By Comparison

He's black, Harvard educated, went to a wonderful prep school, is an inspiring speaker, and got elected by appealing to a sense of hope for a better political process. His campaign rallied supporters under a banner of change with slogans like Yes We Can and Together We Can!

18 months later, the people of Massachusetts are trying to figure out how they could have been so dumb to have elected a guy governor with so little political experience.

Even liberals, clinging to Hillary, point to Deval Patrick as evidence of what could go wrong with Barack. Deval's latest bad news is, surprise, a huge increase in spending - in his own office!

The state Senate is cracking down on skyrocketing office spending by Gov. Deval Patrick by demanding that he explain the purpose of cushy-sounding staff positions that have fueled charges of overspending in the Corner Office.

During budget deliberations this week, the Senate unanimously passed a GOP-backed measure that requires the governor to post an online organization chart by July 31 to explain the rationale for his hiring decisions.

What is causing the state Senate to crack down?

The governor has padded his staff with exotic new positions such as “director of grassroots governance” and “director of new media and online strategy,” part of a hiring push that raised eyebrows among senators battling with tight financial margins next year.

Even though the Governor's office says a big chunk of the 80% increase is due to Commonwealth Corps, a new volunteer effort launched by Patrick, faith in him has dropped so low that the democratic legislature doesn't want to leave this issue alone.

Patrick has increased staffing to 76 full-time positions after former Gov. Mitt Romney trimmed the number to about 65.

And the governor has also reopened an administrative office in Springfield and increased funding by at least $150,000 for a branch office in Washington, D.C.

Read this post, and this one, for background on Deval.