In this week's issue of the Boston Phoenix -- in print tomorrow, online now -- I take a look at the current state of the Deval Patrick campaign.

I start with this observation:

By rights, Deval Patrick should have no chance. He's an unpopular governor (a majority of voters believe he does not deserve re-election) running in the middle of a devastating recession.

In Massachusetts politics, we demand two ritualistic promises from our gubernatorial challengers every four years: that they will clean up the Beacon Hill culture, and that they have a magic plan to reduce the state budget by whatever the current projected deficit is.

To date, I don't believe that any candidate's answer to the second part has ever hurt, rather than helped, a candidate.

The new Boston Globe/UNH poll has the Massachusetts governor race at a dead heat, with Deval Patrick at 35%, Charlie Baker 34%, Tim Cahill 11%, Jill Stein 4%, and 14% undecided among likely voters. That's obviously going to give a morale boost to the Baker camp, but I have a strong sense that the Patrick brain trust is not too unhappy with it -- perception of an even race is what they need to gin up interest and involvement from their supporters.

Just a few thoughts about the Tim Cahill thing, while waiting for the Globe poll on the race expected in tomorrow's paper....

From my understanding, what happened this week with the departure of top staff wasn't so much a change in the operation of the campaign, as a public airing of the change in the operation of the campaign that had already been happening -- which is the shifting of power from the outside, national people to the inside, long-time Cahill people.

Three days ago, a group called Massachusetts Liberty Preservation Association (MassLPA) held its second annual "Constitution Day" event at the Massachusetts state house. MassLPA grew out of the Ron Paul movement two years ago, and they've generally struck me as a pretty reasonable, serious representation of that conservative-libertarian perspective.

One thing became clear from last night's debate: Tim Cahill is ready to play the class card, and play it hard. This is exactly what I was suggesting for him in my pre-debate "empathy" post, so it got me thinking how, exactly, Cahill can (potentially, maybe, possibly) change the race with this theme -- how to open up an "empathy" gap by arguing that Patrick and Baker, by virtue of their wealth and status, don't understand what people are going through, and are thus unlikely to do anything to help.

The new Suffolk/Ch.7 poll just out shows the Massachusetts governor's race pretty much where it was in May: Deval Patrick leads with 42%, Charlie Baker is behind at 34%, Tim Cahill is well behind but not irrelevant with 14%, and Jill Stein lags at 4%.

Truthfully, as far as I can tell, not much has changed in this race since summer of 2009, with the lone exception of the big RGA ad blitz in the spring that flipped Baker and Cahill's positions in the polls.

I'll be on WGBH-TV's Greater Boston tonight, previewing tomorrow's WGBH gubernatorial debate -- and tomorrow I'll be on WGBH radio doing analysis immediately after the debate. Please tune in, just in case I come up with any pearls of wisdom. Here are a few thoughts for now:

--On the issue of who gets to participate in debates, I tend to be a lot less worked up about it than some other folks.

With the completion of the 2010 primaries, and the latest 2012 meat-market (the Values Voters Conference), now's a good time to update my rankings of the 25 most likely 2012 Republican Presidential nominees!

Note that two of my dark horses, Mike Pence and Jim DeMint, have gotten big recent boosts. Pence won the VVC straw poll this weekend, and DeMint has emerged as the hero of what we might call the "Christine O'Donnell wing" of the party.

This will be a pretty long post with some of my thoughts about the decline and fall of the female elected Republican, which I've been jabbering about for several years now and obsessively documenting during the 2010 election cycle. These thoughts are based on my reporting, research, and listening to lots of people who follow this stuff.

In this week's issue of the Boston Phoenix -- in print and online now -- I look at House speaker Robert DeLeo's striking $400,000 fundraising haul so far this year, primarily from lobbyists and special interests. As I discuss in the article, the contributions are only available for public view now, after the end of the formal legislative session, rather than while the legislation and budget decisions are being decided -- and potentially influenced.

Tuesday, Kelly Ayotte barely squeaked out a primary victory, keeping hope alive that Republicans will end up with at least as many female US Senators next year as they have now. With Lisa Murkowski out, and the rest of the women nominees iffy at best (Fiorina, Angle, McMahon, and now O'Donnell), an Ayotte loss would have been grim.

There's been a lot of talk this year about the "enthusiasm gap" between Republicans and Democrats, that will potentially help the GOP in November's elections. What I have not heard anyone talk about, even as they try to dissect the long string of Tea Partyish Senate primary victories, is the enthusiasm gap within the GOP itself.

Yesterday I told you what I was looking for; so, what did I see?

--Is he our Guy? Um, no. Guy will not reign, or rein, or rain, over anything in state government next year. Suzanne Bump, with little funding, beat him here, there, and everywhere. Now we'll see whether state Dems rush to support her for the battle with Mary Connaughton for state auditor.

...and the WBZ radio governor's debate...

Turnout is low and lower around the state. Boston was a hair under 12% as of 6:00, which is dismal. But turnout is high -- 20% and up -- in Southie and West Roxbury. That's thanks to the hot state rep races, in addition to Steve Lynch and others.

From my conversations with people throughout the day, about turnout and other factors, my sense is that things have generally favored Bump and Murphy, rather than Glodis and Grossman -- but in both cases, it's hard to know whether those advantages are enough to win.