Remember the brain trust who helped get Charlie Baker elected governor? Kidding – Baker didn’t win. And a big part of why, IMHO, was the people he hired (many of whom had cut their teeth in the epic fail that was the Kerry Healey campaign).
One of the rocket scientists on Team Baker was Tim Buckley, who has now moved on to the Mass. GOP where he serves in the exalted position of Communications Manager. Which brings me to the truly painful press release put out under Tim’s name yesterday. HT Bernstein for suffering through it before we did.
Let’s just take this thing step by step, because it’s so ludicrous that it deserves that much attention. I’ve taken the liberty of reordering the six “gaffes” in order to highlight how truly absurd a couple of them are.
Elizabeth Warren: Martha Coakley v2.0, even worse than the first
BOSTON – Before even officially kicking off her Senate bid, Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren and her campaign have already endured a series of embarrassing gaffes that are reminiscent of the ill-fated Martha Coakley campaign of 2010. Warren’s rocky start includes the following humiliating errors:
Wow, “embarrassing gaffes”! “Humiliating errors”! Those are strong words! Tim must have some truly awesome material in here. Let’s check it out.
- Drawing the ire of her progressive cheerleaders at Blue Mass Group by using the DC-based gambling/anti-Cape Wind lobbying firm, Perkins Cole, as her FEC advisers. As a Friday headline on BMG succinctly put it, “Perkins Cole and Elizabeth Warren – WTF.”
This “gaffe” of course refers to this post that was written by EB3 (fka Ernie Boch III) and front-paged by Bob. Tim’s take on it is really hilarious for several reasons (beyond the fact that Scott himself is pro-expanded gambling and anti-Cape Wind).
- The name of the firm is Perkins Coie, not Perkins Cole. Tim should know better than to assume that Ernie’s spelling is accurate.
- Speaking of Ernie, as much as we admire Ernie’s work, he is not an editor, and he does not speak for BMG. Sorry Ern.
- Perkins Coie does have a lobbying arm. But, as I explained in the comments to that post, they are primarily a law firm, and they happen to be the one with the nation’s best Democratic-side FEC practice.
- You hire an FEC lawyer to make sure that your campaign committee complies with FEC rules and regulations. A more ministerial, less policy-related campaign role is difficult to imagine.
- For all the foregoing reasons, I can confidently state that Warren’s choice of Perkins Coie to handle FEC compliance did not “draw the ire” of Blue Mass Group. Perhaps I should request a clarification from young Tim.
OK, what else?
- [H]er Washington-based allies, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, incorrectly identifying Warren’s would-be opponent when they ran an online advertisement urging supporters to donate and help “ defeat Scott Walker” Scott Walker, of course, is the governor of Wisconsin, not the Senator from Massachusetts.
This is perhaps the stupidest entry of the lot, as Warren had exactly nothing to do with it. The PCCC no doubt should have gotten the name of the junior Senator from Massachusetts right. A stern wag of the finger to them! But to pretend that the PCCC’s mistake is somehow a “humiliating error” on Warren’s part is, well, a humiliating error.
- Immediately undercutting her so-called reputation as a “consumer advocate” with the hiring of registered gambling lobbyist and entrenched Beacon Hill insider Doug Rubin as her top campaign adviser.
Um, no. Hiring Doug Rubin is neither a gaffe nor an error (much less a “humiliating” one). Doug, as everybody knows, was deeply involved in Deval Patrick’s successful 2006 and 2010 campaigns – both of which the know-it-alls assumed were sure losers. So if you were looking for someone to advise you on how to run as a lefty and win a statewide campaign, wouldn’t you want to talk to the guy who just did it twice in a row? I would.
- Receiving heavy criticism from Jack Spillane, the self-characterized “progressive columnist” from the New Bedford Standard Times, for conducting her alleged “listening tour” away from the public and the media. After Warren’s campaign staff prevented Spillane from attending a stop in New Bedford, he actually headlined a blog post“Elizabeth Warren another Coakley?”
HAHAHAHA OMG. OK, we’ve been over this one at length. Suffice it to say that it’s hard to imagine that someone who describes a female candidate for office as “fragile,” “delicate,” a “hot house flower,” and a “little woman” doesn’t exactly speak for the progressive community.
- Launching her exploratory site featuring only one picture that literally appears to be a view of Boston from Cambridge http://elizabethforma.com/splash, calling into question whether her entire worldview is based on her long tenure as a professor at Harvard.
I hardly know what to say about this. Tim doesn’t like the photo on the splash page? So what? It’s the Charles River. It’s pretty, and it’s an iconic Massachusetts image. Get over it.
- Drawing comparisons to Mike Capuano’s infamous “bloody” comment with her consistent and unapologetic use of violent rhetoric, such as her talk of “plenty of blood and teeth left on the floor” or saying she’s “not through throwing rocks now.”
Oh dear oh dear. Do I really have to spell this out? You see, what Warren was doing is using what is called a “metaphor,” that is, “a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea.” The problem with the figure of speech that Capuano used was that he used it in a setting where it was possible to take it literally – that is, one could have interpreted his call to union members to “get out on the streets and get a little bloody when necessary” to be an exhortation to engage in physical altercations with the other side (such things have been known to happen when pro- and anti-union forces clash). But Warren’s comments are obviously entirely metaphorical – nobody expects actual “blood” or “teeth” to remain “on the floor” after a legislative subcommittee marks up a bill, nor does anyone think that Warren will be lobbing actual stones at people with whom she disagrees. So the comparison with Capuano is a bit silly, and the faux outrage over Warren’s “violent rhetoric” is sillier still.
Sorry Tim-o, but you’re going to have to do a lot better than that. Bernstein is right:
The MassGOP sent out a release yesterday slamming Elizabeth Warren for her “series of embarrassing gaffes” that reveal her to be “Coakley 2.0.” None of them are actual gaffes, and none of them are reminiscent of Coakley. If I was the Massachusetts Democrats, I would try to get that release, and all the ones to come, circulated as widely as possible.
If I were Scott Brown, I’d beg the rocket scientists at Mass. GOP to stop “helping.”
The parties state and national wings have never historically been helpful for Brown. Remember when we all grumbled to little effect that Brown refused to appear in the It Gets Better video. So Brown could give a snot about bullied gay teens. Big deal, gays weren’t going to vote for him anyway by and large. The Mass Dems send a few dings in Brown’s direction, we all go home.
Oh, wait. The RNC shot back and attack Dan Savage, instead, who was, although the founder of It Gets Better, not part of the Mass Delegation Video story. The result, was to make the RNC look like it was a attacking a project, whose purpose, I think we can all agree is noble, however controversial its founder can be. It kind of made Brown look a little bad or at least stupid to have his party attack, however indirectly, a project that aims to discourage teen suicide.
Scott Brown taps into the suburb and exurb crowd who has this vague negative opinion about Boston&Cambridge — the politics, the crowds, the traffic, the crime, the college kids, etc. I think she’s got to get out and embrace the 495 crowd. She doesn’t have to win every town there, but she’s got to get enough so that her small vote advantage out west* and her vote advantage in the liberal metro area is enough.
* large by percentage, but small by actual vote delta.
Tim Buckley should have stuck with the folk music?
as it can and hope some of it will stick. But this throw is more like dust, dissipating before it reaches its target.
Connecting Coakley to Warren is an obvious tactic–their both Democrats, both women, both running against Goodman Brown, but I’ll bet money most people can’t remember at this point who he ran against.
Hiring of Perkins Cole to file perfunctory papers was a minor mistake which exposes the bigger picture. Stuff like this gives the Brown people ammunition which they will use.
Hiring Perkins Cole to review and file these papers is like hiring Kevin Reddington for help getting a driver’s license. Not necessary. he’s the person to call when you get an OUI. And who says you will.
Plenty of local people that could have done that without notice.
any average person is going to care about, or understand, even if it WERE a problem (which I think it is not, given the explanations – it’s easily parried, in fact easier to parry than to form the attack in the first place).