"Elias Nugator" asks:

Does Charlie Baker really want another crack at the corner office in 2014? Or is some other republican out in the weeds thinking about the Governor's race?

"Chris Matthews" asks:

If Brown loses do you see him running for governor in 2014?

And via Twitter, "Fox Van Allen" asks:

Take on the GOP next -- Mary Z.

"This debate over budgets and deficits is about more than just numbers on a page, more than just cutting and spending. It's about the kind of future we want. It's about the kind of country we believe in."

That's from the very first paragraph of Barack Obama's big deficit-cutting speech today. If you spent time watching last year's Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign, it probably struck you as rather familiar.

"Certifiable Political Junkie" asks:

One, thinking ahead to 2014, does anyone come to mind as a plausible GOP candidate for Governor? Second, do you foresee any of the congressional incumbents retiring in order to avoid the redistricting bloodbath and a potential primary?

On the first question: Sure -- Charlie Baker, for one.

It turns out, you can be pretty snarky in 140 characters. I've been on Twitter for a couple of years now (follow me at twitter.com/dbernstein), and use it for a variety of purposes: breaking bits of political news; passing along news or commentary of interest; linking to my articles and blog posts; offering brief observations and commentary; interacting with readers and political junkies; and of course, cracking humorous one-liners.

Here, finally, is my take on the Charlie Baker campaign. You can take all the particular criticisms of the campaign strategy; all the dissections of Baker's persona; all the praise of Deval Patrick's get-out-the-vote operation... there's still an overarching reason that Baker lost badly in a race where he should have won easily.

Two weeks ago, after the last round of polls on the Massachusetts Governor race began, I wrote:

...pretty much nobody seriously thinks that anybody is ahead by a comfortable margin in the Massachusetts governor's race.

Second: Every independent poll since Labor Day -- check that, since June -- has shown Deval Patrick leading with margins ranging from 1 percentage point (Globe/UNH) to 7, as in the Suffolk University poll that came out earlier this week.

With rumors of a Suffolk University poll on the way, the Charlie Baker campaign has released another memo on its own magical, unseen internal polling. Now, I don't know where this race really stands, but this memo reeks of a campaign in its death throes.

The 'topline' numbers, for the record, are a 40%-40% tie, with Cahill at 10%, Stein 3%, and 6% undecided.

OK, let's start here: Charlie Baker is absolutely correct that Deval Patrick has refused to talk seriously about how he'll deal with the looming FY2012 budget gap, likely to be in the range of $2 billion. And Patrick deserves to be called out for that.

And, if Patrick's going to leave that question unanswered, it's political fair game for Baker to lob speculative grenades to scare voters about what Patrick might do.

For a long time now, whenever I'm asked who I think will win the Massachusetts Governor's race, I've said the same thing: I think Deval Patrick -- to my surprise -- has a slight advantage, with perhaps a 55% chance of winning.

Today, with the new Boston Globe/UNH poll, I am -- to my further surprise -- recalbrating that analysis.

Some things on my mind with a mere 10 days to the election....

--Bill Keating's campaign, and supporters, need to be careful not to overplay their hand with the Jeff Perry scandal; they don't want to give an opening for Perry to paint himself as the victim of a concentrated attack by the great Massachusetts liberal political/media machine.

Frank Phillips wrote a perfectly good piece in the Globe the other day, pointing out that as Deval Patrick's campaign steps up its attempts to portray Charlie Baker as an insurance-industry corporate hack, one could legitimately say, in the sandbox of politics, that Baker is rubber and Patrick is glue, and if one's a hack then the other's a bigger one.

So alleged comedian Lenny Clarke, who last I saw ranting as MC at a Charlie Baker rally, got caught the other day joking to a Craig Spadafora fundraiser crowd that Spadafora's Democratic opponent for state senator, state representative and Katherine Clark, is a whore. The joke, I am led to understand, went something like this: "Katherine Clark is my aunt, and a whore.

My question, which I've been asking people the past several days, is: Why did the Charlie Baker camp push out "evidence" that their candidate is leading?

Let's first put this out there: pretty much nobody seriously thinks that anybody is ahead by a comfortable margin in the Massachusetts governor's race.

Second: Every independent poll since Labor Day -- check that, since June -- has shown Deval Patrick leading with margins ranging from 1 percentage point (Globe/UNH) to 7, as in the Suffolk University poll that came out earlier this week.

"KC" asks:

Who do you think will win the governor's race? What do you think the final breakdown will be?

For quite some time, I've been saying that it's about a 55% chance that Deval Patrick will win. I'll stick with that -- I still think it could easily go either way, and frankly the only reason I give the edge to Patrick is that I think it's more likely his team will do the right things in the final two weeks than Baker (who should by all rights be ahead by 15 points).