It Says Here 'Teflon Charlie' Won't Seek a Third Term

If the careers of successful governors in recent times are a reliable guide -- and I believe they are -- Charlie Baker would be an odds-on favorite to win a third consecutive term if he sought re-election in 2022.

Item: Smart Politics reported back in March of 2017 that "Governors seeking their third consecutive four-year terms have won nine elections in a row since 1994 and 20 of 24 dating back to 1970."

Since taking office in January of 2015, our governor has maintained a remarkably high level of popularity with the electorate, polling early on as the most popular governor in the nation.

Back then, many professional pollsters and political know-it-all's predicted that Baker's approval rating would inevitably, swiftly tumble.

Boy, were they wrong.

Two months ago, for example, 73% of registered Massachusetts voters approved of the job Baker is doing in a Morning Consult poll.  The Boston Globe article (10-17-19) on that poll appeared under this headline:

Teflon Charlie: Baker sky-high popularity holds amid RMV scandal, T troubles

Baker's finishing the first year of his second term and he has not ruled out running again. Based solely on gut instinct, I believe this term will be his last.

My reasons are like me: simple and obvious.

First, Baker will be 66 years old in 2022 and it will be time for him to make some serious money again... because, one, he can, and, two, he'd be crazy not to maximize his earnings then for the sake of himself, his wife, their children, and their children's future children.  As governor, Baker earns $185,000 a year.  For an indication of what he could be earning, look at what he made as chief executive of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care: well over a million dollars a year during his final years there.

Two, Baker will be pretty tired by 2022 of working as hard as he does at being governor, of dealing with the endless frustrations of running the vast state bureaucracy -- How would you like to "own" the MBTA and the Registry of Motor Vehicles, not to mention the Department of Children & Families? -- and of feeling, in his heart of hearts, that he is not sufficiently appreciated for the caliber of his intelligence, the depth of his knowledge and experience, and the squeaky cleanness of his ethics.   Try as he does to conceal it, and to present as just "one of the guys" in public, Baker is almost always the smartest human being in the room.  Three years from now, I say his ability to suffer fools gladly will have been totally exhausted.

There's going to be a hell of an election for governor of Massachusetts in 2022, a race that will likely see Charlie Baker campaigning dutifully hard for his lieutenant governor and mutual admirer, Karyn Polito, versus our attorney general (and also Baker's mutual admirer and fellow Harvard alum), Maura Healey.  Let the fundraising begin!