The votes are in, and Marisa DeFranco has fallen well short of the 15% support she needed at the Democratic convention to appear on the primary ballot this fall. Initial reports have the tally at about 95.8% of the delegates for Warren – very, very impressive. So, from here on out, it’s Elizabeth Warren vs. Scott Brown.
Whether you think this is a good thing or a bad thing, we can expect to hear a great deal from Republicans – who are suddenly DeFranco enthusiasts – hilariously pretending that this is some sort of outrage. Rob at Red Mass Group is actually suggesting that DeFranco’s constitutional rights might have been violated and that she should sue over it. What short memories they have. They did exactly – exactly – the same thing to Christy Mihos only two years ago, when they gave 89% of the support at their convention to Charlie Baker, thereby denying Mihos the 15% he needed to secure a spot on the ballot. Funny … I don’t recall Rob or any other Republican being too upset about it back then.
One more thing: I seriously doubt that Deval Patrick’s endorsement of Elizabeth Warren had much impact on the delegate count. Those delegate slates were elected in (mostly) February at the party caucuses, long before Patrick had weighed in. Maybe a few uncommitteds changed their minds at the margins. But Warren’s victory was big enough that there’s just no way the die wasn’t cast well before Patrick got involved. If DeFranco was really serious about being on the ballot, she should have been all over the caucuses. She wasn’t, and so she isn’t.
Largest-ever endorsement for an open seat by a Mass. Democratic convention. Big thanks to all the delegates who kept their eye on the prize — a win in November — even if sympathetic to Marisa DeFranco’s issues.
“Largest-ever endorsement for an open seat by a Mass. Democratic convention”. Is there some surprise here?
AT least we can now have a true two person race, unless Gov Patrick keeps answering for Ms Warren when she’s pressed for an answer.
Barnett answering for Brown.
So, yes, some surprise.
And to “be all over the caucuses” means you have to start lining people up months beforehand and train them how to win a caucus. Just showing up at a caucus and asking for votes does not get it done. For a great example of how to do this successfully, see the Deval Patrick 2006 campaign. Pay attention, future underdog candidates!
I was scratching my head this morning when the radio news said that DeFranco was expected to get the 15%. Where did they get their info? Every report I got from caucuses was that Warren delegates were the overwhelming winners.
In any case, onward. There is a lot of work to do between now and November.
Exactly right. The caucuses were when it became clear that Deval was a serious contender.
I was initially impressed that DeFranco showed up herself to the Framingham caucuses but kind of surprised that she didn’t also have a full slate of delegates running. Or at least a decent-sized slate.There were 32 spots up and she had a total of 3 people running. Even if all her delegates won that would have left her short of 15% for those Framingham spots. Not a recipe for achieving your objective. I’d assumed that she was better organized elsewhere, but maybe not.
The Eagle Tribune decided yesterday that if DeFranco didn’t make the ballot Warren “skuduggery” would be behind it. And oh yeah, “Fake Indian!!”
I’m told the ET, where President Obama was called a “man-child” on the editorial page and Warren is constantly called “squaw” in the reader’s comments, was once a great newspaper. Must’ve been quite a while ago.
There were no irregularities, and it would be hard to believe there could be. This how the process worked:
1. Once you get to your district, they check your credentials (basically a big ticket with your name and information on it). 2. At voting time, they call each town’s delegation and then call each delegate’s name. 3. Delegates answer giving their name and who their voting for.
Everyone stands up and is counted. Every single vote is recorded by name. There’s no secret ballot. People witness the voting. I didn’t meet or see anyone voting for DeFranco. Quite frankly, most people have no idea who she is.
With that said, what most conservatives, etc. don’t understand is that rank-and-file Democrats are extremely enthusiastic about Elizabeth Warren. She’s very likeable and charismatic.
the delegates from the Cherokee Purity Party had little impact..
A few days ago I made a comment that I thought Marisa would get 15%. I figured there were enough Delegates to the left of Warren that could pull her through (even as the DeFranco campaign failed to show any real Convention Delegate ID or GOTV operation).
Once the Herald and the Republicans began banging the drum for 15% for Marisa the tone change from scrappy underdog to a vote for Marisa was benefiting Scott Brown. There was simply no other reason for the Herald and the Right to take up the DeFranco banner. I thin the Delegates recognized this over the last few days.
That said, it was plain and simple a display of Warren Campaign operations muscle that you saw today on the convention floor. There was no doubt that the Warren Campaign wanted a clear field and to their credit they worked ard to ensure that was the case. Smart politics, good strategy and fair game in a convention setting. Marisa needed to earn her way on and didn’t even come close. Warren muscle on display.
IMO the signs were there this morning that Marisa lacked the Delegates and the convention operation to swing the day. The Defranco campaign ignored the Warren operation, ignored the Delegates in white, orange shirts and Warren stickers and button throughout the morning. They failed to recognize the floor response to Warren’s speech at the Warren/Mass AFL-CIO Breakfast and even more so the Delegate response to her nomination speech.
Marisa Defranco had an opportunity when she came to the podium to deliver her speech. She could have recognized the situation in the room, spoken of her ideals and how proud she was of her campaign and her supporters and than called on the Convention to nominate Warren. A classy exit that gave her a platform for her issues and the future.
Instead she went tone deaf. She gave a bland speech and made the Delegates stay extra hours in a friutless excerise. Tin ear time.
Disappointing ending to what was an initially interesting campaign for US Senate.
I actually thought that the delays in the convention timeline was an indication that Marisa DeFranco was pulling out and making some sort of a deal. Tone deaf is a really good way to describe her campaign.
I thought the convention was badly run. I don’t think there was anything nefarious about it. It was just incompetent. There were zero directional signs and the credentialing process was just poor.
Democracy dies today………
when people vote the candidate they prefer? Yeah, try to keep that one up for any length of time, sock puppet.
Ten years ago, there was backroom wheeling and dealing and releasing of delegates so everyone got on the ballot. When Shannon O’Brien ran for governor, so did everyone else. The convention was a pointless joke. This time around, everyone voted. Everyone’s vote was counted. Democracy dies today… are your RMGer’s capable of embarassment?
Caps lock survives.
Again.
The GOP says that democracy dies because Marisa DeFranco failed.
Of course, if she had succeeded, the GOP would have said that the Democrats repudiated Warren.
It’s a typical lose-lose scenario. Pretty funny.
always looking out for the voting rights of others.
Always acting like bullies trying to belittle everything Democrats do.
my best friend
“Oh woeful day! Oh Day of Woe,” said he,
And woe is me, who lived this day to see.”
Happy days
democracy died with the Patriot Act.
If ever there was an incorrectly named piece of legislation, it was that pile of crap masquerading as a security measure.
The real voting took place in Town Committee caucuses held over 2 months ago. Slates were committed at that time to Prof Warren and Marissa DeFranco did little to make inroads into those votes. As a delegate I received a call from Marissa DeFranco’s campaign asking if I was voting for her. This was a week before the Convention and my response was I was voting for Elizabeth Warren. So on 2 fronts Marissa DeFranco must have realized there was tiny support for her candidacy. A tally of the designated slates and her phone call inquiries. Elizabeth Warren’s win was the real deal and needs no other explanation than her credentials, her experience on the national scene, and, most of all, her hard work. It is time to stop the gnashing of teeth and get her elected. It’s the Democratic thing to do.
Before the convention I would have put the spread at 90-10.
see Tom Keane’s column Saturday morning. Too bad this wasn’t published a day earlier.
I agree with just about everything Tom Keane said: about the necessity for a primary to salvage Warren’s damaged campaign; about the “almost shameful tale” of the national party coming in and anointing a candidate for U.S.Senate, ignoring the excellent candidates that were already in the field.
I am sorry to see such a good and liberal candidate as Marisa DeFranco so ruthlessly crushed.
Hopefully Warren, whose positions (as stated on her web site) are somewhat to the right of Barack Obama’s, will prevail over the disgusting Scott Brown, but it will have to be without my help.
There was nothing to crush.
She bought her petition signatures and ran a campaign that never reached out. Most delegates were unaware she even existed until she turned in her petitions. Nobody got up on stage and said a word about her, positive or negative, except her husband who introduced her.
Fortunately for Marisa, she was respectful of the process and seemed very earnest in running against Scott Brown rather than Elizabeth Warren. That means she might be able to run for something successfully in the future, but there is no way in heck she was remotely ready for the US Senate.
DeFranco was not ruthlessly crushed. She simply lost badly. Here are things that I saw:
DeFranco had almost no presence at the convention. She didn’t have a party for delegates. She didn’t have a breakfast for delegates. She didn’t have a rally the day before the convention. She didn’t walk the convention floor greeting delegates. She didn’t stand outside the hall greeting delegates as they arrived. She was invisible until she spoke.
Her speech was slightly better than the quality of speech that you would expect from a candidate for state senate. She gave the entire speech with a single emotional tone. As a result, she received a golf-game level of polite applause, and she lost.
She did have a party the night before. I don’t know when it was scheduled, but I know that she asked me to include it in my newsletter a week ago Friday. I did include it but not everyone gets my “Convention Guide.” I was unable to post my Guide here because of the difficulties that had been happening with the site.
Marisa DeFranco may have good progressive viewpoints and she may very well be a good person, but she was not a good candidate. Being a good candidate means more than supporting good positions with energy and passion.
It also means understanding what’s needed to win an election. It means putting an organization together that can do the necessary groundwork and field work to generate support. Please see the comment above about doing groundwork for the caucuses. It means being able to reach beyond a small core of supporters to build support among a majority of voters. She has zero political or government or Washington experience beyond a single failed bid for Peabody City Council and proved herself unready to run a state-wide campaign. (Yes, I know Elizabeth Warren also has no experience running a political campaign, but she has years of experience in Washington battling for the consumer financial protection agency, not to mention several years on the national stage because of that.)
With all due respect to Tom Keane, winning elections in one Boston City Council district a dozen years ago does not make him wiser about what’s best for the party than the many convention delegates who voted today. And coming from 9 points down to tied despite weeks of negative media bombardment — which it turns out doesn’t matter to the vast majority of voters — is hardly what I’d call a “damaged campaign.”
.
I predicted EITHER DeFranco would get 15.1% OR she’d pull in under 5%. My thinking was: if Warren wanted DeFranco in, the 15.1% would be there. If Warren wanted DeFranco out, she didn’t stand a chance. It was a pretty easy read from the floor.
It’s what those of us elected as delegates wanted. Many of us were elected on committed Warren slates back in February. We made our choice then and organized support to win our caucuses. For those who went into the convention uncommitted, Marisa didn’t make the case that a lopsided primary between her and Warren would somehow help beat Brown. A primary between compelling, charismatic alternatives – think Hilary and Obama in 2008 – is energizing and worthwhile. A primary between a strong, compelling candidate like Warren and a very weak candidate like DeFranco would have served only to delay bringing party resources into the race against Brown. Delegates saw that and gave Warren an unprecedented margin.
There’s no wheeling and dealing and releasing delegates.
Warren would have had to ask supporters to not vote for her. That would be as dangerous for a candidate as it would be stupid.
but it’s also the case that there are plenty of delegates who either (a) would have voted DeFranco quietly if asked, or (b) wouldn’t have voted Warren without as strong a presence. Sure, nailing exactly 15.1% isn’t so easy, but easing off the gas pedal to coast in at under 85% isn’t so hard for a candidate who’s convention ground game is as good as Warren’s.
“Nailing exactly 15.1% isn’t so easy” More impressive then that Chris Gabrieli did it, and without a year of running beforehand.
and that’s what I thought would happen again this time, if Warren wanted it.
…absolutely cannot take credit for the enthusiasm we witnessed in the convention hall today. The national party did not take over the local caucuses. The national party did not make other candidates drop out of the race. It IS the DSCC’s mandate to find candidates who can win; they wouldn’t be doing their job if they didn’t, but it is ultimately the members of the STATE party who make that decision. We cannot afford sour grapes in this race!
Those who think the Massachusetts Democratic Party and our processes are some sort of collective Borg have never been part of the Massachusetts Democrat Party (herding cats is the apt comparison). Warren’s campaign is very different from any race I’ve ever witnessed and it is coming from the ground up – NOT the other way around.
As well oiled as her group is getting, they still have not harnessed the thousands of people who have signed up to volunteer for her. If they manage to get all these people canvassing and such, Scott Brown is in trouble.
it sort of makes me think about the point some have made to compare what happened re: Warren/DeFranco to what happened at the last nominating GOP convention re: Baker/Mihos.
Some have compared the two, but a generic comparison ignores the behind-the-scenes dynamics. Baker’s camp wheeled and dealed to defeat a candidate (Mihos) who polled even or close to even in the GOP primary polls.
Warren organized a slate of delegates who comprised over 90% of the convention floor, against a vanity candidate who had no shot.
Baker would have had trouble beating Mihos, if he could have beat him at all. Warren would have squashed DeFranco like a bug, but Republicans would have benefited from created distractions and, more importantly, the inability of Warren to officially start the campaign against Brown 24/7, ie getting party support, demanding debates, etc.
The State Republican Party really are Borg (just ask Jane Swift), so of course they project their inner weaknesses onto us and try to call us the same. Very few candidates are able to inspire the Democratic base like Warren has — Patrick did it to similar levels, but not even he did so much, so fast.
and Bill Maher. LOL
If Patrick had been on TDS a few times, he totally would have gotten 95%+ in 2006. ^_^
promoting the Consumer Financial Protection Board. People who followed that issue were absolutely thrilled when Warren agreed to run, which is why there was such a groundswell of support as soon as she announced — many already knew how impressive she was. On the other hand, a lot of people who follow politics reasonably closely (myself included) had never heard of Deval Patrick when he started his run. So I think it’s difficult to compare rates of gathering support. I consider both to be extremely impressive on the grassroots support front.
I agree. Warren had the advantage of activists chomping at the bit to join her campaign. For the future Marisa DeFrancos out there contemplating a state-wide race, Deval Patrick’s first campaign is the one you want to study if you’d like to be successful.
It was obvious to me that his campaign had a pretty severe problem on it’s hands to try and gain traction coming from out of nowhere and with other ‘in the wing’s’ candidates having already been well ensconced in the state party for a long time. I saw with my own eyes how, move by move, piece by piece, his campaign executed what was obviously a strategy specifically designed to ‘get there from here’. A campaign that did that much to ‘work the problem’ and succeed starting from the least of ‘ground zero’ positions.
Note also that he didn’t ‘solve’ the dilemma by trying to get attention in the press – he got the attention of opinion-makers first and from that extremely early leg work managed to collect a core group of hard working foot soldiers that was a necessary component to get to the next step of making sure he had delegate representation.
Early on, nobody was predicting that this guy could climb that mountain in this state’s Democratic party – but he implemented a solution designed to do just that – and did it with integrity to boot.
Oh, god, yes. No kidding!
It was also various “liberal” groups that polled their own members, most of whom had not heard of any of the candidates other than Warren, and then proceeded to spread a lot of “gushing hype” (to borrow the words of Amberpaw) to promote Warren over all the other qualified candidates. This is no way to go about endorsing candidates.
I don’t feel that either Tom Keane (who wrote his column before the convention) or I are indulging in sour grapes. Did you bother to read Tom Keane’s column? With their inept handling of the ancestry non-issue, the Warren campaign has shown that they have a lot to learn, which a competitive primary might have taught them.
Marisa DeFranco would not have provided a “competitive primary,” since she had no chance of winning. It just would have meant some siphoning off of resources and energy that we can ill-afford in a close, hugely expensive election.
There’s simply no way to compare this to something like Clinton-Obama. First of all, both of them had a legitimate shot at the nomination. Secondly, at the time they were attacking each other, so were the Republicans. That’s not the case here. Brown isn’t being primaried. Do you think Scott Brown’s camp would have waited until after September to be attacking Warren to allow Warren to “learn” from the Marisa DeFranco primary? Seriously? Of course not. Instead, Warren would have been battling on two fronts for three months — one front not all that threatening, perhaps, but requiring attention nevertheless.
A primary would not have provided this mythical educational breathing space to help the Warren campaign learn and grow before facing Scott Brown. It just would have added to the things the campaign needed to deal with while also dealing with the full barrage of Republican attacks.
her own stinkball issue to handle we might have had an opportunity to see how she would have dispatched it but of course that would require a campaign that generated more light than heat so the opposition could see the target. And if one more private equity guy tries to tell me how MDF got an undemocratic screwing I will puke on his wing tips.
And now to bed – my feet are still sore from standing on concrete all day as one of the Warren Whips for my district! Good night!
“It IS the DSCC’s mandate to find candidates who can win; ”
Well said, Christopher. It was a point that I made months ago to friends who were concerned about the DSCC encouraging a candidate when fundraising and polling for the existing candidates indicated that we did not have a candidate who could win.
…even when you bring in the other groups who promoted Warren. So there was a draft effort – that happens sometimes! It’s not as if they trash-talked the other candidates, but sometimes someone comes along who just seems to be the perfect fit regardless of who else is, is not, or may be in the race. If you are indicating as you did above that you will not help her, even though you hope she wins, then yes I call sour grapes. Remember, this is not about either candidate; it’s about us. I’ve never understood the I’ll-hold-my-breath-and-sit-on-my-hands-if-I-don’t-get-my-way mentality since we need her a lot more than she needs us. In other words, we’re in for six years of horrible representation if she loses, but she personally will either return to Harvard or go into law practice and do just fine for herself and risks only her ego being bruised a little.
After the disappointment in MA-05 special where neither Eldridge (my first choice) nor Donoghue (my second), but Tsongas (somewhere rather further down the list) won, I didn’t grouse too long before supporting the nominee.
After all, it was then between Tsgonas and Oganowski. I mean, come on, no contest. She might be a little over moderate for my taste, but at least she still is in the same ballgame.
Dear god…Tom Keane? Why don’t you go dig up Estes Kefauver while you’re at it and ask his opinion?
nice
…and a good progressive. She could definitely use some political experience, because tone-deaf is an excellent way of describing her campaign.
There was an aspect of her candidacy that was somewhere between hubris (the Dems have to put me on the ballot, and I don’t have the do the work that will get me there) and pretense (maybe I just need an excuse to go away).
The worst part of the last week was how the Boston Herald became her biggest fan, and how easily she just slid right into feeding their talking points. There was a piece of me that really wanted her on the September ballot, but she did everything she could to turn me off. If she wanted to do well yesterday, she needed the Herald to attack her, not promote her. Instead, she seemed to like the free press, not recognizing how much damage it was doing to her.
I am amused at the notion that there was backroom dealing. Mark-Ball made the GREAT point that there was backroom dealing to get everyone on the ballot in 02. Even worse than that was the serious backroom dealing done to get Gabrielli on the ballot in 06. I actually remember leaders of a delegation to remain nameless publicly divvying up which of their delegates would be voting for Chris Gabrielli, to ensure that Chris would get his 15%.
This convention, everyone voted their conscience. It was actually a pleasure to see.
I was pretty sure John Walsh was going to make sure she got fifteen percent, but I guess he either didn’t want a primary, or couldn’t convince people to divvy up their delegations like they did for Gabrielli. I thought the primary would enable Warren to show she was not as radical about reproductive rights as DeFranco, and attract more independent voters.
But perhaps there really isn’t any difference between Warren and DeFranco on those women’s issues, and so she wouldn’t have been able to position herself as more centrist, she’d just have had to agree with DeFranco and that would have shined a light where she doesn’t want it shined.
Or, perhaps they were starting to worry that lots of Brown supporters like me had already set Sept 6th in their calendars and didn’t want to risk it.
Democrats really voted according to their conscience. Here’s something that hurt Marisa: The Boston Herald’s support.
At a Democratic convention, the support of the Herald is deadly.
John Howard,
You are the least likely person to be able to tell what’s going on in John Walsh’s mind, or even guess what he can or can’t do.
And we all know that when you say “woman’s issues” you really mean your crazy egg and sperm rants, which have absolutely nothing to do with this race (or any race).
I have now read Cutey’s last sentence four times and, for the life of me, I have no idea what he is saying. No. Idea.
Who is the “they” in that sentence? Conservatives believe in making change slowly, which is why it’s surprising to see a conservative toss subject-verb agreement out the window entirely.
What is going on there? It’s like watching someone wage war on the English language…and language is clearly losing.
he thinks Democrats were worried that hundreds of thousands of Republicans were going to change their party affiliation in order to vote for Marisa? Yeah, scary.
Only dipweeds are registered Republicans. Or registered Democrats for that matter. Unenrolled people can vote in either primary, but we can’t go to either convention (hence the need for photo ids, to keep all us normal people from storming the conventions pretending to be Deval Patrick).
Btw, ten bucks says we see Marisa DeFranco on the ballot in Novermber as an independent.
Is the last day for Non-Party candidates to submit their 10,000 signatures. I thinks she won’t have to pay for them this time.
DeFranco is not eligible to run as a non-party candidate in 2012. Last day for a candidate to unenroll from a party was March 6.
Huh, that rule kind of sucks, how is someone going to know if their party is going to allow them on the primary ballot in advance?
It prevents sour grape candidates, which is fine by me. If you are truly an “independent” then you should start out RUNNING as one. Otherwise, take your chances.
tens of thousands of passionate unenrolled voters would have streamed to the Democratic primary the Thursday after Labor Day. Democrats were truly petrified of the possibility, as they are of a DeFranco independent run.
…to register by party before 12/31/11 in order to participate in the caucus/convention process. Members of the party have every right to put their thumb on the scale to decide who will be able to run as a Democrat. DeFranco won’t seek an independent run, and she won’t get anywhere if she does try. She should consider a sticker campaign for one of the Middleton legislative seats.
are dipweeds, but people whose political designation is “Egg and Sperm” are normal?
C’mon John Howard, the first part is debatable but I doubt even you believe egg and sperm partisanship is normal. Otherwise you wouldn’t have to keep working so hard at it, would you?
None of that is true, and don’t-get-cute is more than my name, it’s to be taken literally. So, without ranting, i mean “women’s issues” as nothing more than what DeFranco has on her “women” Issues page and which is talked about nightly on Fox News: Contraception, planned parenthood, abortion, sex selection, the church, blunt amendment, etc. That’s all.
We know you’re John Howard, and we know what you mean by “women’s issues.”
Hell, even when you’re trying to boast about your normal-ness, you put something nuts and completely undiscussed and irrelevant in any sort of a campaign like “sex selection.” Seriously, who ever talks about that?
Puh-leeze, John. You are incapable of hiding yourself — the crazy can’t help itself but to spill forth.
Right, because Walsh tells us to jump, we all ask how high.
Not.
Also, the rules are totally different and really don’t allow for this sort of maneuvering anyway. And John Walsh is not one of those manipulative sorts, he would NOT step in the way of a true Democratic process. He believes in that process completely. I know the guy personally and I am sick of people insinuating he is some sort of insider with no conscience.
You know crap all of what you speak. You show your ignorance with every passing comment.
He’s the party chief, certainly an “insider” and I’m not saying he has no conscience (you must be missing my point). I’m saying he is supposed to have influence to lead the party. If Warren and Walsh had wanted a primary, it’d would have been Walsh who herded just enough of her supporters to give DeFranco the 15.1% I certainly hope you aren’t saying that delegates should not listen to Walsh or Warren about anything, and told them how high to jump.
Not a party dictator. And yes, he calls me on occasion Guess I’m an insider too, then. And why is it HIS job to do Marisa’s job??…as someone else asked.
And no we should NOT listen to Walsh or Warren if we don’t feel like it. If someone tells me how to vote against my own will, um…well, I hope that I would have the guts to tell them to go screw.
And that is not how the Dem party works under Walsh. Personally I’m happy we’re no longer in the bad old days. It’s much more pleasant, and FAIR since everyone is playing by the same goddamned rules.
–
‘Nuff said.
I don’t get the communiques…I have no fillings.
Imagine John Ratzenberger as Cliff Clavin reading aloud Cutey’s comments about how the state’s Democratic grassroots “must” operate (Well, you see, ah, that’s the old communique from party boss John Walsh, ah…)
not the best for democracy, but the best for Marisa DeFranco and her supporters. I am still trying to shake off the hatefulness I experienced here while supporting a perfectly wonderful Democrat. It was really awful.
I do like Elizabeth Warren and I hope that she wins. My word of advice is to not forget the independents. You don’t get independents by hanging out in a blog agreeing with other Dems (although you can lose them by trashing the independents who were visiting this site while you were all becoming werewolves). It’s hard work out there talking politics to people who are not necessarily of your ideology, and to do it in a way that is persuasive and respectful.
So, it’s great that E Warren won 95+% of the delegate votes at the convention, but it really doesn’t mean all that much. The thing about delegates is that many of them maintain the same sphere of influence they’ve had for years, and that sphere always votes for Democrats anyway. I think that is what is so irritating about the whole thing. What’s to be so excited about a bunch of Democrats choosing a Democrat? We haven’t even come close to winning this election yet. I hope every single delegate is out there talking to independents at least several times a week. That is what it’s going to take to get the job done.
de·moc·ra·cy
a: government by the people; especially: rule of the majority b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
Many of the DeFranco supporters who came here appeared, IMHO, to not actually be DeFranco supporters. They were garden variety, under-the-bridge-dwelling trolls, who came here to perpetuate the smear against Warren’s ancestry, and they were treated accordingly.
If I remember correctly, you first showed up here supporting Ed O’Reilly against John Kerry, did you not? And Ed O joined the swift boaters to smear Kerry in his quixotic bid for the senate – are you seeing a pattern here? Maybe you need to rethink your criteria for candidate selection…
I’m in it for real change. I’ve been fighting for change for longer than Ed O’reilly’s campaign. I just happened to find BMG during that time. Doesn’t it seem interesting to you how the candidates that might be the best ones for us are swept up into that sort of thing all the time (swift boat, heritage controversy) outraging the base and ensuring that they never win . Almost wonder if it’s a strategy on the part of the right to keep the real progressives off the ballot. Interesting strategy they have going on there, and you all fall for it with relative ease.
…for its utter naivete! You’re actually saying that the true progressives are being set up by the right wing to participate in their smears?
Both Ed O and MDF could have easily pivoted away from the smears, if they were even close to being decent candidates. When asked about them, simply say “That’s a right wing smear and I won’t dignify it with a response. The real issues in this election are [insert real issues here]”
But neither of them did that. Why? Because they were both lousy candidates. Ed O had the Gloucester school committe on his resume – where he had been elected chairperson, but gave up the post citing a lack of time. And MDF had no elective experience at all. Your idea of a true progressive falls way short of mine, sorry.
…which I think is precisely why some are relieved to not have a primary so we can talk to independents rather than debate each other over who will be our nominee.
.