There's a chill in our drafty house as I write this, sitting next to our fireplace. No logs are burning because that would be a mess, with chocolate melting over the shoes and the hearth.
It is early morning, December 6, the feast day of St. Nicholas, the original and genuine St. Nick. The children left a shoe in front of the fireplace the night before, and will find it filled with candy this morning.
Springfield's Scott Lively, a conservative whose views have made him a target of the Southern Poverty Law Center, ran for Massachusetts governor in 2014 as an Independent. Earlier this month Lively filed documents with Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin's office to challenge Baker as a Republican.
In 2014, Lively's Independent run garnered him about 20,000 votes — just south of 1 percent. If that sounds small, it's much higher than he thought possible.
