A picture says a thousand words, and the big smiles across the faces of the insider candidates for governor in their pre-debate photo-op with disgraced Speaker of the House Tom Finneran says it all.

From a Jill Stein press release:

EXCLUSIONARY GUBERNATORIAL DEBATE WAS DISSERVICE TO VOTERS, STEIN CHARGES

BOSTON –  Following today’s gubernatorial debate on WRKO,  gubernatorial candidate Jill Stein  noted that “In this debate, Tim Cahill, Charlie Baker, and Deval Patrick cozied up with the disgraced former House Speaker Tom Finneran to give the voters of the Commonwealth a very narrow vision of the state’s future.  The failing policies of the Beacon Hill machines were endorsed as great ideas and real solutions were kept off the table.  We’re going to work hard to break up this tedious deception and let the voters hear a real alternative to business as usual in Massachusetts.”

The debate was hosted by Finneran and included only three of the four gubernatorial candidates.  The Green-Rainbow Party candidate, Stein, was excluded from the debate, whose producers declined to return numerous phone calls from the campaign requesting that Stein be allowed to participate.

After noting that the three candidates invited by Finneran found themselves agreeing on issue after issue, Stein offered the following critique of the debate (below the fold):