You may have noticed that the subjects on our posts – Massachusetts, National, Vote 9.16.2006, etc. – have vanished. They’ve been replaced by “tags,” which work like tags at Daily Kos (if you’re familiar with them there). The good things about tags are (1) they’re self-defined, so you can essentially categorize your own posts, and (2) you can assign more than one tag to a post. One drawback that I can see is that they’re entirely self-entered, so you have to type out “Massachusetts” in the tag field instead of just clicking on a drop-down menu. But a fix is in the works for that problem. So please use the tags! And note also the “Hot Tags” box on the left – that box will link to the most recently used tags, and also allows you to see a list of every tag used on the blog. Please tell us what you think. UPDATE: Another risk I can see with tags is inconsistency. If you tag your piece about Tom Reilly “Reilly,” I tag mine “Tom Reilly,” and someone else uses “election” or “primary,” the system starts to break down. So at least for now, please try to stick to [...]
Time, Washingtonian have the pics
George Bush knew Jack Abramoff. He knew the names of his children. He knew that both he and Abramoff were the fathers of twins. He knew him. The pictures are out there. We’ll see them soon.
Massachusetts disfunctional campaign finance law
Since we have been talking about the subject, I thought it would be timely to make note of the $500 maximum contribution per year that any one person can make to any candidate seeking a state constitutional office. For example, the governors race has only 4 real candidates this year, 3 of whom are multi-millionaires and one is a career professional, who has no wealth. The advantage of wealth in running a gubernatorial campaign is well documented. Romney wrote $3,000,000 in personal checks in the last four weeks of the 2002 race against O’Brian ,,,while she was doing two and three fundraisers a day chasing those $500 donors until the last day of the election. She looked tired and haggard on TV which among other things was a contributing factor to her loss.
Do we only want to give only rich people the opportunity to run for office? They say it will take 10-12 million this year to fund the Governor’s race. The three fat cats in the Gov’s race can buy their tv time with their own money while Reilly must hustle every day for contributors.
That’s. What. I’m. Talking. About.
David Obey and Barney Frank call for publicly-funded congressional campaigns. Either taxpayers en masse pay for campaigns, or we have our current system of legal bribery. The “small donor” revolution of Howard Dean, et al? That’s just “democratizing” (small d) bribery — shaking down ordinary citizens so that maybe they can have a seat at the table, too. That’s not to excuse voters — Democratic and Republican alike — who continue to reward those candidates who merely raise the most cash and carpet-bomb constituencies with ads, as opposed to those that actually look after their interests. But the hole we’re in is so deep, it’s hard to find the latter kind of candidate. Thanks to dkmich at Kos.
Ooglegay!
Now available in Pig Latin. I’d like to see a gubernatorial debate between Reilly and Patrick in this fine language; talk about raising the level of discourse …
Beer, LibFlicks, and Pizza?
I’ve been discussing with a few Liberal buddies the possibility of getting together for a therapeutic evening of beer, pizza, and a good liberal flick like “Bowling for Columbine” or “Dr. Strangelove” – I’m wondering if any other Boston-area Lefties might also be interested.
