Comments on: Is Matt Entenza really from outstate Minnesota? No, he is not.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 20:36:30 +0000

Yes, I’m well aware.

I think the Mass/NH thing has some unique-ish characteristics, well, actually, shared with a few other parts of that region. As you point out, S. NH serves in part as a suburb of Boston. Really serious (once a year type) traffic jams in Boston’s rush hour can back up into NH. Etc.

When I lived there it was common for Bostonians to get an address in NH to buy their car insurance from. That may have been somewhat cleaned up after the Mass Commonwealth head of the department of motor vehicles got caught doing that.

(That was about the same year the head Elevator Inspector for Boston had both of his femurs crushed by the elevator doors in the office building he worked in downtown. God was up to something in those days…)

So yes, that’s why I said that, to rile you up because I’m from Massachusetts!!!

(BTW, similar thing where I’m originally from vis-a-vis people from The City.)

By: Eric Lund

Eric Lund — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 20:03:41 +0000

Greg, I take it you are unacquainted with the term “Masshole”. It originally referred to obnoxious drivers from our neighboring state to the south (you’ve lived in metro Boston, so I shouldn’t have to remind you that Boston is notorious for the local driving style). But many of those people have moved into southern New Hampshire, particularly during the drive-till-you-qualify years of the real estate boom (parts of the state are within 30 miles of downtown Boston). So the term has expanded to include many of those transplants. Locals here don’t have any problems with people who move in from Maine or Vermont, and people from other states are tolerated if they aren’t too obnoxious, but Massachusetts transplants are hated.

I don’t know if Minnesota in particular has anything like this, but I know in many Western states people take a similar attitude toward Californians as we do toward people from Massachusetts, and there are other places where Texans are similarly loathed.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 19:16:28 +0000

Yeah, but New Hampshire is pretty much North Massachusetts, right?

By: Eric Lund

Eric Lund — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 18:53:37 +0000

I have noticed that “Candidate X is from this community s/he bids to represent” is a standard line in politics. Just so you know: Not everybody, across this country, does that. That’s a Minnesota thing. (And a few other places.)

Yep, that’s a standard line where I live (New Hampshire). We’re seeing it in our Senate race, where Scott Brown (yes, the same Scott Brown who was previously a Senator from Massachusetts) is accusing incumbent Jeanne Shaheen of being from out of state. I don’t recall Shaheen claiming to be a native of New Hampshire, but she represented my town in the state Senate before becoming Governor and eventually Senator, and she still owns a house (which I have walked past) in a neighboring town. Brown may have summered in this state, but he is still very much a carpetbagger–unlike the Free State people I know who are going to the effort, as Shaheen did, of working their way up the political ranks.