"So how was your week?" I asked Big Freddy as he joined me for morning coffee.
"Big," Freddy said.
"As in Obama's speech on racial prejudice?" I asked.
"Bigger," Freddy said, "because maybe we're going to settle for just getting slots at the track in place of Patrick's three casinos."
"You like slots?" I asked.
"I like the track," Freddy said. "Tracks are hurting and need help. Casinos won't help them. Slots might. Worth looking at to build the crowds. As a trade-off, they're better than three casinos."
"Well, the Speaker pulled it off in a squeaker," I said.
"It only takes one vote," Freddy said, "which we haven't seen its like since Dave Bartley was Speaker and got Johnny Dolan to switch to kill the League of Women Voters' move to cut the size of the House back in the '70s."
"It doesn't seem that long ago," I said. "Bartley was the youngest speaker in history, and he pulled it off. But the cut was made to 160 later."
"And maybe we'll get casinos later," Freddy said, "but not with the economy in the tank. Maybe when DiMasi's gone to the happy hunting grounds of former speakers, like Bartley did when he moved on to head up the Holyoke Community College."
"Well, the vote was razor thin in Dan Bosley's committee," I said.
"And it was no field day for the rest of the boys and girls in the House either," Freddy said, "because there were a lot of players putting heat on them for this or that."
"And a lot of patronage opportunities in the bargain," I said.
"Mother's milk of campaign support," Freddy said, "which you don't want it to go sour."
"There was a lot of pressure from the building trades scratching for the whatever now," I said, "and they can't be happy with DiMasi over this vote."
"He knows that," Freddy said. "But there's another side to this casino business, which is where the committee chairman, Dan Bosley, comes from. He's been looking at the experiences of states with casinos for a long time. Some places, they benefit state revenues, but he sees a net loss to Massachusetts. By the way, you have to wonder some more about why he walked away from that early offer to be on the Patrick team, because after he passed the word that he would be leaving the House he learned something that turned him off."
"You think the casino idea was in the works back then?" I asked.
"Maybe. But not for me to know," Freddy said. "Bosley's a stand-up guy for what he believes in. He's from North Adams country, which is about as far away from Boston as you can get and still be in the state. But he's clued into the bigger picture."
"Where casinos have worked well in some," I said.
"Which are not all like Massachusetts," Freddy said.
"His committee was split down the middle," I said.
"True," Freddy said, "and for the same reasons that there was a big split on the floor of the House, which is over the pros and cons."
"That the Speaker settled in a head to head, that turned into the squeaker vote," I said.
"That sends the governor to the showers, which happens when the corner office comes up against the Speaker, because that's where the real clout is in Massachusetts," Freddy said.
"Especially in a one-party state where there aren't enough Republican votes on the Hill to sustain a governor's veto, let alone pass a bill Democrats don't want," I said.
"But, like Bartley, when he got John Dolan to see the light, all DiMasi needed was a simple majority, and he found it by educating a member in the error of his thinking." Freddy said. "There's nothing sweeter than a game won that way.There's nothing sadder for the losers either, but no one ever said democracy was pat ball."
Bill Plante of Newbury is former executive editor of Essex County Newspapers. His e-mail address is plantejr@comcast.net.
