The old song about the limbo dance had the line: “How low can you go?” The Massachusetts Republican Party is a leading candidate to take the prize as the weakest state political party in America. (The Rhode Island GOP is mighty close.) Despite having a run of four governors in a row between 1991 and 2007, the number of Republican legislators has been in steady decline for 50 years.

In 1958 –– a strong Democratic year –– Sen. John F. Kennedy topped the Bay State Democratic ticket, trouncing Vincent Celeste, a loyal Republican with the decency to fill what otherwise would have been a hole in the ticket. Today, Republican holes on the ballot are the rule, not the exception.

In the general rout, Democrats took all the constitutional offices and, for the first time, won control of the state Senate.