Joan Vennochi comes through with another sharp take on local politics, this time on Gov. Romney and the UMass tussle:
Eliminating the office of university president never had anything to do with cost-cutting or improved management, as Romney initially claimed. It was all about eliminating Bulger, an icon of old-style Massachusetts politics. Romney was never quite straightforward about that goal, always striving to make the attack on Bulger sound more high-minded than personal.
I agree with Vennochi’s analysis, but not her conclusion. First, I’m glad that Romney took on Bulger and removed him. One of the great things Romney has done is to slowly but surely chip away at machine politics in Massachusetts. It’s not high-minded, but it’s not simply personal either. Yes, I wish it didn’t take a Republican to do that, but given the current partisan alignment, it does apparently.
Second, I don’t buy the line that Bulger did so much for the university. Anytime a university president is appointed for purely political reasons, it sends the signal that the institution does not have a serious academic mission, but rather is a plum to be proferred supporters, much the way the Ambassadorship of Luxembourg is to Presidential pals.
Finally, I hope that Romney IS being hypocratical, that the removal of Bulger was simply politics. His proposed reform plan for UMass was awful, trying to upgrade the university system’s prestige and cut costs at the same time. Until he or someone puts a better proposal on the table (and signs are that Romney’s more modest moves may be better than his sweeping reform plan), let’s hope the governor was simply going after Bulger’s head, rather than the UMass system as a whole.
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