Gov. Deval Patrick’s new willingness to step into the trenches of conservative radio yielded an invitation yesterday from talk jock Michael Graham, but the governor said he wants the right-wing ranters to play nice.

“I’m not lookin’ for a smackdown,” Patrick said yesterday after speaking to building trade unions in Plymouth. “All I’m saying is, I want to be out there. I want to talk to people.”

WTKK-FM’s Graham said, “We may not agree with him on everything, but the notion that this is some kind of lion’s den - please! It’s just people talking.”

Graham said he promised the governor there would be no “violence or nudity.”

Of Graham’s olive branch, Patrick said, “that’s very nice of him.”

The Herald reported yesterday that Patrick, seeking to gain traction in a tough three-way fight to retain the Corner Office, was “open” to hitting the airwaves with previously shunned right-wing hosts. Graham immediately invited Patrick on his show yesterday.

Patrick’s staff said he couldn’t fit a last-minute appearance into his schedule, but that he’d go on the air with Graham within weeks.

It appears, however, that Patrick won't show up on another popular show:

Patrick aides were considering putting the governor on Herald columnist and WRKO-AM (680) host Howie Carr’s show, but Patrick seemed skittish about the idea.

“We’ll see,” he said.

There's another show you can do, Governor! Come on, man! Do I have to beg?

UPDATE: More from the Globe and Herald.

SECOND UPDATE: More from Todd Feinburg, Holly Robichaud, the Herald and Globe.

For one thing, Patrick, despite his missteps, has managed to score some notable victories, including tough ethics reform, taxpayer-friendly changes to the public-employee pension system (although not enough), reorganisation of the state's wretched transportation bureaucracy and an education-reform law that emphasises standards and accountability.

Patrick's efforts to combat carbon emissions led a former California environmental official to say that Patrick "is trying to make California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger look like a carbon girlie man". Moreover, Patrick, a formidable campaigner, has maintained his nice-guy persona, with no hint of personal scandal. That matters in a state whose last three house speakers have run afoul of the authorities, and in which a state senator was caught by a surveillance camera stuffing cash down her bra.

Further, Kennedy notes:

The point is that whether Patrick loses his re-election bid, as expected, or manages an improbable comeback, it will have nothing to do with Barack Obama.

Despite their surface similarities, Patrick's and Obama's life experiences are dramatically different. Patrick grew up poor in a black section of Chicago. Obama's existence, by contrast, was rootless and marked by his struggle for a racial identity.

One important characteristic defines them both, however. Each was elected promising not just to enact a specific set of proposals but to change the very way business is conducted. Each has found it much harder than he'd expected to fulfill that promise.

If Deval Patrick loses this autumn, it will tell us little about what Massachusetts voters think about Obama. But if he wins, it may provide Obama with something of a road map he can study – and possibly follow to his own re-election victory in 2012.

Kennedy's piece is a must-read. If nothing else, it reminds those of us fundamentally opposed to Patrick's vision just how much work needs to be done.

UPDATE: Please be sure to join us Wednesday night at 8:00pm EST for the latest edition of The Notes on Blog Talk Radio! Our guests will be pollster Scott Rasmussen and author Marc Thiessen. Plus, more from Scot Lehigh, Howie Carr and the Boston Herald.

SECOND UPDATE: Gov. Patrick is willing to appear on conservative-leaning talk radio shows? I can think of one conservative-leaning talk radio show where he'll receive a warm welcome! Plus, more from Howie Carr, David Bernstein, Rasmussen Reports, the Herald and Globe.

How do you know it’s election season? When Governor Deval Patrick takes time out of his day to more or less encourage a bunch of high school students visiting the State House to vote for him.

Popping out of his fourth-floor office on Wednesday, Patrick went down to a third-floor hallway where the championship girls soccer team from Cardinal Spellman High School in Brockton had gathered before they were honored on the House floor.

Patrick greeted the girls, and told them that state law allows them to register to vote as long as they will be 18 before the next election. He repeated a frequent refrain that citizens get the government they deserve, and if they don’t get involved, government will be run by “professionals’’ who may not have their best interests in mind.

If Massachusetts citizens get the government they deserve, then what have we done to deserve this?

UPDATE: More from the Globe and Herald.

SECOND UPDATE: From Red Mass Group, the Herald and Globe.

THIRD UPDATE: Charley Manning interviews Gov. Patrick. Plus, more from Holly Robichaud, the Herald and Globe.

Gov. Deval Patrick’s lightning fast reversal yesterday on a controversial $5 Registry of Motor Vehicles fee unveiled by the Herald was an election year bid by the struggling governor to prove he can be responsive to Bay State voters, said political analysts.

“There’s such a populist outrage against any new taxes or hidden taxes, he couldn’t take on another charge that he has a tin ear to the people,” said Boston University political professor Thomas Whalen.

Patrick halted the fee - and vowed to hand out refunds - only one day after the Herald reported his administration had quietly installed a $5 charge for customers who renew their license or registration with an RMV employee at a branch office or on the phone.

“I appreciate what the registrar and (transportation) secretary are trying to do, but we’re going to have to look for another way to do this because the pushback has been actually quite understandable,” Patrick said.

Critics branded the new charge, which even caught legislators by surprise, as a “backdoor” tax on the poor and elderly.

Patrick said yesterday he supports the move to encourage more RMV transactions online, but said he didn’t want to burden taxpayers during hard economic times. The fee will be rescinded as soon as possible.

“I think he knows he’s got to look a lot better,” said John C. Berg, a political professor at Suffolk University.

Patrick’s dismal showing in recent polls means “he’s got to campaign from now to the election if he’s going to convince voters he’s on their side,” Berg said.

RMV began charging the fee Monday for anyone who walked into a branch office to renew a license, a registration or request a duplicate license. Motorists who used mail, the Internet, or the automated phone system were not charged.

UPDATE: Please be sure to join us Wednesday night at 8:00pm EST for the latest edition of The Notes on Blog Talk Radio! Our guests will be authors Dr. Roy W. Spencer and Steven L. Pease. Plus, more from the Herald.

SECOND UPDATE: More from the AP, Herald and Globe.

THIRD UPDATE: More from the Herald, CNN.com and the AP.

Gov. Deval Patrick is quietly whacking beleaguered Bay State motorists with a $5 fee to use Registry of Motor Vehicle branches to renew their licenses and registrations, outraging critics who say the “back-door tax” hits poor and elderly drivers the hardest.

The fee, which goes into effect today, comes on the heels of a $10 license renewal increase last year.

“In this economic climate we shouldn’t be nickel-and-diming people for mandated services,” said state Sen. Steve Baddour (D-Methuen), who co-chairs the Legislative Transportation Committee, and is planning to look into repealing the fee.

Republicans said residents ought to be able to walk in and use their RMV branches without penalty.

“This is a back-door tax that hits the poor and elderly the hardest,” said Tarah Donoghue, spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Republican Party. “They can’t afford or don’t have Internet access and computers. The Patrick-Murray administration is burdening those people who can afford it the least.”

Customers will incur the new $5 fee if they speak with an RMV representative on the phone or go in to one of the 30 branches for the following services:

Renewing your driver’s license (except for the 10-year renewal required in person);

Getting a duplicate license or Massachusetts ID;

Renewing your registration; or

Requesting an attested driving record.

The fee won’t be charged for transactions completed online, by mail, or over the RMV’s automated phone system.

“We want to discourage people from going to the branches,” said Ann Dufresne, a spokeswoman for the Registry of Motor Vehicles.

UPDATE: More from NECN, the Herald and Wall Street Journal.

SECOND UPDATE: More from Michael Graham and the Herald.

THIRD UPDATE: Gov. Patrick changes his mind. More from Todd Feinburg.

Gov. Deval Patrick’s standing with voters is so weak that this year’s race for governor is shaping up as a contest between his two rivals, a new Suffolk University-7News poll shows.

“This race is really between Charlie Baker and Tim Cahill,” said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, which conducted the poll. “Whoever emerges between the Baker-Cahill race is likely to be the winner.”

As for Patrick, Paleologos said, “On paper, he leads.”

The governor’s grip on a precarious lead continues, with the incumbent Democrat taking 33 percent of the vote compared to Republican Baker’s 25 percent and Treasurer Timothy Cahill, running as an independent, close behind with 23 percent.

Green-Rainbow Party candidate Jill Stein trails with a distant 3 percent, and 16 percent are undecided, according to the survey of 500 likely voters.

The survey included interviews with 500 registered voters between Sunday and Wednesday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percent.

Baker, former CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, wins among unenrolled voters, the state’s largest voting bloc. He has risen a whopping 10 points since November, a stunning surge considering he hasn’t run any television campaign commercials and there have been no televised debates to raise his profile.

UPDATE: The full Suffolk University poll. Plus, more from Howie Carr and Jim Geraghty.

SECOND UPDATE: More from the Globe and NECN.

THIRD UPDATE: More from the Globe.

Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, because before too long you may not be able to afford ‘em.

Cigars that is — havanas, coronas, belevederes, or, as the late George Burns famously enjoyed (at least 10 times a day), good ol’ El Productos.

Under Gov. Deval Patrick’s proposed 2011 budget, the excise tax on cigars would skyrocket from 30 percent to 110 percent. (A similar increase, from 30 to 120 percent, would affect pipe tobacco; from 90 to 110 percent for chewing tobacco.)

Patrick’s $28.2 billion proposed budget is designed to close budget gap of nearly $3 billion. Cut a few million here, a few million there — nothing major, but every cut affects someone. And this one could snuff out cigar smokers.

An excise a tax is paid directly to the government by retailers, and it’s usually based on how much that retailer paid the manufacturer for the product. Under Patrick’s new budget, tobacco retailers will be paying the state more in taxes on their inventory than they paid for the inventory itself.

Retailers say they will have no choice but to at least double their prices.

UPDATE: More from the AP.

SECOND UPDATE: Please be sure to join us Wednesday night for the newest edition of The Notes on Blog Talk Radio. Our scheduled guests are authors Nicole Gelinas and Matt Labash. Plus, more from the Globe, Herald and WBUR.

THIRD UPDATE: From the Boston Herald.

A South Hadley lawmaker whose constituents are shaken by the suspected bullying-related suicide of a teenager praised Gov. Deval Patrick yesterday for standing up for kids who face harassment.

Patrick’s personal chat with a victimized 9-year-old boy and warning to bullies over a school intercom was an effective strategy, said Rep. John W. Scibak (D-South Hadley).

“I applaud the governor for what he did. I think the message is, ‘We are watching and we will not tolerate it,’ ” said Scibak, whose community made headlines after South Hadley High School freshman Phoebe Prince apparently killed herself following bullying.

“The perpetrators who may think this is funny or it’s no big deal need to know there are consequences, because without them they’ll just continue to do it,” Scibak said.

Barbara Coloroso, a nationally recognized bullying expert hired by South Hadley officials to educate staff and parents, said Patrick’s actions are only half the battle.

“Bringing in someone as powerful as the governor has a big impact, because he’s an influential human being who’s saying, ‘We’re taking this seriously,’ ” Coloroso said. “But if you say something and there’s no follow-up, it’s more damaging.”

Students need to see that bullies will be punished consistently and that whoever reports the bully will be safe, said Coloroso.

Can anyone stop Patrick from bullying the taxpayers, however?

UPDATE: More from the State House News Service and the Boston Herald.

SECOND UPDATE: From the New York Times, AP and CNN.com.

Gov. Deval Patrick’s pedal-to-the-metal push for high-speed electronic tolling caught House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo by surprise yesterday as he urged his fellow Democrat to keep some toll takers on the job.

“(Patrick told me) he was only looking at this conceptually and just certain venues,” DeLeo said, referring to last week’s leadership meeting.

The Herald reported yesterday that the governor is moving to hire a new toll czar charged with installing electronic devices meant to ease traffic and ax costly toll takers.

“I don’t see how you can totally do away with all of the toll takers,” DeLeo said during a sitdown with Herald reporters and editors. “You can probably lower the work force, but I’m not sure if you can totally eliminate them.”

The new “deputy director of statewide tolling” would compare different electronic systems aimed at replacing toll booths with sensors that pick up transponders and toll motorists as they drive by at highway speeds. The system would take a picture of drivers’ license plates and send a bill to folks without a transponder.

UPDATE: More from Holly Robichaud, Michael Graham and State House News Service.

SECOND UPDATE: From the Boston College Heights and Boston Globe.

THIRD UPDATE: From the Boston Globe and AP.

[GOP candidate Charlie] Baker has posted impressive fundraising numbers, making it clear he will be able to run a well-financed effort. His pick of Senate Minority Leader Richard Tisei as his ticket mate was shrewd. Tisei is knowledgeable and well-liked on Beacon Hill, and the fact that he’s gay has helped anchor the team firmly in Bill Weld’s socially inclusive tradition.

A further advantage for Baker, a business community favorite, is that this year’s election will likely be fought on the traditional GOP turf of how to improve the state’s business climate, jump-start the economy, and streamline state government. The Republican hopeful has already offered several interesting proposals in those areas.

That said, Baker faces some clear challenges. For one, the former state budget chief will have to explain what his call for tax rollbacks would spell for state services. Further, he’s had some brand-denting bumps, such as his recent brief but silly claim that Governor Patrick had inherited a $5 billion surplus. And though the issue is hardly central to state government, Baker’s too cute by half temporizing about global warming has raised eyebrows about his epistemological approach.

If Baker has done well overall, Deval Patrick has improved his situation markedly when it comes to government accomplishments. The Democratic incumbent deserves real (if not singular) credit for the ethics, transportation, and education reforms of the last year or so, plus an assist on the crackdown on public pension abuses. He’s now pivoting to focus more on the business climate, a move that is politically smart, if long overdue. That said, some of his proposed remedies look more like short-term political expedients than reforms truly designed to solve the underlying problems.

UPDATE: From Steven Syre.

SECOND UPDATE: From the Globe and Herald.

THIRD UPDATE: From the Boston Globe and Herald.

Are the local Democrats really sweating this fall’s election?

Deval Patrick’s only path to re-election can be summed up in two words: Tim Cahill. And Republicans have good shots at both open statewide offices - treasurer and auditor.

The most interesting Congressional race looks to be in the 10th District, the South Shore and the Cape and Islands. At age 69, Bill Delahunt is slowing down, and lately he’s been accompanied by Joe Kennedy’s namesake redheaded son, who’s usually referred to as Joe Some-Roman-Numeral or Carrot Top.

But really, is this the year for yet another traditional Kennedy Do-You-Know-Who-I-Am Campaign? The Kennedy legacy ain’t what it used to be - just ask Mike Capuano. And now Patches Kennedy is reminding 52 percent of the electorate exactly why they razed Camelot three weeks ago.

Probably better to run Delahunt one more time and hope for the best. If he gets knocked off by Bob Hedlund or Jeff Perry, Carrot Top can return in a couple of terms to take the Republican down, the way the Dems did with the last two GOP congressmen, Blute and Torkildsen.

Next question: How many legislative seats do the Republicans pick up in this angry cycle? If the House hacks were really worried, would they have taken yet another bad vote last week, to ban hand-held cell phones in cars? What, them worry?

Even in 1990, the year of the last Republican sweep, not that many House members were ousted. The real carnage came in the Senate, where the Democrats were carrying the weight of both Bulger brothers. They lost nine seats.

UPDATE: More from the Globe, Herald and AP.

SECOND UPDATE: More from the Herald and AP.

small reception for Lt. Gov. Tim Murray turned into a campaign rally Wednesday when Gov. Deval Patrick made an unscheduled visit to the city.

Patrick and Murray greeted about 35 people at the Col. Blackinton Inn, where they pressed their case for a second term in the November elections.

Murray started things off with a long list of administration accomplishments, including ethics, pension, transportation and education reform bills passing over the past year.

He said Patrick has been willing to do the tough work previous governors ignored, such as combining transportation agencies to make them more efficient, tackling the achievement gap in public schools, ending the abuse of pensions by public employees and addressing the billions of dollars in debt left by mismanagement of the Big Dig and MBTA.

The bond rating of state government has improved to AA despite the economic recession and the rating agencies have praised the administration's efficient management of the budget, he said.

Murray said Patrick could have bailed out on Massachusetts and taken a job with his friend President Barack Obama, but the governor stayed to work through the state's problems.

While Murray dealt with the nuts and bolts of government, Patrick sought to infuse some enthusiasm into Democrats demoralized by low poll numbers and the stunning upset win by Republican Scott Brown in the special election for U.S. Senate.

Raising his voice, Patrick said his opponents think budgets are "about numbers. A simple math problem."

Budgets are actually about people and the programs that help them, he said.

Lord love a duck...

UPDATE: More from the Herald and the AP.

SECOND UPDATE: More from the Globe, Holly Robichaud, State House News Service and AP.

THIRD UPDATE: From the Jamaica Plain Gazette and the Boston Herald.

Gov. Deval Patrick’s economic-stimulus program is looking more like a Save-A-Hack telethon with a federal cash infusion going mostly to save jobs on the government payroll.

With pink slips flying in the private sector and the state unemployment rate at 9.4 percent, a Herald review has found that more than 70 percent of jobs “created or retained” by state stimulus spending last quarter were government jobs.

And the vast majority of those jobs were not newly created - the stimulus money was either used just to keep government workers on the job or to increase their hours.

“Let’s call it what it is: it’s a Public Sector Protection Act,” said Jim Stergios, executive director of Boston’s Pioneer Institute, a conservative nonprofit think tank. “We’re just shoring up the public sector.”

Yesterday, Republicans ripped into the discrepancy between private- and public-sector jobs created or saved by the state’s stimulus spending.

“You might as well play the roulette wheel rather than think you can get a job through (the state’s) stimulus program,” said House Minority Leader Brad Jones (R-North Reading).

“The focus has not been on private-sector growth,” said Charlie Baker, a Republican candidate for governor. “The focus has been on the status quo.”

About 71 percent of the 4,722 full-time equivalent jobs that Patrick said were created or saved last quarter were government jobs either fully or partly funded with federal stimulus dollars.

An examination of the state’s overall numbers also shows that about 70 percent of the total jobs were retained, not created. Only 1,389 of the positions touted by Patrick are classified as newly created jobs, data shows.

UPDATE: More from the Globe.

SECOND UPDATE: Gov. Patrick on Marian Walsh: "We just screwed that [one] up." (Listen at the 11-minute mark.) Plus, more from David Tuerck.

THIRD UPDATE: Please be sure to join us Wednesday night for the latest edition of The Notes on Blog Talk Radio. Our guests will be historian George Nash, author of Reappraising the Right, and Katie O’Malley of Human Events. Plus, more from Todd Feinburg and Holly Robichaud.

Just a few weeks ago, Massachusetts Republicans were all abuzz about Charles D. Baker Jr. and his chances at recapturing the governor’s office. Oh, the money he has raised, they would say. Oh, the grass-roots excitement that was brewing, they would crow.

Then Scott Brown came along and stole his thunder, unexpectedly winning a US Senate seat that Democrats had held for nearly 60 years.

This morning, Baker will try to ride the wave that Brown built, formally kicking off his gubernatorial campaign with a rally at Faneuil Hall, where he will surely draw on some of the themes that made Brown’s campaign so successful.

“They’re completely different races,’’ said Rob Gray, chief strategist for Baker’s campaign. “But they have one very large common denominator, which is that voters are angry and are predisposed to vote for the outsider over the insider.’’

But while Brown’s victory could certainly help Baker - it energized the party base, got more people involved, and persuaded Democrats to vote for a Republican - it could also present some challenges as the gubernatorial hopeful looks to expand his presence in the state.

Baker, who was all but invisible during Brown’s campaign, has a different persona, a different style, and, at least on social issues, different politics. While both GOP politicians have based their campaigns on antitax platforms, Baker is more socially liberal, most notably in his support for same-sex marriage.

UPDATE: More from the Herald and Globe.

SECOND UPDATE: More from the Herald and Globe.

THIRD UPDATE: More from the Herald and the Washington Post.

Governor Deval Patrick is taking another whack at a pension overhaul in Massachusetts with new legislation designed to prevent sweetheart retirement deals and cut the overall cost of the state’s public pension system.

Patrick plans to introduce a bill today that includes roughly a dozen changes to state pension law, including requiring anyone seeking special, enhanced benefits to provide an actuarial analysis of the cost before the request can be approved, according to two state officials briefed on the plan.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, declined to describe the other proposed changes but said that in general, the bill would address loopholes left open after the Legislature approved the governor’s first pension overhaul last year.

While that law eliminated some of the most commonly abused pension benefits, such as getting credit for a year’s worth of public service after working one day, it did not cap the pension benefits employees can receive. Currently, 113 retirees collect more than $183,000 a year, an amount greater than the earnings of 90 percent of Massachusetts households. The 2009 law also didn’t address so-called termination benefits, which provide enhanced pensions to employees with 20 years of service who lose their job through no fault of their own. Only two other states provide such benefits.

Patrick’s new legislation is based on the work of a Special Pension Reform Commission the governor convened last year after a series of Globe reports revealed repeated pension abuses and special deals granted to certain retirees. One such report in October 2008 chronicled a series of state laws granting enhanced pensions to certain individuals by name. Those laws awarded specific retirees 100 percent of their salaries, tax-free for life. Fiscal watchdogs have estimated that similar laws have cost taxpayers as much as $125 million per year.

If the governor’s new legislation passes, bills that benefit specific individuals by name could not become law unless they include a detailed cost analysis from the state retirement agency and from local pension officials in the city or town where the recipient works. In the past, many of those bills have been so vaguely worded that it has been unclear what they are intended to do, much less what they would cost.

UPDATE: More from Beacon Hill Institute, Red Mass Group, Ed Moscovitch, Michael Graham, Holly Robichaud, the Herald and Globe.

SECOND UPDATE: Please be sure to join us Wednesday night for the latest edition of The Notes on Blog Talk Radio! Our guests will be National Review’s Victor Davis Hanson and Time’s Romesh Ratnesar. Plus, more from Scot Lehigh, the Globe and Herald.

THIRD UPDATE: From WBUR, the Herald and the Globe.