Episode 240: 2022: 2 Vast, 2 Curious

12/22/22-- This week on The Horse Race we're recapping the year in Massachusetts politics, policy and elections. Steve and Jenn run through the highs and lows, from a lack luster governor's race, to the passed ballot questions.

Stay tuned until the end to see if you think the AI chatbots could be taking over our jobs soon! Have a happy holiday season and thanks for listening to The Horse Race in 2022.

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Full Transcript Below:

Steve Koczela: [00:00:25] This week on 2022's final episode of The Horserace for recapping the year in Massachusetts politics, policy and elections. And then we're going to find out whether the chat bots can do our jobs. It's Thursday, December 22nd. [00:00:38][13.0]

Jennifer Smith: [00:01:00] Welcome back to The Horse Race, your weekly look at politics, policy and elections in Massachusetts. I'm Jennifer Smith here with Steve Koczela. At the end of the year, pour one out for Lisa Kashinsky, who is still doing work even though Playbook has wrapped for 2022. We are wishing you all a very merry everything over the holidays. So let's take a look back, Steve, back to the beginning of January. Speaking of playbook, I pulled Lisa's first playbook of the year, and it was just about how much money Maura Healey was raking in before even an official gubernatorial announcement was in. Has much changed since that everyone knew she was running and that she would have all of the money and now she's won and still has all the money. [00:01:44][43.9]

Steve Koczela: [00:01:45] And that does seem like a good place to start. Our recap, because Maura Healey's runaway victory, I think, was one of the big themes this year. It kind of touched on a broader theme, too, of just the lack of competitiveness in general between Democrats and Republicans in Massachusetts. You know, but starting off with a literal mountain of cash, like I'm thinking of, you know, that part of The Hobbit movie where there's the dragon lying on like a whole cave full of gold coins or like Scrooge McDuck jumping in his is like swimming pool full of coins. Like, that's what Maura Healey's campaign cash was like. [00:02:14][29.5]

Jennifer Smith: [00:02:15] It absolutely was. I'm now worried that we're going to get, you know, a very strongly worded email from the governor elect saying, are you comparing me to a murderous dragon? So for the record, no, we are only talking about the piles of gold. [00:02:27][12.0]

Steve Koczela: [00:02:29] Right? We're only comparing that CPF reports to a movie about J.R.R. Tolkien's novels. That's it. Nothing else? [00:02:35][6.6]

Jennifer Smith: [00:02:36] That's exactly right. I mean, it is kind of strange, too, because you think back over the year where it was very much marked by not just generally uncompetitive races, but even races that started seeming like they were going to have kind of some teeth to them. And the governor's race does come to mind on that. Were a few people who were running were like across the kind of political spectrum on the Democratic side, at least, and just winnowed over time. So by the time any voters got their ballots, they were down to essentially a pool of one, by the way, juice itself corrected as it does. [00:03:15][38.6]

Steve Koczela: [00:03:16] Yeah, it was pretty much down to one by the time we got to the general election. And really that was the theme for the year. Charlie Baker's announcement late last year that he wasn't going to run for reelection pretty much left the Republican primary, you know, is not not all that competitive and honestly left the entire gubernatorial field is not that competitive. You know, Maura Healey's announcement that she was running and then the slow sort of whittling away of all her would be challengers left even by convention time. Really not much of a race. No race, I suppose, even by convention time. And that kind of went down most of the way down the ballot. We had a couple interesting primaries, but really no competitive general elections when all was said and done. [00:03:53][37.0]

Jennifer Smith: [00:03:53] Absolutely. And that means that we ended up spending a lot more time thinking about the ballot measures than the people who were running to, you know, run most of our policy decisions. So the people who were ultimately involved in maybe the most substantial races were just the average voter trying to figure out how much your dental care is going to cost. [00:04:13][19.7]

Steve Koczela: [00:04:14] Right. And I think that's kind of if there's two main things or maybe three of it came away from the ballot question, two of them being that, you know, positive results on questions, one in four positive, just meaning that the other side passed because those both have big policy changes to come. But then also just the broader question of is this how the ballot process should be used? And that's something which we're certainly going to be talking about next year. A lot of people have been whispering about behind the scenes. Many of them won't say anything on the record that are whispering about it behind the scenes and just saying, you know, this is a crazy process this way that we've decided to make policy here, but reluctant in many cases to go on the record just because you don't want to be the one who's saying no. Voters should not have a decision in how public policy is made, even though the impacts of the way that we're doing it right now are a little bit crazy. [00:05:00][46.1]

Jennifer Smith: [00:05:02] Yeah, and that's a very good point. Not just in Massachusetts, but as we often have to remind people, you know, we all hail from different parts of this country. And California, one of my home states, will have dozens of referenda, various points, basically requiring you to do an entire different bout of research from the people that you're electing into office, to just this idea of maybe something as big as, you know, cannabis legalization or whether or not rideshare drivers count as as full employees. So some of the same things that we've dealt with in Massachusetts, but then you have to tack on an entire ten other ones just on the state level, a bunch of local ones. So when we talk about whether or not ballot measures are a great way to kind of pass policy to begin with, you also have to take into account the amount of homework that you're asking every individual voter to do. Whereas it's much easier to say I can take a look at this individual person's policy and hope that they're going to be governing in a way that's kind of aligned with my interests and in a predictable and cohesive ideological manner. So we will definitely get into that over the next year. Looking specifically at the Massachusetts side of things, but as much as we like to think it, we're not an island the entire country is dealing with is the way that we decide policy, maybe the most efficient, most accurate, most reflective. [00:06:30][88.4]

Steve Koczela: [00:06:30] Everybody's waiting to see what Massachusetts thinks at all times. [00:06:33][2.5]

Jennifer Smith: [00:06:35] They're very mportant, Steve. [00:06:36][0.0]

Steve Koczela: [00:06:37] They're waiting to see whether gubernatorial and Senate has beens are going to run for president. They're waiting to see what we do on policy. It's all just one big wave. [00:06:44][7.4]

Jennifer Smith: [00:06:45] Bless. [00:06:45][0.0]

Steve Koczela: [00:06:47] No, but seriously, I mean, there are good reasons for having a ballot measure process. And that's I think, where the real debate comes in is there are some things where the public legitimately did want it and the legislature legitimately was not going to do it. You know, you mentioned marijuana legalization is one of them. And the public's like, no, this is the way that it's going to be and votes it in. You know, even there there are complexities in terms of like, okay, well, how exactly is the policy implemented? How much can the legislature change it before it goes into effect? How long does it take? All those kinds of things. But all those balances, certainly stuff to stuff to discuss. Just as we look forward to even more ballot measures in 2024 or 2026 and so forth. One of the ballot measures that passed this year, of course, was the, quote, fair share amendment or millionaire's tax, where the portion of your income over $1,000,000 will now have a 4% surtax added to it, which will go to transportation and education. The big question, of course, is how much will go to transportation, how much will go to education, and what difference will it make for the MBTA, an issue which we on The Horse Race love to talk about. [00:07:53][66.1]

Jennifer Smith: [00:07:54] I was going to say, Steve, is this the segment where I just let out a wordless scream of transit rage? [00:08:00][6.4]

Steve Koczela: [00:08:04] That's every segment in 2022 is you crying about the red line and me crying about the orange light. [00:08:08][4.5]

Jennifer Smith: [00:08:12] I know, I know. I'm so sorry. My voice literally cracks. I'm so sad about, you know, how long it takes to get anywhere. But we're very happy for the people who get to, after all these years, use the Green Line extension. I don't want to jinx it, but to my knowledge, there hasn't been any kind of catastrophic door failure that has yanked to the entire train off the rails. So it's already doing better than the new orange line trains back in the day. So congrats to the people in Medford I suppose. [00:08:40][27.8]

Steve Koczela: [00:08:41] Yeah, 2022 was a pretty dark year for the T overall other than the Green Line extension. You know, of course this was the year when the orange line was shut down for a bunch of weeks. It was shut down for a couple of days earlier on when you had that that thing happened at the Haymarket with the supporting beam and so forth. We had the fire where somebody jumped off the bridge into the river and swam to shore, which is still one of my favorite stories of the year. It's just all over the system, you know, the red line, the orange line, the commuter rail problems everywhere. [00:09:09][27.8]

Jennifer Smith: [00:09:10] Yeah, absolutely. I am also, as plenty of people are watching to see what the MBTA looks like under a new gubernatorial administration. There were always some kind of strange vibes or dynamics around Charlie Baker and the T most of his tenure as governor. People spend most time talking about how he wouldn't get on the train. He did. However, you know, in the later year of his of his governorship appear on a few different modes of public transit occasionally. So that did end up not being the joke that he left his administration with. But I don't know. Do we know much about Maura Healey's public transit appetite, or is it just safe to assume at this point that we will find out how she feels about the MBTA when we find out how she feels about anything else in the new year? [00:10:01][51.1]

Steve Koczela: [00:10:02] Yeah, I think there is kind of a waiting game going on there. I mean, there was an announcement earlier this week that she's hired a search firm to find the new MBTA GM and who that is, I think, of course, will make a big difference who the transportation secretary is, what that will, I think, tell us something about what the approach is going to be. You know, but the T and really transportation in general are kind of a failed system at the moment and really need to be addressed. You know, traffic is among the worst in the country. The T is among the worst in the country. And we got to do something about it. We got to do something about it. You know, we've had this discussion on just on The Horse Race a million times. We had we did a whole episode on it on Mass Reboot about how the system needs a reboot, but there really isn't one coming. And here we are going into 2023, still wondering, like looking ahead, how am I going to get to work while I drive there? Can I get there? I get on the t ball. I have to jump off the bridge and swim the rest of the way. Should I bring goggles? You know, it's just. Let's do something about this. That's my rant. [00:11:00][58.3]

Jennifer Smith: [00:11:01] Yeah, I'm done. No, I love your read. Also, you absolute liar. We are going to be ranting about this forever, Steve. Don't. Don't end the year by claiming we're ending ending empty rants for anything other than today. I think one of the other things that, you know, voters and residents are also trying to keep in mind on and I'm so glad you brought up the fair share tax is where the money ends up going because when we talk about transportation, it's such a broad brush that we're working with here. If all of the money went to highways, that would be going to transportation, so to speak. So often a lot of the conflicting pressures that we see in this state are, well, if we only have so much money, where do we end up putting it? What areas are we prioritizing? So it's very easy to kind of be in the public transit hub that is Boston and say, guys, our trains are haunted, they are crashing into things. They are literally leaving stations without drivers. Please put the money into the tea. But then it's also very easy to be out in western Mass and say, well, you know, we don't have five different MBTA lines that we're hopping on constantly. So please make sure that our roads and bridges are not complete disasters. So over over the next year, as legislators are kind of finagling where that money ends up going, that's going to be a really big question is regional equity? [00:12:26][85.6]

Steve Koczela: [00:12:27] Yeah, lots ahead for the legislature. Certainly the relationship between the legislature and Maura Healey is something to keep an eye on. I think sometimes outside observers oversimplify, you know, okay, now they're all Democrats. Everything will be harmony, peace, love and happiness. And we've seen that's not always exactly how things work. So lots to keep an eye on there. [00:12:45][18.0]

Jennifer Smith: [00:12:46] Absolutely. And then, of course, as listeners will know from last week, we've seen some demographic changes, but mostly a lot of demographic sameness. Over time, we maintain our status as a legislature with all of almost a third of our elected representatives being women. So we're consistent. Plenty of the rest of the country is doing slightly better. But if you want to hear, of course, our dear working co-host Lisa Kashinsky's rundown on sort of what that means, just go back in time all of a week and listen to us talk about it for 15 to 20 minutes. [00:13:22][36.3]

Steve Koczela: [00:13:23] Definitely a good episode to go back and listen to that one. The other thing that we'll be keeping an eye on next year and really for the next few years, I think is what the future of the Mass GOP is. You know, there's a lot of things to talk about that have happened over the last year. We talked a lot about them just in terms of what the parties seem to be trying to do and not really bothering to try to do like when elections, for instance, and whether they'll get back to that now or just, you know, kind of the symbolic politics that they've been that they have been engaged in, I think is a really, really open question at this point. [00:13:55][32.1]

Jennifer Smith: [00:13:56] And you can't disentangle that from the national conversation about what the role in the stature of the Republican Party is. In general, over the Trump years, Massachusetts Republicans had a lot of trouble kind of figuring out where they were planting their stake in the ground. The party itself got a lot more Trumpy here in Massachusetts. And as a result, as you noted, their chances at keeping what seats they had and gaining anymore kind of consistently dwindled. We're seeing Governor Charlie Baker on his way out, even the closest I'd say Republican in the Charlie Baker camp of the GOP. Anthony Amore didn't get to, you know, return triumphant out of his bid for mass auditor. So, yeah, it's it's an open question how much the party decides to either rebrand or whether there are kind of just the continuing internal fractures that we've been seeing. Because if you are trying to split a party that has this small of a proportion of control already in the state, there is mixed incentives for that and trying to break it into multiple ideological branches. If you're basically arguing over something like 12 seats. [00:15:10][74.3]

Steve Koczela: [00:15:11] Yeah, absolutely. And 10% of registered voters, too. Of course, there's a lot happening at the national level, which will have an impact on that this week. In the last number of weeks have been very busy for former President Donald Trump. His tax returns, of course, have now made their way to the House. And we've seen a summary and potentially we'll see the tax returns, you know, pretty soon. There have been the recommendations of criminal prosecution that have come from the January six committee to the Department of Justice. There's a special prosecutor. There's, you know, investigations all over the country from Georgia to New York. So lots of concerns for former President Trump, which will also, I think, echo here, too. [00:15:46][35.7]

Jennifer Smith: [00:15:48] All right. Well, that is our look back, our sort of look ahead on the politics front. Let's get into some of the absolutely navel gazing horse race. Look that. [00:15:58][10.3]

Steve Koczela: [00:15:58] Let's do it. Let us do it. [00:16:00][1.4]

Jennifer Smith: [00:16:02] All right, here in the script I'm looking at a few different options for what we can delve into. I would like to know that when the consideration of what your favorite campaign ad was, the only thing that came to mind was how often Shannon Liss-Riordan showed up while my friends and I were trying to watch The Bachelor. She was absolutely committed to whatever that demographic is, which all I can say is, is ladies in journalism who like yelling through a bunch of idiots trying to say to each other. [00:16:33][31.4]

Steve Koczela: [00:16:34] I think it's because her campaign staff listen to the horse race and knows that the way to get journalists to advertise during The Bachelor. That's that's my theory. And I'm sticking to it. No, I think that's good. And I think that's probably is honestly the number one thing that campaign ads did this year. It was a mountain of male online ads, wall to wall television ads, radio ads, like literally every flat surface that you could potentially advertise on. There were Shannon Liss-Riordan ads. [00:17:01][27.0]

Jennifer Smith: [00:17:02] That's what the money is for, Steve. [00:17:03][1.1]

Steve Koczela: [00:17:04] And it worked. You know, we saw her name I.D. go way up. I mean, it didn't work in terms of having her win the election. But, you know, in a season where lots of, you know, candidates struggled and struggled and struggled and their name I.D. really never changed or barely changed, hers went way up during that period of time. [00:17:19][15.4]

Jennifer Smith: [00:17:21] And look, can't let the AG's race go by without noting that at the very least it ended up being a pretty competitive race throughout. There were a lot of fights, a lot of disagreement, and we've ended up with A.G. elect Andrea Campbell. So when we talk about not a lot of knives coming out and not a lot of disagreement and not a lot of challenge, open seats tend to be the place that we end up seeing sharp elbows thrown. And that is certainly what we ended up seeing for the top prosecutor spot in the state. So at least there was something to kind of keep an eye on. [00:17:55][33.8]

Steve Koczela: [00:17:55] Yeah, the other one the other thing in terms of campaign ads that I thought was interesting and illustrative was, you know, the Baker Anthony ads, you know, it was in some ways the last gasp of like Baker ism in the mass GOP or at the last gasp for a while. The patient may yet be resuscitated in years to come. But, you know, it was just like we've got this super popular governor, like historically popular governor, and he cannot push another Republican over the finish line in the same, you know, part of the party that he comes from. You know, it's hard enough even getting out of a primary, but from that wing of the party. But then to actually win, you know, it just wasn't going to happen. And I thought that was just fascinating in terms of illustrating where the state is at this moment. [00:18:38][42.6]

Jennifer Smith: [00:18:39] Well, speaking of popularity, this is my chance now to segue us into Steve, how was the year in polling? Were there fun polls? Were there confusing polls? You know, there's the very scientific Twitter polls that you run. Oh, yes. Yes. Oh, was it? [00:18:57][17.7]

Steve Koczela: [00:18:57] Well, that's a good question. And first of all, I'd say that, you know, every election cycle is an existential crisis for pollsters. You know, and every time for the last month, they're like, oh, my gosh, did we wait? Right? Are we missing? Should I trump voters? Are we missing people from here? Are there rural areas? And, you know, the polls, when all the dust settled this year did pretty well. I think my favorite part of the year, though, is Twitter president and owner Elon Musk running a poll about whether he should stay being Twitter's CEO or not and finding out that he shouldn't. First of all, easily the dumbest Twitter poll I've ever seen, which is saying a lot and I've run a lot of dumb Twitter polls. But Twitter polls are dumb. I know they're dumb. I love them and I know they're dumb. [00:19:41][43.8]

Jennifer Smith: [00:19:41] The hottest take, Steve. [00:19:43][1.2]

Steve Koczela: [00:19:44] Staking your future, the future of your business, which is the very business where you're running this poll on the results of said poll is it's dumb like I've lost the ability to think of synonyms and so down. So that was my favorite poll of the year. [00:19:58][14.0]

Jennifer Smith: [00:20:00] What would be the worst possible combination of all of the things that we hate about the structures of governance and polling? Would it be all ballot questions are now determined by Twitter poll? [00:20:14][14.0]

Steve Koczela: [00:20:15] Oh gosh, my heart, like my heart is racing. I'm starting to sweat. [00:20:18][3.1]

Jennifer Smith: [00:20:18] Steve's whole face and. Just just so distressed. [00:20:22][3.5]

Steve Koczela: [00:20:23] No, I mean, they're not representative. We're not going to go through all that again. But it's just that. Yeah, that's my favorite part of the year. That's all I have to say about that. We also have favorite episodes of the year because as with every year as our billions of listeners know, we produce very high quality content throughout the year. But there were a couple episodes that stuck out. Jenn what was your favorite episode? [00:20:42][19.9]

Jennifer Smith: [00:20:44] I mean, this might shock exactly 0% of our listeners, but I am just so pleased that we finally got to do the full musical episode on all of our wacky state songs. We've got the recording from your brother of the first time the State Glee Club song has ever been put to recorded music, which is just an absolute honor. We got to chat with Lenny Gomulka about our deeply beloved Say Hello to Someone in Massachusetts State Polka, a musical episode to 220 of all of The Horse Race episodes. Just, just a delight this year and also a great listen. If you're commuting somewhere for the holidays. [00:21:27][43.1]

Steve Koczela: [00:21:28] Definitely go back and listen to that. One's such good music throughout that one. My favorite has to be the time where we almost did a deep dive produced episode on why nobody was ever going to reintroduce happy hour into the state legislature, which we had just finished literally hours before someone reintroduced Happy Hour in the state legislature. [00:21:45][17.3]

Jennifer Smith: [00:21:47] So then we did a normal episode on it. [00:21:48][1.5]

Steve Koczela: [00:21:48] We did, yes. But for those who have never produced a podcast, let me just say that an entire scripted, produced episode is literally dozens of times more work than doing a chat episode like we're doing right now. So we spent many, many hours creating this episode, going out and getting sound, doing interviews, doing research, writing scripts, and then we through the whole thing in the can. [00:22:08][20.2]

Jennifer Smith: [00:22:09] Oh, and you know, Steve, speaking of chat episodes and throwing the whole thing in the can. Why don't we see for the rest of this podcast, if the A.I. chat bot that we talked about with such reverence and fear last week can actually do our jobs for us. Do you want to just play around with the chat bot for the rest of the episode? [00:22:31][22.2]

Steve Koczela: [00:22:33] I think looking forward to 2023, that's honestly the biggest threat to the horse race is whether or not the robots are going to come to replace us. So what we're going to do for the rest of this episode is test out the competition and we're going to do and I produced podcast. We have submitted a prompt to chat here to give us a podcast script and let's hear it. [00:22:52][19.6]

Jennifer Smith: [00:22:53] Okay, so this was the prompt that I put into the chat response query section. Write me a podcast script for three hosts Jenn, Steve and Lisa, none of whom are from Massachusetts, originally of a Massachusetts political podcast called The Horse Race, with the tagline Your weekly look at politics, policy and elections in Massachusetts, discussing the details of a Boston accent with specific lines for each host. Lisa is off this week. [00:23:20][27.5]

Steve Koczela: [00:23:21] Wow. That's quite, quite detailed. Let's see. Let's see what we got. So Jenn put it in and this is what it gave us. [00:23:27][5.9]

Jennifer Smith: [00:23:37] Welcome to The Horse Race, your weekly look at politics, policy and elections in Massachusetts. I'm Jenn joined by Steve. [00:23:43][6.1]

Steve Koczela: [00:23:44] Hey, everyone. So today we wanted to delve into something a little different and talk about the iconic Boston accent as outsiders to the Bay State are always fascinated by the way our friends and colleagues here talk. [00:23:54][9.6]

Jennifer Smith: [00:23:55] Definitely. So let's dove into the details of the Boston accents. What are some of the most recognizable features of it? [00:24:01][6.5]

Steve Koczela: [00:24:02] One of the most famous features of the Boston accent is the dropped are. So instead of saying car, someone with a strong Boston accent might say caaah. [00:24:10][7.9]

Jennifer Smith: [00:24:12] Another characteristic is the non rodak vowel sounds. So instead of saying hard with a clear r sound at the end it might sound more like haaaad. [00:24:20][8.7]

Steve Koczela: [00:24:22] Let's not forget about the famous wicked phrase in Boston where it is used to mean very. So someone might say that party was wicked fun. [00:24:31][8.7]

Jennifer Smith: [00:24:32] Another thing that really stands out to me is the way that certain words are pronounced differently in the Boston accent. For example, instead of cot and caught, they might both be pronounced as caaht. [00:24:43][10.9]

Steve Koczela: [00:24:44] The word coffee becomes coffee, which always makes me laugh. [00:24:48][3.4]

Jennifer Smith: [00:24:48] Yeah, those are some of the really distinctive features of the Boston accent. It's really interesting to see how language can vary so much from region to region. [00:24:56][7.1]

Steve Koczela: [00:24:56] Absolutely. And even within Massachusetts, there are different accents and dialects depending on where you go. It's really fascinating to explore the diversity of language in her own state. [00:25:05][8.7]

Jennifer Smith: [00:25:06] Well, that wraps up today's episode of The Horse Race. Thanks for joining us. And we'll see you next week for more discussions on Massachusetts politics. [00:25:12][6.6]

Steve Koczela: [00:25:15] Oh, dear God. So now we're cutting back to flesh and blood. Is does that terrify you? I'm actually not that scared of that. [00:25:24][8.9]

Jennifer Smith: [00:25:25] I'm not really. I do really deeply love that. The podcast episodes that you would produce often involve hostessing. That is interesting. It's interesting how things happen and are different in places. Love that, love that. For us. [00:25:45][19.9]

Steve Koczela: [00:25:45] They've definitely got the podcast cadence down like they know what a podcast is. And Jenn, as you were saying before we started up, like podcasts have a very similar cadence and rhythm and the chat GPT bot definitely has that down. Even though I couldn't order together, I was trying to read the script. [00:26:00][14.6]

Jennifer Smith: [00:26:01] Yeah, but see, the script knew that. That's why the script included a line that says that makes me laugh as you literally chuckle during it. I, you know that that was really crossing the threshold for me. [00:26:13][12.2]

Steve Koczela: [00:26:14] I couldn't keep it together. Anyway, very sadly, this is the end of 2022. This is also the end of the time we have for today. I'm Steve because I was signing off today with Jennifer Smith, our producers. Elena Eberwein don't forget to give The Horse Race review wherever you're hearing us now, subscribe to the Massachusetts Politico Playbook and reach out to the mass and polling group if you need polls or focus groups done for now. Thank you all for listening and sticking with us this year and we will see you next year. [00:26:14][0.0]

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