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.

Charlie Baker just held a conference-call press conference, in which he criticized Tim Cahill for accepting contributions from pension fund managers who get business from the Treasurer's office -- which was recently reported in the Boston Globe (by Walter Robinson's talented journo students).

Baker is calling on Cahill to disclose and provide details about the placement agents that the Treasurer's office uses to select pension-fund managers, and to fully disclose all campaign contributors from those agents.

In this week's issue of the Boston Phoenix -- in print tomorrow, online now -- I consider how the Big Dig, aka Original Sin of Massachusetts Politics, is once again at issue in this year's state elections.

Not only do we have Democrats pounding Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker for his alleged complicity in the project's financial shenanigans, but we have two former member of the Turnpike Authority running for statewide office.

In this week's issue of the Boston Phoenix -- in print tomorrow, online now -- I take a look at recent developments in the Massachusetts gubernatorial race. With the special US Senate election campaign about to end, the guv campaign is starting to come out of its long hibernation. Charlie Baker has used the downtime to pile up some dough; Christy Mihos seems to be readying a populist-conservative assault on Baker; and Tim Cahill.

"Frank" asks:

What do you think of Cahill's chances in the 2010 Gov's race? Can he position himself as a more-credible alternative to Patrick than Baker/Mihos, or is Massachusetts just not ready for a 3rd party candidate?

I am highly skeptical that Cahill can win. But for the moment, he is keeping himself very credible, and solid in polls.

--On September 1st, I predicted on Twitter and Facebook that Paul Kirk would be the temporary Senate appointee -- I believe I was the first to publicly float his name for it. The next day a Boston Phoenix editorial advocating Kirk for the position went online. (To the best of my knowledge, that was also the first place where the point was made that Kennedy's staff had ceased its constituent-services work, and a temporary appointment would allow them to re-start it.