For Card, a frayed political welcome mat

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Could the man close enough to Bush to tell him ''America is under attack" when the second plane hit the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, really win political office in the blue state of Massachusetts? Sure, the governor's race looks dreary right now. But is there anything drearier than intimate ties to a president with a 37 percent approval rating?
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Beyond the world of political insiders, Card is not well known. Irwin ''Tubby" Harrison, a Democratic pollster with an obvious partisan viewpoint, calls him ''a staff guy who made the trains run on time," and a ''male Harriet Miers"-- a reference to the Bush legal counsel whose mediocrity doomed her as a Supreme Court nominee.

Still, David Paleologos, who does polling for the Suffolk University Political Research Center, doesn't dismiss the viability of a Card candidacy. Two years ago, he said he ''threw Card's name" into the mix with Healey -- and among Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents, the two ended up in a statistical tie. ''He was extremely competitive in a Republican primary," said Paleologos. Given what he sees as Healey's failure so far to define herself, he believes Card is credible and competitive today, although he has no current polling data to support his thesis.

Mihos's participation as a third-party candidate also changes the normal dynamics of a Massachusetts election, Paleologos points out. With votes split between three candidates in the general election, the winner needs 40 percent, not 51 percent.
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http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/03/30/for_card_a_frayed_political_welcome_mat/

he already ran once. Lost in a three-way primary. (Am I remembering correctly that the guy who beat him lied about having a Harvard degree and military service in Vietnam? Ahead of his time, that guy!)