
Party registration by town 2008
As of fall 2008, the last time that the secretary of state’s office released town-level data, independent voters (technically, “unenrolled” voters), made up a slight majority of the Bay State electorate: 51 percent, versus 37 percent for Democrats and 12 percent for Republicans. The map above shows the level of Democratic registration by city […]
Posted inEconomy
Raised stakes
any debate over the possible arrival of casinos in Massachusetts (see “Ka-ching”) has to take into account how much we already rely on the state lottery, and whether scratch ticket sales will suffer against a rival outlet for gambling. In FY 2008, according to the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries, the Bay […]
Posted inUncategorized
Redefining parents
by traditional definitions, the percentage of children living in “single-parent” households has risen steadily over the past few decades, both nationally and in Massachusetts. One measure is the share of all births to unmarried mothers; nationally, that’s gone from 28 percent in 1990 to 34 percent in 2000 to an estimated 40 percent in 2007. […]
Posted inPolitics
Political preview 2010
the surprise election of Republican Scott Brown as US Senator in January (get complete town-level results here) was only the beginning of what promises to be a tumultuous year of politics in Massachusetts. We’ve put together some stats on some of the major factors in statewide politics in the past and future. party down Democrats […]
Posted inUncategorized
Entrances and exits
Each year, the state’s Department of Public Health releases two thick reports on vital statistics: Massachusetts Births and Massachusetts Deaths. To mark the new year, we’ve culled some of the major data points from the reports for 2007 (reports for 2008 will come out later this spring) and noted comparisons with the latest available data […]
Posted inEconomy
Going it alone
According to data released late last year by the US Census Bureau, “nonemployer businesses”—mostly consisting of just one person, working full or part-time— have been on the rise, at least up until the economic crash of 2008. There were 21.7 million such businesses in 2007, and they were especially common in Florida, Texas, the Rocky […]
Posted inPolitics
The wild, wild west
the Massachusetts GOP is gazing longingly at 1990, the last time that anti-incumbent fever put one of their own — Bill Weld — in the governor’s office. And Charles Baker, favored to win the right to challenge Gov. Deval Patrick and independent Tim Cahill, seems to be emulating Weld’s mix of fiscal conservatism and social […]