New In The Phoenix -- The Coming Storm In Mass. Politics

In this week's issue of the Boston Phoenix -- in print tomorrow, online now -- I use our annual "look ahead" issue to consider the likelihood of a major political shake-up in Massachusetts politics.

Political insiders in this state are always speculating about potential domino-effect shake-ups, but, as I discuss in the article, it never seems to actually happen.

This time, however, it looks real. With Martha Coakley likely heading to Washington, the AG seat is up for grabs -- joining the existing openings at state Treasurer (with Tim Cahill running for governor) and state Auditor (with Joe DeNucci retiring). If Secretary of the Commonwealth Bill Galvin runs for AG, as he seems to be signalling, that means we'll have new bodies in all four of those statewide Constitutional offices. (Plus, of course, there's the big Deval Patrick re-elect battle for Governor.)

Depending on how active those races turn out to be, that could in turn vacate a slew of lower offices, pulling in candidates who leave their seats open, and so forth.

In the article, I don't go into the play-by-play of who's likely to run for what. For that, I hope you'll follow me regularly in the paper, at this blog, on Facebook, and on Twitter. And tell your friends to follow me too! 

Here's the article: 

Chaos Theory: 2010 might be the year Massachusetts politics undergoes an unprecedented reshuffling. 

Also, you may be interested in the new Phoenix editorial, looking at the start of Tom Menino's fifth term as Boston mayor.