Healey's Only Hope: Dead Girl or a Live Boy.

The saying, attributed to Edwin Edwards of Louisiana but which actually pre-dates him in southern politics, is this "The only way I can lose this election is if they catch me with a dead girl or a live boy."

Deval Patrick has reached the "dead girl/live boy" stage of this campaign. Unless there is some unforseeable political earthquake, Deval Patrick will be Massachusetts' first Democratic governor in 16 years. Period. End of story.

Why is this race officially over? Here's the race by the numbers:

1- Negative Ads. Voters HATE negative ads!!! Voters never support people who use them, they're scary and make me hide under the bed until they go ......(forehead smack). Sorry about that, I was channeling Andy Hiller.

The REAL Reasons The Massachusetts Governor's Race Is Over.

1-- 25%: Deval Patrick's lead over Kerry Healey in the latest Survey USA poll.

2-- 27%: Deval Patrick's lead over Kerry Healey in the latest Suffolk University poll.

3-- 3-1: The ratio of registered Democrats to Republicans in Massachusetts.

4-- 54-41%: The Democrats/Republicans numbers in the latest generic poll on which party Americans would like to see in control of government.

5-- 69%: The number of Massachusetts voters surveyed who say Deval Patrick will raise taxes as governor, in the same poll that gives him 53% of the vote.

6-- Healey 59%, Patrick 26%: The percent of voters answering "yes" when asked if the candidate would be "soft on crime."

7-- 1/2: The share of voters who are women.

8-- 1.2%: The share of women who actually like Kerry Healey. (This number is a rough estimate.)

9-- 1: The number of Bechtel Parsons Brinkerhoff employees still working on the Big Dig under Romney/Healey's watch to kill her campaign.

10-- 0. The number of people who are voting for Deval Patrick because of what he will actually do when he becomes governor.