Keller @ Large: How Patrick Beat Baker
BOSTON (CBS) - The first (and only?) post-election poll is out, courtesy of the MassINC polling group, and it's an eye opener. Among the highlights (or lowlights, if you were for Charlie Baker):
* Baker won the independent vote, but only by 14 percentage point, well below the margin he needed;
* For those insisting that Tim Cahill proved to be a non-factor, please explain how that can be when the poll shows he pulled 12% of independents;
* The gender gap was huge, with Deval Patrick running up a 24% lead among women. And as the MassINC analysts note, women were far more positive than men about the state's direction, with 60% telling the pollsters we're heading in the right direction. No wonder; unemployment has hit men harder than women. And no wonder women rejected Baker's dire warnings of the urgent need for change;
* And get this - 54% of Patrick voters say they had made up their minds before Labor Day, raising the possibility that most of what happened after that - the debates, the TV ads, Loscocco-gate, the bad jobless figures, etc. - was mere background noise.
Wow.
