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Keller @ Large: Drop The Baby Talk

BOSTON (CBS) - The other day I spent an enjoyable hour talking with a group of people about local politics, and in the course of discussing Gov. Deval Patrick, I mentioned that while I admired him as a man and a politician who has tried to do some good things in office, I found his rhetoric about our rosy economic outlook during the campaign to be disingenuous.

I believe the exact term I used was "baby talk."

Listen to Jon's commentary:

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After my talk, a guy approached me who claimed to be a neighbor of the governor's out in western Massachusetts, and he politely chastised me for not giving the governor enough credit for the great job he had done turning our economy around. "And besides," he said, "he had to brag to win re-election."

True enough, I guess. But I still wonder how the governor can look himself in the mirror as the evidence continues to pile up of how tough things still are for the local economy.

The latest piece of that comes from a UMass Dartmouth poll of more than 1,200 residents that still found a "broad-based sense of economic anxiety" due to rising costs and widespread worry about job security and making ends meet.

The poll found nearly one in three residents are concerned they or a member of their household might lose their job in the near future. And solid majorities are very anxious about affording health care, housing, and higher ed. 66% were either concerned or very concerned about taxes.

With most local economic analysts now seeing a slowdown in our recovery, it makes you wonder if the governor really believes all that self-serving happy talk he doled out during the campaign, or understands the less-rosy truth and is acting accordingly.

If it's the latter, we're in big trouble.

If it's the former, time to drop the baby talk once and for all.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

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