Although Drivin' Dan G. says they can't afford it, MBTA will address the increased train and bus usage. [Boston Globe] Former Gov. Romney gives a mind-boggling speech at the Republican Convention, including saying Democrats are the "party of Big Brother." [Vox Politics, NPR] A Gloucester teen mom throws her support to Bristol Palin's mom and the old dude. [Boston Herald] After Great White has agreed to pay $1 million to survivors and relatives, the......

Now that the major political parties have (pretty much) settled on their presidential nominees, Bostonist has decided to take a look at a vital aspect of election strategy: t-shirts. We really wanted to be fair and balanced in our assessment, and not in a Fox News way, but having perused both candidates official stores and the many user-generated slogans at CafePress, we have to say: Barack Obama is the clear winner of the design......

--As if it couldn't get any worse for the MBTA. Hackers have been playing with the Charlie Card. [Boston Herald] --The owner of Tai Ho Restaurant, where Boston firefighters Paul Cahill and Warren Payne died, wants to reopen. It's worth remembering that the fire gathered in the ceiling because grease accumulated in the vents. [WBZ] --A task force has decided, after much back and forth, to take down the homemade signs on highways thanking......

Elections are expensive this year, and it turns out that former Massachusetts governor and former presidential aspirant Mitt Romney paid a pretty penny for each delegate he received before dropping out of the race. Foon Rhee reports that Romney put in $42.3 million of his own money into his presidential campaign. As of last October, he had already put in $17.5 million, suggesting that he made a massive money push in the last days.......

Presidential candidate Barack Obama used lines that Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick used during his campaign for governor while Obama campaigned in Wisconsin over the weekend. Here's what Obama told Clinton: “Don’t tell me words don’t matter,” Mr. Obama said, to applause. “ ‘I have a dream’ — just words? ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal’ — just words? ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself’ — just......

It's not often that a musician can, with one letter, slam both a presidential candidate and an former bandmate. But apparently Tom Scholz is out to remind us that he's not your average longtime bassist rocker. Scholz, of Boston (the band) fame, recently sent a letter to Mike Huckabee to express his "shock" and displeasure over the politician's use of the Boston song "More Than a Feeling." When we began to read the letter, we......

--MBTA General Manager Dan Grabauskas has received plenty of angry e-mails in his time, and should be able to take some serious heat. But he is furious about an e-mail from a Department of Corrections employee that got way too personal. Grabauskas is gay, and the e-mailer used anti-gay slurs about Grabauskas when describing MBTA service. Now Grabauskas is upset with Deval Patrick and his administration for not doing something about it sooner. The......

--Old hotness: Late trains on the Worcester-Framingham line. New hotness: Changing the timetables so they don't look late anymore. [WBZ] --House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi has offered up a budget with a sizable tax cut for corporations that would drop the percentage from 9.5 percent to 7 percent. Let's see--the state is in a budget crunch, so he wants a tax cut? The budget also didn't include casino licenses, which sets up another Battle Royale......

A few days ago, everyone cared about the Commonwealth. Senator McCain was here, Senator Obama was here, Senator Clinton was in Worcester, the Kennedys were everywhere. Now we won't even have our ex-governor parading around the country insulting us. It all happened so fast. To figure out exactly what went wrong, we headed to the epicenter of right-wing commentary: the National Review. And as it turns out, Romney's defeat was caused by something we're pretty......

UPDATE: Nevermind. The map we looked at this morning clearly said Huck won Salem in their Republican primary. (And yes, we haveth witnesses.) Now the same map says that Mitt Romney has actually won the Republican vote in Salem. This is obviously a case of witchcraft at work. Is it a coincidence that the only Massachusetts city to give the majority vote to Huckabee in the Republican primary was Salem, our Commonwealth's -- lo,......

Republican presidential aspirant and former Massachsuetts governor Mitt Romney is the projected winner of the state of Massachusetts over John McCain this Super Tuesday, according to CNN. And that victory was by no means a given since Romney didn't exactly leave Massachusetts wanting more. However, Romney is still fighting for states, and Mike Huckabee (plus buddy Chuck Norris) is racking up enough votes that neither one can catch up to the front-runner, John McCain. Huckabee......

Is it even an argument at this point? Boston's Mayor Menino caused the Patriots' loss by planning the city's victory party a little too early and much too transparently. Last Wednesday, well before the unthinkable happened, the Herald was already proclaiming, "Tommy, you might as well have suited up for the hated Giants." While the mourning (and the blame game) continues, political life must also go on. With the Massachusetts primary being held tomorrow, the......

Ted Kennedy catches a lot of crap just being himself. Ted-Kennedy-As-Orator is probably Jon Stewart's second-favorite impression after the George W. Bush chuckle. Throw in the alleged drinky-drinky, and Ted Kennedy makes for quite the media spectacle. Since he announced his endorsement of presidential aspirant Barack Obama, the Peanut Gallery has renewed its love affair with poking fun at Teddy. But Glenn Beck at Headline News hurt our brains when he started imagining our Senator......

With Rudy Giuliani out of the way, the remaining Republicans were free to catfight at the Reagan Library last night. Much of the debate involved front-runners John McCain and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney trying to out-Reagan one another. No matter what they said, each moment felt like this: Romney: "I'm more like Ronald Reagan than you are!" McCain: "No, you're not, you helmet-headed bitch!" Romney: "Nancy just checked me out, so that proves......

The state of Michigan has performed CPR on the flagging presidential campaign of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, according to MSNBC and CNN. He is the projected winner of the state's primary. John McCain came in second. Maybe it was Romney's Michigan roots? Maybe it was his business experience? Maybe it was Muffy? Maybe it was the MittGram? He needed this one. It was obvious from the banner on his official campaign homepage, which......

Mitt Romney is pulling out all the stops in order to get votes. First, he's talking about how he's going to rescue the American auto industry from the doldrums.* And now he's letting people leave custom voice-mail messages for their friends, frenemies, or enemies using his voice. You can describe how you know the person who will receive the MittGram and specify exactly how Romney should greet them. Do you want him to say "hello"......

Former Massachusetts governor and presidential aspirant Romney is putting his New England Spanking behind him and focusing entirely on winning the Michigan primary. He has pulled advertising from South Carolina and Florida and is going whole hog. Michigan seems to be loving the attention, at least according to the AP. Writer Glen Johnson declared that Romney received a "Hero's Welcome." But it's still not the kind of welcome Romney was expecting only a few weeks......

The Track Girls are spreading the word from Us Magazine that Katie Holmes has received a special exemption to run this year's Boston Marathon, which will be on April 21. If true, she will be joining another newly minted national celebrity--the slimmed-down Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. He's training, and he will likely be running while flipping the bird toward Romney's Belmont manse. Holmes is going to get smoked. The Boston Marathon is nothing to......

Update: No winner for the Democrats yet, which makes CNN look bad because they were calling it for Obama all day. But, even more embarrassing, Rudy Giuliani is thisclose to getting beaten by Ron Paul, 9% to 8% as of 10:00 pm. Update to the Update: CNN has projected Hillary Clinton as the winner of the New Hampshire primary, a huge comeback after Iowa. (The "Iron My Shirt" dudes can stuff it.) Obama wasn't far......

Anticipation, anticipation … Let's see what fresh weirdness is unfolding up in New Hampshire. You can bet there's a lot of it. For starters, Dan McCarthy at the Weekly Dig witnessed the Republican debate at St. Anselm's and finds that no one will understand how much McCain despises Romney unless they see it in person. And the press area at the debate was "more ghetto than our hotel, the Econo Lodge, on Manchester's west......

Former Massachusetts governor and political aspirant Mitt Romney faces one of his greatest challenges with the New Hampshire primary. After coming in second in Iowa to the Mike Huckabee/Chuck Norris ticket, he is an underdog in a race that should have been a breeze for him since he governed in Massachusetts. Even though Massachusetts wasn't exactly thrilled with him when he left, he was still a familiar name and could have scored votes on that......

Today Republican presidential candidate/Iowa caucus winner/Romney rival Mike Huckabee faced a heckler who clearly forgot that where there's Huckabee, there's Chuck Norris. The man had a right to speak, but, as Charlie Savage writes, he wouldn't shut up and kept yelling, "Why is Richard Haass, the president of the Council of Foreign Relations, your political adviser?" Then Huckabee unveiled his not-so-secret weapon and said, "Don't make me send Chuck back there!" Chuck Norris still......

Update: Deval Patrick can rest easy. Obama took 38% of the Iowa caucus vote. For some reason, Bostonist couldn't get Huey Lewis' "If This Is It … Please Let Me Know …" out of their head while watching the Iowa caucus returns on CNN. So many middle-tier candidates will get their rejections over with tonight. CNN and Fox News projected early that Mike Huckabee won the Iowa caucuses with a come-from-behind victory that had little......

The Globe is reporting that State House staffer, and apparent intellectual whiz, Dan Pawson is on quite the winning streak on Jeopardy. He has won an impressive $86,100 so far and looks to continue his good fortune tonight. Although the show was taped a few months ago, Dan is tight-lipped about the outcome - tune in to the show at 7:30 tonight to see if this Allston native can keep it up! Oh, and......

If things don't work out for former Massachusetts governor and current Republican presidential aspirant Mitt Romney, he can always follow in ex-candidate Bob Dole's footsteps--as a spokesman for Viagra. CBS News' From the Road blog reports that Mitt Romney had this to say about his wife, Ann: “She’s a cute girl, I’ll tell ya,” Romney told the Iowa crowd that was packed into a small coffee house here. “She’s hot, too. Wow!” Romney then appeared......

--New England Confectionery Co., aka NECCO, was sold to a company in Bethesda, Maryland. So, will the name be changed to Maryland Confectionary Company, or MACCO? We certainly hope not. [Boston Globe] --More reasons to give up your car. On New Year's Day, tolls at the Allston-Brighton and Route 128 plazas will go up from $1 to $1.25. The price jump is even higher for the Ted Williams Tunnel and the Sumner Tunnel: $3 to......

Bostonist has always been a little creeped out by Kerry Healey, icy ex-lieutenant governor and former gubernatorial candidate. She is best known for staying politely in Mitt Romney's shadow during his stint as governor and for getting into madcap verbal spats with rival Christy Mihos during the governors' debates. (Seriously, their fights were comic gold.) Healey lost for many reasons. For starters, the victor, Deval Patrick, was dynamic, whereas Healey had all the pizzazz of......

As the primaries approach and now that they've given John McCain their endorsement for Republican candidate for president, the Herald has whipped off the gloves and is going after former Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential aspirant Mitt Romney. Dave Wedge ladles a heaping helping of sarcasm when describing the latest development in the Romney vs. Huckabee Catfight Extraordinaire: In an amazing coincidence, Romney’s family tale of animal kindness [in which his kids rescued some birds]emerged......

There's so much to say about former Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential aspirant Mitt Romney's looks. His political views may be ever-changing, but one things for certain--some people find him attractive. And some people like to get a little closer. First, an Iowa tweenager probably just becoming acquainted with her hormones got close enough to Romney to ask to touch his hair. Romney took her hand and placed it, probably to make sure that she......

As any Massachusetts resident well knows, former governor and Republican presidential aspirant Mitt Romney can transform himself overnight. One minute, he's the moderate governor of a liberal state. The next, he's a staunch conservative who claims that he somehow tamed the residents of that state. In the second and last installment of the Year in Mitt Mashups, we'll look at the various disguises Romney wears: An Osmond Mitt Romney has never shied away from being......