Blue Mass Group

sco has a must-read post (as are all of his posts) in support of Sen. Marian Walsh’s (D-West Roxbury) proposal of an independent expert review board with subpoena power for the Big Dig, modeled on the Ward Commission,  an expert panel which said, “We have learned that corruption is a way of life in Massachusetts.” The Ward Commission caused reforms in the way public contracts were made and fulfilled in the Commonwealth. But perhaps not enough: “I think it would be a tremendous idea for an independent body to go back and review the history of the Big Dig and really tell the story of what happened here,” says current Inspector General Gregory Sullivan. “A lot of facts would come out that would really amaze people.” “The system failed here,” says former Attorney General Scott Harshbarger, who also supports the idea. “I think we do need to have some kind of independent review of how we got here and why we got here.” (More here from sco on the Ward Commission) Look, regardless of what you think of AG and Gov. candidate Tom Reilly, or of Romney’s former Admin. and Finance Secretary Eric Kriss, who has been tapped to head [...]

I’d say my candidate is on a roll! According to “Political Intelligence” (no challenge here that that might be an oxymoron), Patrick has yet another key endorsement to follow up on the Harshbarger announcement earlier in the week. I think one of the significant things about both endorsements is that it punctures the assumption that one of the other candidates might have been presumed to have a lock on the law-enforcement crowd. That clearly isn’t the case, and is another indication of Patrick’s ability to reach out to diverse audiences and include them in his campaign.

Why do the Dems always  shoot themselves in the foot by supporting big liberals like Deval Patrick? Deval is  so far removed from the mainstream and reminds me of Dean.Like Dean, Deval is a great speaker but I often find him a little short on details.  I’m an Independent  and could someone tell me  what is the big attraction to Patrick?? I recently attended a Dem city committee with a friend and the Patrick people kind of scared me with their  shouting that Chris G. and that Tom R. don’t belong in this race for governor.  I just find these people a little soft, sorry  if you are not soft and supporting Patrick.But what is the deal really , I mean I went to the Deval website and if you get a certain amount of people for Patrick  you get a prize , kind of like the prize we got as kids from a cracker jack box. Is this how we campaign now?? The whole Patrick campaign reminds me of some cult out west.I’m  waiting for them to all jump off a bridge together with Deval Patrick shirts on.Maybe then they could get some much needed  TV time. I’m being [...]

Should Blue Mass. Group endorse a candidate in the Democratic primaries for Governor, Lt. Governor, Secretary of State, and/or contested legislative races?  If so, how should we arrive at the decision on who to endorse – questionnaire, another phone interview, do we know enough already?  What role, if any, should the “BMG community” (as distinct from its three editors) play in that decision?  And who should the winners be? Relatedly, if we endorse a candidate, does the role of the site change, and how?  Would we/should we morph from our current “op-ed page/discussion board/gathering place” sort of character into more of an activist place that tries to encourage donations of money and time to particular candidates?  Or should we stay out of that game and just “endorse” like a newspaper does? We have our own ideas on all of these questions, but we want to hear from you before we move forward.  So fire away!

As reported in today’s Boston Herald story Chris Gabrieli has a major Bechtel connection to explain:

Gubernatorial candidate Chris Gabrieli has run TV ads blasting the Big Dig as another example of failing government, but one of his top campaign advisers is a highpriced mouthpiece for Bechtel – the controversial firm in charge of the scandal-plagued $14.6 billion project.

Bechtel attorney Cheryl Cronin, who is representing the San Francisco construction goliath in negotiations with the state to return taxpayer money for cost overruns, is a key campaign organizer for Gabrieli.

She was co-chairwoman of a recent women’s event for Gabrieli, and was in his camp at the state Democratic convention.

This, of course, is particularly newsworthy since Gabrieli made headlines by becoming the first gubernatorial candidate to raise the Big Dig as an issue in a campaign television advertisement. 

OK, here’s my first take on what a poll’s “margin of error” really means.  (Title of this post shamelessly cribbed from the Car Talk guys, of course!) First, you don’t actually get enough information just by knowing what the margin of error is.  You also need to know the “confidence interval.”  Apparently, a confidence interval of 95% is common in polls, but other levels can be used (99% is also commonly used in some kinds of studies), so you need to know.  Fortunately, Survey USA tells us: 95% it is.  (Aside to statistics geeks: a 95% confidence interval corresponds to two standard deviations away from the mean; a 99% interval corresponds to three, all assuming a normal distribution.) So: a result that 55% of the people in an appropriate random sample support candidate X, with a 5% MOE at 95% confidence, means that we can be 95% certain that the actual support for candidate X in the relevant community is somewhere between 50% and 60%.  (95% certain?  What does that mean?  As I understand it, it means that if you did this survey 100 times, you’d get an answer in the range you expect 95 times.) Applying this to the [...]

I’m surprised to see folks paying that much attention to candidate’s policy proposals. Don’t you know too well by now that political candidates can promise you everything under the sun to look smart and thoughtful in order to get elected? They assembled teams of policy experts with the goal of getting proposals that will play well with voters and get media attention. They don’t even get involved trying to learn some of it before the proposal goes public. I think it is better to judge candidates on their record: Patrick on civil rights work and serving on numerous boards; Reilly on crime fighting experience and standing up for the “little guy”; Gabrieli on after school work and business carrier. Then we can get a better sense on what to expect from them. Campaign promises (and proposals) are no more than promises… Vladimir

Probably not, because I’m starting it right here.

But anyway,

Michael Flaherty is seriously considering running against Dan Conley as a Republican. He needs 1,000 write in votes on the Republican Primary ballot in September and he’s on in November.

Seems he and his trusted few are looking at the numbers and thinking about many things, such as:

He has the resume and he has the issues.

1. Conley is weak and got lucky. The office is in a shambles and morale is low. There is a real connection to the increase in crime and the D.A.s office. It has a miserable conviction rate, with no signs of progress; and a lack of competent oversight resulting in the well publicized failure of homicide investigations.

2. Flaherty was an assistant district attorney under Ralph Martin. He saw first hand and was part of the “Boston Miracle”.

History is against him for mayor’s job.

Here’s the header on Jon Keller’s blog today: “Poll Shows TV Blitz By Gabrieli, Reilly Paying Off” Anything wrong with a for-profit company that benefits from selling ads to candidates doing polling?  Just asking. Buy our ads, your numbers will go up, and we’ll poll to prove it!