Blue Mass Group

John Walsh promised a “rock’em sock ‘em” set of delegate breakfasts at the convention, and the depth of Massachusetts’ political talent has not disappointed. Sure, we saw Deval Patrick torch the Time Warner arena last night, leaving only rhetorical cinders in his path. But this morning, with emcees Walsh and Ed Markey, we were treated to Mike Dukakis, Barney Frank, Martha Coakley (funny! it’s true!), Mark Shriver (Sargent’s son), Bill Galvin (a force for light, as it pertains to voting laws), Steve Grossman, and Jim McGovern.

Think about that kind of depth. I only hope we’ve got another generation coming up who is as talented.

Barney Frank illustrated the difference between “Myth” and Mitt Romney, and ruefully suggested that MA Democrats could have done a lot more with the guy Romney was supposed to be: A business and job-creation ninja of spotless integrity, rather than a rather ordinary plutocrat and opportunist. (We were frankly rather lucky that universal health care was one of his opportunities of which he availed himself.)

Coakley told a little joke about Scott Brown and Mitch McConnell driving in a truck …

Bill Galvin spoke of the essential mission of increasing voting, of the recent voting fraud scandal in western MA, and warned that we as Democrats need to be prepared for a recount, for provisional ballots in every state. “They’re trying to figure out how to prevent people from voting, we want people to vote!” Pretty fundamental difference.

Mark Shriver talked about his father’s incredible religious faith, energy and legacy: Peace Corps, Head Start, Legal Services, Upward Bound, and told stories of his father’s influence on JFK’s attitudes towards Martin Luther King. He’s a remarkable example of a time of seemingly infinite possibility. Here’s the entire audio file of his remarks, about 12 minutes. (I apologize for a totally unacceptable level of background noise, but that’s amateur field recording for you.)

I’ll add more to this post as I figure out my technical tools.