Usually I love reading David Bernstein, he was one of the highlights of the dearly departed (still feels weird saying it) Phoenix and an astute and fair minded commentator on the local political scene. But today he made his best Dan From Waltham and EB3 impression recycling stale Lynch talking points that the ‘elite’ ‘bought’ this election for Markey.
The article entitled The Elites Have Chosen states the following
And that was that. Word went out from on high that Ed Markey was to be the Democratic nominee, and suddenly an awful lot of people forgot their pledges to support other pols. Past contributors could no longer bring themselves to write names like Capuano or Downing on their checks. Those who would ordinarily love to work on a Senate campaign found themselves more concerned with the proverbial ‘ever working in this town again’.
Thus the path was cleared — except for the squeaky Lynch wheel, who had little to lose and a substantial chip on his shoulder. Unfortunately for him, his record of alienating the party’s liberal base pushed the grassroots activists directly into the hands of the elite’s candidate. That, and a short, frequently disrupted campaign, was an awful lot for Lynch to overcome.
Can’t say the hundreds of thousands of Democratic primary voters who came out for Lynch and Markey would agree, can’t say the thousands of volunteers and the hours they put in would make that argument either. Had Lynch been a more mainstream Democrat he might have won, had McGovern or Capuano decided to go in, they might have attracted more progressive supporters from Markey, and did Downing an obscure state pol from Western MA really have any chance? David seems off on this one.
SomervilleTom says
Ed Markey is a superior legislator by just about any standard I can imagine, and he will make a fine Senator. I expect back-alley low-blows from GOP scum like Mr. Ferhnstrom — I hold fellow Democrats to a much higher standard.
Speaking of slummy back-alley tactics, what — other than sheer ageism — motivates Mr. Gomez’s tacky attack on Ed Markey? What, other than attention-grabbing headlines, motivates the Boston Globe to do anything other than dismiss it?
It looks like the Globe/Herald is leading towards yet another meaningless food-fight where the stupidest and most offensive comments crowd out any substantive debate on real issues.
jconway says
You can hardly call him a Coakley, the Lynch run helped him prime up his grassroots operation and get it started. It wasn’t flawless, too many under 30s who are solid Deval and Obama supporters weren’t contacted to vote, let alone volunteer. But they have enough time to recalibrate for the general, I suspect a decent number will come back when the choice is between a Republican and Dem, not an interDem fight.
I guess people might fault him for sitting 2009 out, but Capuano and Lynch were going to run and it’s was bad for the Dean of the Delegation to get involved in a three way primary, better to make Capuano with Frank and call it a day. And considering his politics align with Warren I don’t see why he’d challenge her. But there was space to the left of Markey in the primary for a Capuano, McGovern, or Keating but they choose to sit out. And it’s not like they are strapped for cash either since they got their re-election funds, particularly Keating. Downing would’ve been this cycles DeFranco.
fenway49 says
says he doesn’t want “to take anything away from either nominee, or those who worked very hard for those nominees, or those who voted in strong support of them,” but then spends the rest of the discussion pointing out how we’d all just been tools of the “Democratic party elite.”
I had no idea. I thought I was just supporting the candidate who best matched my values. David, who would write a check for “Capuano or Downing” when they didn’t enter the race? It’s a big assumption that the reason the donations were not forthcoming is that all their supporters were terrified of being blackballed.
jconway says
No sources either, just all mindless speculation, worthy of DFW or EB3. He didn’t have a “my buddy janitor at the State House overheard deleo say” kinda sourcing that EB3 was famous for.
And I will actually go to bat for Gomez too, plenty of prominent Bay State Republicans backed Sullivan and pushed him in the race, it’s not Gomez’s fault that his opponent was a lackluster campaigner and neither one of them could get a tv ad up. It must sting for Winslow, but I suspect he used this race as a networking opportunity to connect himself to MA Republicans for a statewide run next year. Would love for him to come back here and explain his side of the story. But Gomez got on the air, which made a lot of difference in this race.
merrimackguy says
but the “insider” candidate was Winslow, at least when you are talking about Boston metro. The Central MA and S Shore insiders were behind Sullivan. The “elites’ have almost no control over the MA Republican base at any rate. Gomez votes were mostly from people that were unexcited by the other two, and thought that maybe someone like Gomez had a chance to win.
hlpeary says
Whether you want to admit it or not, Bernstein is accurate about what transpired. People do not like to know they have been manipulated, but that, indeed, is what goes on. The poobahs got what they wanted and are not very concerned about the means…
sco says
I agree that there was subtle and not-so-subtle pressure on big time donors to send their money to Markey over Lynch, particularly from the national folks. Likewise, folks like Downing and other potential entrants gave it a pass because they found the spigot dry. Left-leaning activists, however, were not manipulated into supporting Markey. They have long thought that Lynch is terrible and have primaried him unsuccessfully for a couple of the past few cycles.
lynne says
Any liberalish big time donor would not WANT to give Lynch their money…as he is not even close to a liberal in his platform or voting record.
Once the field was set to Markey and Lynch (mostly by dint of the others in the delegation declining to jump in) it was a normal, regular race with a start difference, and of COURSE most of the base chose Markey. Duh!
lynne says
not the one who lost his head.
jconway says
His opponent ran more ads, had more union support, and a stronger base of support within his district. People worked their asses off for Markey to win, and it’s really ridiculous to argue he was coronated when so many volunteered and he just won a fairly competitive primary. Most Markey supporters which the DSCC stayed out of it I might add, it hurt more than helped. But sure pretend Lynch never existed, pretend Obama was born in Kenya while you’re at it.
lynne says
out in my neck of the woods was basically the Warren campaign redux, and they were GUNG HO for working for Markey, too.
abs0628 says
We had Warren and Obama folks, as well as veterans of Deval’s campaigns. But the overwhelming commonality was people who worked for Warren.
SomervilleTom says
I’d like to see whatever evidence you have that I was manipulated.
I have no clue about what “poobah” you mean. It looks to me like the people got what we wanted. Please show me ANY evidence that Democrats wanted Mr. Lynch.
mike_cote says
Isn’t he a huge “poobah” in the Democratic Party? After all, he voted for Ross Perot and Scott Brown. Isn’t that proof enough?
Did anyone think about all the poor little coal miners in West Virginia? What are they going to do now? Did anyone think of the poor little Keystone XL Pipeline executives? What are they going to do now?
fenway49 says
the votes for Reagan, George W. Bush, and Mitt Romney for President, and Kerry Healey and Charlie Baker for Governor. Dan’s a huge Democratic “poobah” indeed. He’s just been undercover with the other side for 35 years.
John Tehan says
No, really, they did! I pressed him for links to other posts of his where folks called him a communist, and he – well, er, ah, um – he didn’t have any! But he did show me a link where someone disagreed with him when he was defending Romneycare, so that’s totally the same thing as being called a communist, right?
mike_cote says
if it bit them on the arse. His favorite Marx is Zeppo!
kbusch says
No he’s a poo without the bah part.
But mike_cote, you are completely obsessed with DFW. You just have to get over him.
mike_cote says
He was so talking smack about Markey and praising the DINO Lynch, I want to gloat, desperately!
oceandreams says
leaders in a political party have an opinion or try to exert influence. Um, it’s a political organization. That’s what these people do.
If we take a step back, well, in many states you wouldn’t have had any say at all; the only one who would have had a “vote” would have been the governor.
Given all that, I’m hard pressed to complain about the process.
kbusch says
Also I like the fact that our cuddly, gracious Poobahs prevented a split in the liberal vote that might have netted Lynch the nomination. If hlpeary knows who they are, I’d like to know too.
To whom do I mail my thank you note?
lynne says
if you want to talk about any “elites” “choosing” Markey, it was the other heavyweights who decided NOT to run, which, if I’m not mistaken, is entirely their own prerogative. I don’t think I’ve heard ANY substantive evidence there was pressure on Capuano or McGovern to not run?
abs0628 says
I too generally appreciate Bernstein’s excellent writing and solid sourcing but this column struck me as really weak recycling of conventional wisdom — especially on his other point, which no one up thread has yet mentioned, that the “coronation” of Elizabeth Warren is another example of this phenomenon.
Apparently a grassroots movement of thousands of people to draft a political novice (Warren) and raise tons of $ for her before it was at all clear she would even run and before it was clear she would excel at retail politics is easy to forget and dismiss. It sure is much easier to claim that the party elites just coronated her. Also I seem to recall there was a primary in that race with quite a few other candidates, one of whom made it to the nominating convention. Did the party elites eventually join ranks behind Warren? Sure — AFTER the grassroots of the party made it crystal clear that she was OUR candidate, and then we all busted our asses to get her elected.
I think there’s a tiny bit more truth in Bernstein’s claim about the party elites joining ranks around Markey but he draws the wrong conclusions and makes way too much of it. It was very clear to anyone who was paying attention at the time that the grassroots of the party — the folks at the local level who got the Governor elected and re-elected, and who worked so hard for Warren — were lining up early and solidly behind Markey, especially when the alternative was Lynch. I can’t imagine the party elites were ignorant of the fact that the Patrick/Warren grassroots in this state was loudly and solidly for Markey very early on. And on the flip side, despite that, the state party did a great job, in my opinion, of supporting both candidates’ right to be in the race and make their case to the voters.
usergoogol says
The idea that the party elite picked the candidate and the voters picked the candidate are not as mutually exclusive as they might seem. Party elite are, after all, not some cabal of shadowy overlords, they’re people chosen directly or indirectly by the members of the Democratic party. So if the elites try to pull behind a candidate, they might very well pick a candidate who the voters would have supported anyway. And you also have the opposite direction: people learn about which candidates they would like to support in part by looking at what elites have to say.
Elites are shaped by the regular people and regular people are shaped by the elites. Politics is about the convoluted back and forth interplay between these two halves, not just the people idealistically representing their interests or the elites callously imposing their will.
kittyoneil says
It’s was both…the party elites strongly favored Markey, mostly because he better reflects the party here. As such, they worked for Markey and everything fell nicely into place for him. They couldn’t come out against Lynch because he’s a sitting congressman….I don’t really find anything remarkable about any of these statements. It was just an exaggerated example of how it always works.