Sen. Wolf made that official this week during a phone interview with the Enterprise (by which I mean me). He’s had a good first year in office, and if he can keep it up through 2012 he will be a tough man to beat.

***

Who is Ronald Beaty Jr. and why is he so interested in county government all of a sudden?

We might find out more as the local election cycle powers up, but for now Beaty is a good reason to scratch your head and say “Huh?”

The West Barnstable man has become a man of letters, so to speak, over the past month, speaking out about Barnstable County government issues. Earlier this month he wrote to the Enterprise exhorting a special commission charged with studying and, if appropriate, submitting recommendations for changes to the county governmental structure to leave things as they were.

Okay, so far, so benign. Then Beaty wrote a second letter berating the same county officials he had previously praised for failing to fill the very minor position of county clerk. The post has been vacant since Scott Nickerson, who is also the county clerk of courts, resigned to focus on his court duties (and, perhaps, in response to a noteworthy bungle in his office regarding five candidates for the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates, whose nomination paperwork was not processed properly).

The county clerk has few responsibilities, but Beaty called the vacancy a “major problem” and the need to fill it an “urgent matter.” Okay, maybe overstating things here, but nothing controversial.

Then I got a copy of an e-mail that I present in its entirety:

It seems a bit “ironic” that County Commissioner Bill Doherty should advise and encourage a man with “my background” to run for election next year for one of the Barnstable County Commissioner seats.  After all, a little over 20 years ago (1991) I was arrested, convicted and sentenced by federal authorities for threatening various elected public officials, including the President of the United States. I will have to reflect long and hard about Bill Doherty’s proposal. I shall seek advice, feedback and counsel from family, friends, and the public at large before any firm decision can be made.  Perhaps after twenty years, it is also about time that I finally ask for formal “forgiveness” from the federal government as well. With that in mind, I will be seeking a Presidential pardon from President Barack Obama relative to the previously mentioned legal issues…

HubbaWHAH?!

First of all, what’s up with all the unnecessary quotation marks?

Second, here’s the deal: Beaty filed a letter of interest for a vacancy on the Barnstable County Human Rights Commission. Bill Doherty, sitting chairman of the county commissioners, saw it and (according to copies of e-mails Beaty received from Doherty and sent to me for some reason) remarked:

Now that I read your resume I must tell you that I have a greater reason to support the possibility of your candidacy for public office…The fact that you have a background in civil rights issues and want to continue that by joining the HRC says to me you already have two of the qualifications for public office (in my opinion) Intelligence and a good heart. The third is an ability to work hard. Think about it if not the county the town there is so much need for new and younger people at all levels.

There’s no indication that Doherty was aware of Beaty’s criminal background, which is this: according to several stories I found online (including two Beaty himself provided links to), in 1991 Beaty was convicted of sending threatening letters to President George H. W. Bush, Ted Kennedy, and then-State Senator Lois Pines (he also made threats against his then-wife, but he doesn’t mention those in his e-mail) and spent time in prison for it. As you can see, Beaty is not hiding this fact.

In Beaty we have, in a microcosm, a lot of the challenges that have become so commonplace in politics. Here is a man who was convicted of some pretty serious crimes, but did his time and has by all accounts stayed out of trouble for a considerable period of time. What has greater weight: the severity of his acts, or the life he has led since? Is 20 years enough time to erase what is either a terrible lapse in judgment or a sign of an unstable and violence-prone personality?

As is too often the case, partisan politics could play a role. To use the late Ted Kennedy as a somewhat ironic example, his foes never forgave him for Chappaquiddick, while his supporters were quick to dismiss that dark chapter in Kennedy’s life as ancient history. Right now, Newt Gingrich’s boosters are turning a blind eye to his infidelity, but a lot of those same people would wag a damning finger at Bill Clinton for his sexual shenanigans.

One thing’s for sure: if this guy runs, I’m going to have some interesting things to write about next year.

***

Tom Conroy, we hardly knew ye.

The Democratic candidate for US Senate has withdrawn from the race, citing (and boy, have we seen a lot of this lately) his inability to compete against front-runner and candidate apparent Elizabeth Warren, who has a ton of money and the party’s blessing.

Those same factors have previously shoved Setti Warren and Alan Khazei out of the race prematurely — by which I mean LONG before any of us pesky voters get our say on the matter.

***

Speaking of early dropouts, Thomas Hodgson, Bristol County sheriff, announced this week he is not going to run for Congress after all. Sheriff Hodgson had been toying with the idea of running in the Fourth or Ninth District, also known as, respectively, Barney Frank’s (D) soon-to-be-former district and William R. Keating’s (D) soon-to-be-new district, but decided to stay put.

Well, sort of. The print edition of this column is still a ways off — it’ll probably debut in January — but there’s enough going on that I felt compelled to resurrect the column early as an online-only dealie.

Quick aside: this blog’s guts are a bit befouled at present, so trying to comment will lead only to frustration and heartbreak. If you feel the need to chew me out for anything, you can e-mail me at bailey at capenews dot net (sorry to spell it out, but man, the spambots have it out for me lately).

The development that really inspired my early return to whinging about politics is this week’s development with Alan Khazei, who on Wednesday dropped out of the US Senate race, citing an inability to raise money and gather support now that the Democratic Party has embraced Elizabeth Warren as its official horse in the race.

Alan. Dude. Has the Presidential race taught you nothing? A couple months ago, Rick Perry entered the Presidential race and everyone went “Michele who?” Now look at him! He’s running third in most polls behind Mitt Romney and Herman freakin’ Cain — and Herman is kind of crazy! Warren still has plenty of time to say or do something insane and give you a shot at overtaking her!

She’s already dipping her toe into that pool with a recent comment to The Daily Beast that she “created much of the intellectual foundation for what” Occupy Wall Street and its spinoffs are doing now. She’s since backtracked on that remark, so she’s obviously mastered the necessary campaigning skill of saying something rather outrageous and/or self-aggrandizing and then nimbly backpedaling when someone calls her on it.

But, to my intended original point: Khazei was the most promising candidate in the field beside Warren, who really needs someone to run her through the paces, if nothing else. There are four other Democrats that I know of who are still in the race — Tom Conroy, Marisa DeFranco, Jim King, and Herb Robinson — and I’m betting you haven’t heard of ANY of them.

And chances are you will continue to hear nothing about them, because the media, like the Democratic Party, is currently latched onto Warren, and now that Khazei — who had a degree of name recognition — is gone, it’s going to be All-Warren All The Time until after the September primary.

Anyone remember what happened the last time the Dems named an heir apparent to the Senate seat and left that candidate to cruise to an “easy victory”? The Democratic Party apparently doesn’t. Party leaders should have at the very least given Khazei enough support to keep him active through the primary so we the voters — remember us? We (ostensibly) choose elected officials — could see who the better candidate truly was.

***

Speaking of denying voters choice, it was also announced yesterday that longtime Congressman John Olver (D) is retiring, freeing up the race for the First Congressional District — and, perhaps more notably, giving the special joint legislative committee on redistricting every excuse in the world to let the First District take the big hit so the committee can, for the most part, maintain the existing boundaries for the other eight Congressional districts.

You see, when Massachusetts lost a district following the 2010 Census, there was a lot of concern that redrawing district lines would end up pitting two incumbent Democrats against one another in the primary race, and there was heavy speculation that the 10th Congressional District (which includes the Cape and Islands) would be eliminated and its towns folded into the Fourth or Ninth Districts — potentially setting up a contest between freshman Congressman William R. Keating and, respectively, Barney Frank or Stephen Lynch.

But now that Olver is out of the picture, the committee can carefully redraw the district boundaries to avoid any hot Dem-on-Dem action in September. Convenient, isnt it?

***

On a more local note: while there has not yet been an official announcement, there’s every indication that Republican Thomas F. Keyes is planning to challenge Senate President Therese M. Murray (D) in 2012. Keyes lost to Murray in 2010 in a surprisingly tight race: 52.5 percent of voters in the Plymouth and Barnstable District sided with the eight-term incumbent Murray, and 47.5 percent voted for Keyes, making this Murray’s tightest re-election race ever.

After the 2010 election, people on Keyes’ e-mail list (including me) continued to receive e-mails from the campaign, in which Keyes was referred to as the man “who is seriously considering” a rematch in 2012. The e-mails started out as stock rebuttals to everything Murray did (“Keyes Disappointed Murray Refuses To Create An Independent Commission On Redistricting” read one early notice), but soon turned into rally and fundraiser announcements. Once you start raising money, I think it’s safe to say you’re no longer merely “considering” running for office — especially when, according to a mid-year finance report filed with the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance, you’ve raised a little over $11,000 over the first six months of 2011.

The question is not whether Keyes is running, the question is: can he effectively run against Murray on his own? Last year Keyes’ campaign ran concurrently to those of two strong candidates — State Representative Randy Hunt (R – Sandwich) and Jeffrey D. Perry, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress — and Keyes’ detractors insisted the only reason he made as good a showing as he did was because he hitched his faint star to two much brighter and, in Perry’s case, more high-profile wagons.

An upset victory is certainly not out of the question, but Murray’s undeniable clout has benefited the region for many years, and that’s going to be a hard thing for voters to give up in favor of a man with no clout, few connections in the State House, and little political experience beyond the town and county level.

***

Finally, we bid a fond farewell to State Representative Susan D. Williams Gifford (R – Wareham), whose Second Plymouth District has been shifted completely off Cape Cod due to the aforementioned redistricting. She represented three precincts in Bourne, which will now be divvied up between Hunt and State Representative David T. Vieira (R – Falmouth).

While the Cape delegation is losing one of its number, Gifford had a minimal presence on Cape Cod, so I expect her loss to be negligible. I very rarely saw her at any major event attended by the other members of the delegation, and I’ve on occasion heard some critical remarks about her non-attendance from a couple of her colleagues.

9 ) Hurricane Irene gets ready to rock the U.S. like, well, a hurricane. Me? I’ll be ridin’ the storm out.

8 ) A legislative committee unveils a new casino gaming proposal that would allow three resort-class gaming establishments in Massachusetts. Yes, let’s forgo developing a biotech or renewable energy industry, and go right for soaking the poor and desperate. Smashing idea.

7 ) GOP Presidential candidate Rick Perry expresses doubt as to the age of the planet Earth, calls evolution “just a theory.” I’m guessing education is not going to be a priority talking point of his campaign.

6 ) An adviser for US Senator Scott Brown admits he set up a Twitter account mocking potential rival Alan Khazei, but does not apologize, claiming he was simply trying to “lighten things up.” Yes, because anonymous attacks via the Internet are always such a hoot! On a relate d note…

5 ) US Senate candidate Alan Khazei visits the Cape. Enjoy him while he’s here, folks, because if he wins, we’ll probably see him only once a year. If that.

4 ) A local well-known nogoodnik gets pwned by a 72-year-old woman after he attempts to steal her purse in a Walmart parking lot. I don’t have to say anything else to render that statement hysterical.

3 ) President Obama winds down his controversial Vineyard vacation, giving Republicans one less thing to gripe about (but really, they’re focused on job creation).

2 ) A minor earthquake hits the Eastern seaboard…and again, I didn’t notice a damn thing. What, am I made of shock absorbers or something?

1 ) Rumors swirl that Will and Jada Pinkett-Smith are on the skids following an alleged affair on Jada’s part with J. Lo’s ex Marc Anthony…who was in “Hackers” with Wendell Pierce, who was in “Sleepers” with Kevin Bacon.

As a wise parrot once said, I could have a heart attack and die from not surprise over the results.

Now, to address pieces of business old and new. The old business: after last week’s issue I heard from a few people who wondered why Stephen G. Pagliuca and Alan A. Khazei got the full interview treatment while everyone else got mini-profiles.

It’s very simple: if they bothered to return my phone calls and made time for me, they got interviewed; if they blew me off, they didn’t.

The exception to this rule is Sen. Brown. By mutual agreement we’d planned to get together after the primary election since, at the time, he was the only Republican running — then Jack E. Robinson popped up at the 11th hour. After speaking with him about this, he said he was cool following our original game plan and we will be getting together soon.

Presumptuous, you say? In principle, yes, but it’s hard to hold it against him in light of his opponent; Robinson simply was not a viable candidate, especially when he appears in the race at the 11th hour and apparently goes out of his way not to make himself especially visible.

Or maybe Sen. Brown has a low-grade precognitive ability and predicted Robinson’s defeat, along with AG Coakley’s win; the day before the election, Sen. Brown issued a press release challenging the Democratic candidate to “tell the special interests to stay out of the Massachusetts special election.”

Sen. Brown was referring specifically to a $214,000 radio ad campaign funded by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in support of AG Coakley.

“It reinforces the perception that she is the candidate of the status quo who will protect big government spending programs at the expense of taxpayers,” Sen. Brown said in a press release. “Martha Coakley needs to tell the big government unions to stop trying to buy this election. This election can’t be bought and we should let the people decide without any outside interference. We should be looking out for the people’s interests and not the special interests.”

Uh, Sen. Brown? Question over here. The SEIU represents (as per their website): “nurses, LPNs, doctors, lab technicians, nursing home workers, home care workers…local and state government workers, public school employees, bus drivers, and child care providers…workers who protect and clean commercial and residential office buildings, and…private security officers and public safety personnel.”

Are you saying the SEIU is a big government union – slash – special interest and not looking out for “people’s interests”? They seem pretty people-interest-oriented to me. Just sayin’.

Follow-up question: will you be returning the $1,000 donation from the United Services Automobile Association Employee PAC, which represents employees of the USAA, which provides insurance and financial services to military personnel? Or the $4,500 from Mitt Romney’s “Free and Strong America PAC,” which supports candidates who conform to an arch-conservative platform? Or are those not big government unions and/or special interests?

And what about the PAC money you received in your 2008 state senatorial campaign? Will you be returning any donations from the PACs representing Bank of America, the Mass. Credit Union League, the FMR LLC (Fidelity), MA Correction Officers Federated Union, the MBTA Police Association, the Association of Builders and Contractors, the Fraternal Order of Police, Insurance Agents and Brokers of Massachusetts, the Mass. Association of Realtors, the Mass. Hospital Association…

Again: just sayin’.

(FYI: the above lists provided courtesy of, respectively, the Federal Election Commission and the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance.)

Now, I’m not trying to insinuate that AG Coakey’s campaign is free of PAC influence because it sure ain’t – 27 PAC donations and counting! – but if Sen. Brown is going to play the “refuse special interests money” card, he should play by the same rules.

Political news and announcements may be sent to Michael Bailey, Region editor and senior political reporter, at bailey@capenews.net

Yeah, I know it’s a primary election held at a weird time of year, but c’mon, people. If you’re reading this and you didn’t vote, I am officially revoking your right to crab about anything the eventual winner of the election does once he or she gets to the US Senate.

And that’s the new question: who will voters send to the Senate next month? Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley or State Senator Scott Brown (R – Wrentham)?

Before I weigh in on that, let’s look at the primary race and how Coakley and Brown got their wins.

Well, with Brown it’s an easy answer: Jack E. Robinson sucks as a candidate. Sorry, Jack E., but it’s true; you popped up about a month before the election, then didn’t do a whole heck of a lot to promote yourself. You waste space on the ballot every time you half-heartedly run for something. Next time, get serious or get out of the way.

Coakley benefited from several factors, only some of which were within her control. Frankly, her ideas didn’t stand out in any huge way from Congressman Mike Capuano’s, Alan Khazei’s, or Steve Pagliuca’s, so I think it’s not unfair to say that she got by on superior name recognition born of a strong grass roots campaign, her mostly positive track record as AG, the fact that she wasn’t part of a federal government structure that has spent much of the year spinning its wheels and getting bogged down in pointless in-fighting (especially among the Dems), and her very disciplined presentation.

(That latter point, which was a plus in the primaries, may be a drawback from here on out, but I’ll get to that in a bit.)

That she was the sole female in the race? I think that heightened her visibility, but it’s tough to say whether it crossed the fine line into swaying voters…let’s just say it didn’t hurt her.

Capuano sank himself by playing the Ted Kennedy card as hard as he did. Perhaps he was trying to appeal to voters who liked Kennedy — and they are many — but instead he came across as a wannabe Kennedy carbon copy at a time when people are kind of tired of the same-old same-old.

Khazei’s story is lamentable. Of the four Dems I believe his desire to serve the public was the most sincere and selfless, but he showed his political inexperience by failing to get his message out early and often. He made a decent showing in the final weeks of the campaign — enough to barely surpass at the polls Steve Pagliuca, who came out of the gate at a respectable gallop — but it was too little too late. I for one would like to see Khazei regroup and take another shot, if not for this office in 2012 then for another major elected office.

Pagliuca, as mentioned above, started strong but couldn’t keep the momentum up, and time eventually proved his enemy. The more people got to know him, the more he came across as a businessman dabbling in politics rather than a serious candidate. And really, wheeling out a Celtics championship trophy during your later campaign stops just smacks of desperation.

So, now we come to January’s Big Game, and I think most would agree that Coakley has the edge in a state that, despite the fact more than half of its voters are unenrolled, is still very blue. She also has the advantage of greater exposure; Brown has been pounding the pavement a lot, but the limp GOP primary did him no favors as the Boston media’s spotlight has been solidly on the Democrats — therefore on Coakley — for months.

Brown is doing himself a disservice with some of the stuff he’s tossed out in his opening salvos against Coakley. On Monday he threw down what has become a standard gauntlet for whoever has less money to blow on a campaign: the challenge to refrain from accepting special interest money. Yeah, that old chestnut.

The Brown campaign issued the challenge earlier this week in response to an SEIU-sponsored radio ad series supporting Coakley.  It read, it part:

***

YOU! You’re the campaign consultant!

Or, you can be – kinda-sorta – by going to the official website for US Senate candidate Alan A. Khazei and checking out three campaign videos and voting on which one gets pasted all over the Internet.

One is a straightforward (read: dull) endorsement by Max Kennedy, son of the late Robert F. Kennedy; the second attempts a kind of mild whimsy (and comes off as kind of dopey); and the third…oh, lordy, the third one just sucker-punched my brain. It knocks off the theme to “Cheers,” badly, and includes the lethal line, “But nobody knows his name.”

That’s really not the kind of thing you want to admit, dude.

I dare say whoever participates in this exercise might make a better campaign consultant than whoever came up with these videos.

***

State Representative Matthew C. Patrick (D – Falmouth) has released a letter of endorsement for his choice in the US Senate race, Congressman Michael E. Capuano (not Martha Coakley, as previously and erroneously reported).

“Mike is a real down to earth guy who is not too important to discuss issues with the average person,” Mr. Patrick wrote. He extolled Rep. Capuano’s work in promoting “progressive values” in Congress over the past decade, and urged voters to support him in the upcoming primary (December 8, by the way).

***

Our last US Senate race-related note of the week: Martha Coakley’s supporters are holding visibilities (a fancy name for “standing in the freezing cold to wave at cars”) in Bourne and Falmouth tomorrow. The Bourne visibility runs from 1 to 3 PM, the Falmouth visibility from 9:30 to 11:30 AM.

For more info on these or other campaign events, contact Mike Falcone at mfalcone@marthacoakley.com or 617-241-0200.

***

Republican Mary Z. Connaughton of Framingham is joining the growing field of candidates for – get this – state auditor. Who’d’ve thunk that this would be one of the races to draw early attention?

Ms. Connaughton ended last month her tenure on the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority’s board of directors, which she was appointed to in 2005. She previously ran, unsuccessfully, for state representative of the seventh Middlesex district.

In addition to Ms. Connaughton, the brewing race includes fellow Republican Earle Stroll and Democratic incumbent A. Joseph Denucci, who has served six terms in that seat.

***

Charles D. Baker Jr., Republican candidate for governor, has launched a revamped website with a new look and, at last, some decent content. Go scope it out.

Among the new bells and whistles: “Conversations With Charlie,” a feature that allows visitors to submit video or e-mail questions, to which Mr. Baker will respond via the magic of Internet streaming video.

***

Mr. Baker’s sole rival in the primaries (so far), Christy P. Mihos, seems to be having some campaign difficulties. The Boston Globe reported this week that his fundraising has been floundering, and was thus unable to launch his planned TV ad campaign in October.

The more disconcerting news to me was how his director of communications, Kevin Sowyrda, was fired: he learned he’d been terminated not from Mr. Mihos himself, but from someone else within the campaign. Mr. Sowydra was quoted as saying, “Apparently, [Mihos] has told people on the campaign that I resigned a month ago and have been working pro bono since then, which of course was news to me. However, we all love Christy dearly for this type of eccentricity, because that’s what makes him the very special person that he is.”

WHAAAAAAAAAAT?! You get canned indirectly, the man who should have done the dirty deed himself lied about it, then divested himself of all responsibility, and your attitude is, “Oh, that rascal!” ?

Is this really the sort of behavior we want in our Corner Office guy? I personally am not crazy about the idea of a “very special eccentric” running the state…

***

A reminder: Ray Kasperowicz, Republican candidate for the US House of Representatives – 10th Congressional District, will meet with the Sandwich Republican Town Committee on Tuesday, November 10. The meeting will begin at 7 PM and will be held at the Riverview School on Route 6A in East Sandwich.

The press release I received added that one attendee will receive a door prize. My bet is it will be a stuffed toy Honky the Republican Elephant, official mascot of the GOP.

Hey, it’s better than the Tickle Me Rush Limbaughs they were giving out during the last election…

Political news and announcements may be sent to Michael Bailey, Region editor and senior political reporter, at bailey@capenews.net

I know they called it a debate, but the candidates, you may have noticed, never really engaged one another, except to toss the occasional mild jab — which brings me to my major observation: no one went after Martha Coakley.

Every poll I’ve seen to date has Coakley well in the lead among the four Dems, and many pundits expected the three guys to gang up on the theoretical front-runner to A) take her down a peg or two and B) build some much-needed cred for themselves, yet she escaped unscathed. I wonder if the men were hesitant to attack en masse the sole female on the roster and look like bullies — a very real concern, sadly; gender-based double standards make politics an even trickier minefield than it already is. For the guys in this situation, it was something of a lose-lose scenario: attack Coakley and risk looking like jerks, or avoid her and hope she hangs herself with her own rope.

…which she didn’t; Coakley presented herself very well in general. She was businesslike, perhaps to a fault (she was a titch wooden), mostly stayed on-topic and answered the questions as they were asked, if not necessarily directly (a fault shared by all), and parlayed her work as AG into a viable foundation for a Senate stint.

Alan Khazei often looked and sounded like he was reading off a teleprompter, or reciting carefully memorized campaign position papers. And he did not do well on his feet, as evidenced by his response to the question about how he’d respond to the possibility of military base closures (something the late Ted Kennedy successfully fought off, as evidenced by the MMR’s continued operations here on the Cape). Khazei partially answered the question, then went off on a lengthy tangent about economic and job policy.

Khazei also had a problem with speaking efficiently. He tended to over-talk his points, a sign that he had little to say, so he filled the space by repeating, with increasing emphasis, what little he did have. And we all know how well that worked out for Sarah Palin…

His most telling moment was at the end of the debate, when he challenged his opponents to weekly televised gab sessions. This is a secret code, you know. Translated, it means: “You guys are kicking my can all over the place because you’re all getting more exposure. Since I don’t have the deep pockets you guys have, let me veil my attempt to increase my face time on TV behind a seemingly noble intent to educate the voters.”

Good hustle, Alan, but I have yet to see anyone bite at that one.

Congressman Mike Capuano pushed his Congressional experience hard, which was wise because that is his greatest strength; he knows the system far better than his rivals, he has the connections that are crucial if you want to get stuff done, and he could hit the ground running. Yet that is also perhaps his greatest weakness: he’s part of a system that has been in low gear for many, many months…why should anyone believe he can affect more positive results as a Senator than as a Congressman?

On an aside: Capuano should stop throwing out that “working class joe” angle. For any established politician, especially at the federal level, to claim he’s just like one of us is disingenuous at best, insulting at worst. Read about his financial status here and tell me if he’s really “like us.” Just because you live in Somerville (official city motto: “Wickid Pissah!”), it doesn’t automatically make you Joe Six-Pack, bubbi.

Steve Pagliuca played the outsider card to mixed effect. Considering how lackluster Congress has been as of late, some fresh blood is definitely desirable and attractive to an increasingly frustrated voting public. However, Pagliuca showed his naivete (not optimism: naivete) by expecting he would somehow be able to enter the US Senate and magically turn things around. I would love to see a Mr. Smith Goes To Washington thing, but reality can be a cruel, cold splash of unwelcome reality, can’t it?

Both Khazei and Pagliuca also fell back on one of the hoary old cliches of fresh-faced “outsider” candidates: the ardent refusal to accept special interest money. Right, like anyone will admit to that? Guys, EVERYONE accepts some form of special interest money sooner or later. You would too. Don’t fool yourselves and don’t try fooling us.

I was gratified to see none of the four went bonkers painting themselves as the Second Coming of Ted. Capuano was by default the worst offender here, invoking the Kennedy name several times over the night, but never to what I would call excessively. So: no egregious grave-robbing here (although all four readily admitted that they didn’t wait for Kennedy’s seat to get cold before deciding to run).

I’m not about to opine about the candidates’ respective stances on the various issues because, to be honest, I’m still learning their positions myself, but I have to say that only once during the night did I go, “Aha! Candidate Johnson is right!” and that’s when Capuano remarked, on the topic of whether it’s better to save certain jobs (police, fire, teachers) or create new ones, that a saved job is just as vital to overall economic health as a new job.

There was little difference in their opinions on how to tackle issues such as economic stimulus, foreign affairs, and immigration reform, and in typical politician fashion they all showed a knack for delivering non-answers that sounded like answers to the untrained ear (in such cases, it’s what they’re not saying that tells the tale more than what they are saying).

Khazei distinguished himself a little by being the only one to address (and oppose) the prospect of expanded casino gaming in Massachusetts — was this really a pressing issue in the Senate race? — and Capuano broke out of the pack on the health care reform/public option issue. He carried the Kennedy torch on that one and, somewhat contemptuously, said Republican support was unnecessary to carry a health care reform bill (way to reach across the aisle Kennedy-style, dude). He disagreed with US Senator Harry Reid’s idea of giving states the choice to opt out of a government-run public option, Reid’s concession (one among many) to leverage greater support in Congress for health care reform.

So, who “won” this non-debate? According to the Coakley, Capuano, and Pagliuca camps, their respective candidates did. Each of them sent me e-mails touting their alleged wins: Capuano’s people said he proved that he was “by far the most qualified and best prepared” of the candidates; Coakley’s team said she was “the clear winner”; and Pagliuca’s mouthpieces, writing as Pags (I’m pretty sure he didn’t actually write it himself), said he was the only one who had a definite game plan for turning the economy around.

Me? I think Coakley and Capuano were the de facto winners, but more by dint of the fact the other guys were rather weak than because of their own dazzling oratories and muscular stances on the hot issues. The true test of all four candidates would have been a true debate, a head-to-head-to-head-to-head discussion amongst themselves instead of them standing at lecterns and reciting their carefully prepared rhetoric to the cameras.

We still have more than a month with the Fab Four before the December primary, so here’s to hoping that their next get-together will be more than, as WHDH-TV’s Andy Hiller so astutely put it, four simultaneous hour-long press conferences.