Lucas: Finding refuge: Healey should consider a stay in ‘Pink House’ to regroup after election losses

What are the odds that the Plum Island Bridge gets replaced before either of the $4.5 billion Cape Cod bridges—the Sagamore and the Bourne?

Pretty good, I would say.

That is because Donald Trump, who Healey calls, among other things “a con man,” “a swindler,” and “a threat to democracy” is now the next president. He must approve the bridge money appropriation.

Healey sued Trump a hundred times when she was attorney general, and he was president the first time.

If Healey is shy about asking the man she has attacked and ridiculed for bridge money, she could send U.S. Sen. Eddie Markey in her place.

Markey, who has bragged about getting some $370 million in startup bridge replacement money from Joe Biden, has  said “Trump is absolutely a fascist. He’s also a misogynist, a racist [and] a homophobe.”

So that ought to go well.

Now as the new president, Trump will hold the key to approving the $4.5 billion, or most of it, that it will cost to replace the two “functionally obsolete” Cape Cod bridges.

The bridges, built and operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, are older than Joe Biden, albeit in better shape since they still function.

Built in 1935, they originally had an estimated lifespan of 50 years. They have been in operation for almost twice that time.

The Plum Island bridge only came up because it is near the famous and long abandoned Pink House that Healey may want to use as a hideout following her all around loss in Tuesday’s election even though she was not on the ballot.

Plum Island is a good place to get lost, even if nobody is looking for you.

Healey wants to save the house, a favorite of painters and tourists, while the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge which owns it, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service want to tear it down for environmental protection reasons including the protection of marsh land.

It is also difficult for reporters, lobbyists and legislators to get to since it sits on a site surrounded by salt marshes. So, it makes for a good safehouse.

Legend has it that the house was built where it is when, during a divorce, the wife demanded an exact replica of the house the couple had in Newburyport without naming the location.

So, the husband, in what would today be considered a hate crime, built it on the Great Marsh where nobody could easily get to it. It also had saltwater plumbing.

The best way for Healey to save the house is to occupy it. The Plum Island Airport is also nearby if Healey needs to commute from the Pink House to the State House by helicopter.

Living at the Pink House will require the governor to drive over the Plum Island bridge to get to the beach where she can walk along the shoreline, look out to the sea and contemplate what went wrong—which is just about everything.

The occupancy and maintenance or replacement of the Plum Island bridge is important. It will give the governor peace of mind after a terrible election.

It’s been rough. The governor campaigned for Kamala Harris in Pennsylvania, which Harris lost to Trump. She campaigned in New Hampshire for Democrat Joyce Craig, the former Manchester mayor, who lost to Republican Kelly Ayotte in the governor’s race.

Healey even lost in Southeastern Massachusetts when Republican Kelly Dooner, a Taunton city councilor, defeated Democrat Joe Pacheco, a Raynham selectman, for the state Senate seat vacated by longtime Democrat Sen. Marc Pacheco (no relation). Healey campaigned for Pacheco.

Things are so bad that in the future fellow Democrats running for office will ask Healey to campaign for their opponents.

Right now, Healey needs a private place with a reliable bridge to the ocean where she can heal her wounds and contemplate her political future. The Pink House with the Plum Island bridge is a perfect refuge.

So much so that she could bring Joanna Lydgate and a guitar and sing “Pink Houses” along with John Mellencamp,  a song about “there’s winners, and there’s losers.”

“Ain’t that America, home of the free, yeah.

“Little pink houses for you and me. Ooh yeah.”

Peter Lucas is a veteran political reporter. Email him at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com