Despite the utter predictability of Healey's relentless attacks on Patrick, Patrick can't seem to refute or rebut them. He seems still to be under the impression that his victory is a foregone conclusion, so he has this tendency to act as if he doesn't really need to respond to Healey's charges. He looks at it like, "I won't sink to her level." But unfortunately Healey's ads, which have become more vicious as she closes in on Patrick, can't be ignored. They must be acknowledged and countered.

Patrick can sputter about how unfair it is all he wants, but it won't earn him any new votes, and it may lose him just enough to sink his campaign. I think next Tuesday's poll numbers will show that the gap between him and Healey has narrowed further—maybe even within the margin of error. What will he do then? His strategy has been to coast above the fray, thinking Healey's increasingly shrill and bitter campaign will finally self-immolate. It may. Her fixation on the Leguer case is starting to seem pathological, and there is more than an edge of real desperation in her defense of her attack ads.

For their part, the Democrats profess not to want to stoop to mudslinging, but the truth is, if they had anything on Healey, they'd be slinging it. Politics is politics, and Democrats are no better than Republicans, and it's time they stopped pretending they're above it. Again, unfortunately for them, what they've got in this race is a bland, marginally competent opponent who is just madly, blindly, unscrupulously ambitious. And all politicians are madly, blindly, unscrupulously ambitious. But some have that something extra. Healey doesn't, but if she can tear down the assumption that her opponent does, she just might prevail. That's why she's running the campaign she's running.

Aside from some revealing slips of the tongue (she did say, outrageously enough, that seniors are "overhoused"), and an unscrupulously ambitious husband whose business practices have been questionable at times, there just isn't much to get excited about or exercised over where she's concerned. She's not charming, witty, or feel-good funny. Ever. But that's not a crime. And her utter lack of charisma can work to her advantage if she can characterize her charismatic opponent as slick in addition to being just as madly, blindly, unscrupulously ambitious as she is. It's called, "leveling the field," and that's what she's been doing.

And Patrick is not a perfect candidate. He's not nearly as good a candidate as he thought he was going to be, and seems to think he still is. He is charismatic, but not quite charismatic enough to coast to prominence, as he seemed to think he could. There are hints of demagoguery in his style, and at times he seems to be a man who can't accurately judge the true measure of his own myth. There will be many, many disappointments for his supporters in a Patrick administration, you can be sure of that.

Having said this, Healey and her bitter endgame politics fully deserve to be repudiated, in and of themselves. To reward anyone even remotely connected to the Romney administration with high office would be rewarding personal ambition above the welfare of Massachusetts. Healey should be defeated for her record in office, and for the way in which she has pursued her campaign for a higher office she is neither qualified for nor in any way deserving of.

So I'm still planning to vote for Patrick, but, if you want to know the truth, I think Massachusetts would not be any worse off if Mihos were elected. He is the only candidate I like better now than I did half a year ago. Grace Ross, whom I have met and talked with, is also an intelligent and charming person, but she knows she hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell. She's not even a spoiler. Mihos would be satisfied in that role, but you also get the feeling he thinks there's an outside chance he could actually win. He talked about it in his closing remarks last night:

Some of you wonder can I win. I just ask you to remember back to the Boston Red Sox in 2004. They were down three games to nothing to the New York Yankees. Everybody said it couldn't be done. But they believed. We all believed. And they did it. They put it together and they won. They reversed the curse. I ask you again, believe in me and believe in some of my plans to make Massachusetts better. I will never, ever let you down.