While the governor's race here in MA won't culminate for a good 10 months, it's already turned ugly.

Tom Reilly, the current attorney general and likely Democratic nominee, was called out by both the current governor and the leiutenant governor - the likely GOP nominee - for interfering in the investigation of a one-car drunk driving accident that killed two teenage girls (they being the drunk ones).

For his part, Reilly says he called the DA to ask that autopsy results not be released to the media in order to spare the family some public embarrasment (which he says he's done in other cases, though it doesn't help that in this case he knows the family). The DA says there was no interference, and that his decision to not pursue charges against the host of a party the girls were at before the accident was made well before the call. On the other hand, the police chief of the town investigating charges against the host of the party seems to think there were ground for some sort of charge.

I have a hard time thinking that Reilly actually impeded an investigation - he's been around too long to think that he'd be able to get away with it, especially if he's going for higher office - but given the perceptions it leaves, making such a call is probably not the smartest thing. I'm also having a hard time figuring out why Romney and his understudy thought this was a good time to bring this up - there's not enough there to force Reilly out of the race. They've tried to frame it among recent news and legislation regarding drunk driving, but the political implications are too clear to buy that justification.

And, of course, the family whose privacy was trying to be maintained is now getting none of it.

It's going to be a long year.