Find Casino Hotels & Resorts in Springfield, MA from $95

Last year around my 100th trip I picked somebody up at brewery. As soon as I got there my heart sank because i realized it was a long trip, had to go from Hartford CT to the suburbs near Springfield MA. No multiplier. Would only be $35.
Real cool dude. We talked the whole time about his company and a ton of other stuff. He was pretty tipsy, and opened a road beer in the car. He thought about going to the casino until we realized that he would have to leave all the beer he bought at the brewery in my car.
Gave me $200 cash tip when we got there.
Slapped it in my hand like a cool uncle would give you a gift at a family party. 30 minute drive back towards my territory was real sweet. This was the only cash tip that I had ever got. I dont think I could do any better no many how many trips I give.

Senate: Markey (democrat)
I like Markey on everything but gun control... and while I like my guns, his Republican counterpart is wishy-washy about the issue anyway, and definitely a bad choice on economic and social issues.
GovernoLt. Gov: McCormick/Post (independent)
I liked his responses on the League of Women Voters site, specifically that he seems to be a fiscal conservative but doesn't want to gut government like the Tea Party. He wants to focus on early childhood education, and I agree with him that that's a really good place to invest public money. On healthcare, he's identified specific ways of reducing costs and improving care without rushing to the far right of the spectrum and trying to gut the state's healthcare system. I think his experience in venture capital would be well suited here, as he knows how to increase organizational efficiency with laser focus. Along with every other candidate he's said he supports a waiver for the Affordable Care Act, but he stated he wanted an "innovation waiver", which I can only hope implies he doesn't want to refuse the entire ACA as that'd be throwing money away. Overall he seems to be a pretty well balanced candidate.
I'm against Coakely because she's vehemently anti-gun (which I know is a positive to most of you, probably), but more importantly, in her time as AG she's refused to prosecute almost any Democratic politicians. She's an old school Democratic operator, and is the worst kind of you-rub-my-back-and-i'll-rub-yours politician. Springfield's rife with political corruption, but it's gone unnoticed under her watch. Chicopee's last mayor never seemed to want for money (or have trouble getting loans), despite going through bankruptcy and taking trips to Hawaii every few months. But he's a democrat, so no interest. And from outside my locality, there's the whole hubbub surrounding her refusal to prosecute Sal Dimasi, until the Feds had to come in and do it for her. She's okay on education, but mostly talks in platitudes, and given her background as a party apparatchik I don't believe she has the will to really push through meaningful changes.
I'm against Baker primarily because he wants to scrap Obamacare/ACA entirely in MA, under the guise of "its interfering with our current system", but in reality it's just typical Republican hatred for state healthcare, as the ACA has actually expanded the coverage the state is able to offer by a wide margin. No governor should be turning down federal dollars. I'm also not thrilled with his education focus being on vocational programs. MA has some of the best higher education in the world, we should be focusing our efforts on getting kids there.
Attorney General: John Miller (Republican)
As a primary reason for supporting him, he's the only alternative to Coakley's protege, the current assistant AG, Maura Healey. As I mentioned earlier, political corruption in the Democratic party has gotten a free pass under Coakley, and I'm not confident that Coakley's right-hand-gal is going to change that policy.
As a secondary reason, I'm supporting Miller because he's said he'd remove the awful gray area around gun purchases in this state that the prior AG's created with their "Advisory Opinions", which in essence create a huge gray area allowing the AG to selectively ban guns they don't like, regardless of the actual wording of the relevant laws. As an aside, regulations like this make it illegal to sell certain types of guns to properly trained and licensed citizens through gun dealerships -- yet I can, as a duly licensed private citizen, buy one of these guns from a cop (who is still able to buy these guns because of his profession) and perform the transaction in my local Wal Mart parking lot. That gun is now grandfathered in and I can sell it to any other private citizen. And remember, these guns are no different in capability than any other guns currently legal to buy in Massachusetts, the AG just thinks they're especially dangerous because Glocks are the brand of gun used in every action movie. That's how crazy gun laws are in this state. I support expanded background checks and other moderate gun control, I'm not an NRA shill, but it's stuff like that that drives me nuts.
Secretary of State: Danny Factor (Green-Rainbow) or David D’Arcangelo (Republican)
Anyone but Galvin! The incumbent, William Galvin, has been a dinosaur. He refuses public records requests citing the nebulous "state reasons" as an excuse, charges enormous document fees for FOIA/public records requests, and has dragged his feet through nearly 20 years in this position without making any headway into digitizing and streamlining the states public records. He's an anachronism and is the exact kind of entrenched political cronyism that is keeping Massachusetts back. I think David has more experience, but Danny has more heart. Either of them, or a pothole, would be a better choice for Secretary of State than Galvin.
Treasurer: Mike Heffernan (Republican)
He's got a Bachelors in Economics from Georgetown and a Masters in Finance from NYU. He's an advocate for adopting the UN's Principle's for Responsible Investing, which incorporate social justice and environmental concerns into the decision making process, but without jumping head first into divestment as his Democratic opponent is advocating. Maybe it'll come to that, but I'd rather the guy in charge of the state pensions takes a more conservative approach at first.
Auditor: Suzanne Bump (Democrat)
I think she's done a pretty good job over the last term, at least not bad enough to warrant her ouster. Although, her opponent (Saint Aubin) is the only accountant running for the office, which seems like a pretty important qualification for the states chief auditor. I'm most ambivalent about this race.
Question 1: Repeal the gas tax inflation indexing?
Yes. The gas tax is one of the most regressive taxes still kicking. There are no good public transit systems in western MA, so your average working poor drive to work. Increasing their taxes is silly. They end up paying a higher proportion of their income towards fuel costs than middle class or rich people, which is the opposite effect that most people in this state want. This is on top of the silliness of taxing private citizens for funds to repair road infrastructure to begin with, when 95% of road damage is caused by heavy trucks. Same deal with tolls. Don't subsidize businesses with a tax that preferentially hurts the poorest people in the state.
Question 2: Expand the bottle deposit law?
No. It's pretty annoying to have to horde my empty cans in the pantry for a week or two before making a trip to the redemption center, adding plastic bottles on top of that is going to be ridiculous. It would be fantastic if I could just crush my aluminum cans and throw them in my curbside recycling bin. But if I can't do that, at least don't make it worse by making me hold on to all my plastic bottles, too.
The state should work on expanding its curbside recycling program, not making my house look like a homeless person is squatting there.
Question 3: Prohibit Casinos?
Yes. As outlined here. TLDR: they create few, shitty jobs; they act as an effective tax on the poorest and most vulnerable members of society; they suck money out of the area and into the pockets of out of state investors.
Question 4: Universal paid sick time?
Yes. This is a basic protection that workers should have had years ago. It creates job stability, family stability, reduces the likelihood of people being victimized by payday lenders, and works out to a very minimal annual cost for employers. Definitely worth it.
So, thoughts? How should I vote differently? Got any info about candidates I missed, or got wrong? How are you going to vote?
Here's a good site for comparing candidates, from the League of Women Voters: http://lwvma.org/voting-and-election-information/voters-guide-to-statewide-offices-2014/