Our media have been pretty bored with our Senate race from the beginning. Rather than big, reality-TV style blowups, it’s as if the real action has been below the surface, on the structural level of campaign and party organization. We keep reading that the Ed Markey is not “charismatic” (I don’t actually agree), that the grassroots are not on fire the way they were for Warren/Obama/Deval; and that the specter of the Coakley campaign haunts Democrats even to this day. Gomez is interesting to the press, but rather undefined.
While the Cherokee silliness could maintain attention in a Presidential election year, I doubt that “pond scum” can do the same in a special. Markey’s ads are accurate and fairly effective, but dutiful and restrained; while Gomez’s “Dirty Ed Markey” ad seems like a defensive, goofy 1994-era retread. Term limits? What is this, 1994? Even the tax issue, that predictable GOP saw, cuts mostly the liberal way these days: Most people feel the rich should pay more. And on guns and choice, Markey’s got Gomez’s number.
Today we hear the welcome news that Gomez actually accepts that humans kinda sorta cause global warming, and that it’s a problem. (It’s such a low bar for us to be happy with Republicans, like applauding a toddler for using the toilet instead of the floor.) But the big question is What does he plan to do about it? Does he plan to fight for strong global warming legislation — the way that Ed Markey already has done? Does he oppose Keystone XL? (No.) Does he support home-grown wind power? (No.) Can he take on the lunatic elements of his own party, getting his elbows dirty in the hard work of consensus-making and legislation? Or does he continue the Scott Brown method, to waver, posture, and preen, and wait for the grapes of bipartisanship to be dangled over his mouth this way, just a little more?
So yeah, the race remains a little weird, a little amorphous-feeling. But perhaps the debate Wednesday night will give us some things to chew on.
Having spent 36 years actually doing legislative work, Markey may lack the tangy zip of a Deval Patrick or Elizabeth Warren. (I’ve even heard some media critiques of his clipped “Mayor Quimby” accent — Isn’t this still Massachusetts??) Maybe so. But he’s got better than “charisma” — he’s got an identity. “Congressman” is not an insult, as Gomez says; it’s an honor and a damned important job. Ask anyone suffering from the “sequestration” cuts — from Head Start kids to biomedical researchers — whether Congress’s work — or dysfunction — matters. You don’t notice it until it doesn’t get done.
Markey can play to his strengths. He needs to present himself as principled, in touch, experienced, and expert-not-condescending on policy. And perhaps most importantly, he should look forward and say what he wants to do as Senator. The big danger of an experienced candidate is that one wonders if his best days are behind him. Markey’s got the requisite energy, but he needs to highlight his program, how he intends to apply his experience to a new job.
I don’t know what Gomez has going for him beyond his experience as Navy Seal. That’s an ace in his hand, a genuine accomplishment; but what else has he got? He’s plausibly charismatic … but to what purpose? Does he have positions or a message that resonate with the voting public? Is he riding a wave of anti-incumbent or anti-Democratic disgust? It seems like his best hope is that Markey seems asleep, aloof, or otherwise out-of-touch, and he seems more plugged in, like he listens better. That’s the Brown/Coakley formula, but one that depends on the Democrat(s) being caught napping. But it still seems like an awfully weak hand to play.
Markey is an accomplished public servant with an excellent justification for running, and being elected Senator. It doesn’t always turn out that the best-qualified person runs, or that he wins. But besides his résumé, temperament, and requisite energy level, it’s his commitment to good quality public service that distinguishes him, even among other Democrats in Congress. It’s such an old-fashioned, Norman Rockwell/Frank Capra concept, one that gets lost in our understandable contempt for Washington’s dysfunction, plutocracy and misanthropy. Service, commitment to justice, and legislative results aren’t flashy; they’re not good reality-TV; but they’re still what matter.
When you vote for Markey on June 25, you’re voting for a workhorse, not a showhorse. That’s good enough, and I hope that’s what comes across on Wednesday.
And focus on what really matters in a Senator. A good Senator should be either passionate, experienced, or approachable. A great Senator is all three. Ed Markey will be a great Senator. Every time I have met him or interacted with him, he is very approachable and open to talking with his constituents, even friends from other states who have bumped into him in DC can attest to this approachability. He is certainly passionate about climate change, an issue that we need a real drum major force in the Senate to keep advancing, and he is passionate about the bread and butter issues that form the backbone of our party and our movement, at a time when too many in the party are abandoning working families. Hard to argue with experienced, especially when even right of center academics agree he is one of the most accomplished legislators in the House, and especially when contrasted to the thinnest of public policy resumes in his opponent. At least Brown was a State Senator first.
Gomez is all style and no substance, and unlike Brown, even his style is a big turnoff. Including to significant portions of his own party and base. And unlike Brown, who at least had some experience in state politics, Gomez is a huge neophyte to politics in general and still cannot articulate why he is running or what he hopes to accomplish. He claims to be independent, but seems reluctant to take real stances that would distance himself from the national GOP. Give Brown credit where it is due, at least he was vocally pro-choice and unafraid to buck his party on that issue, Gomez like Ted Kennedy once said about Romney is ‘multiple choice’-and not just on abortion rights but on nearly every issue. This shouldn’t be a contest, the fact that it still is plays to Gomez’s strength as a different looking Republican and fresh face and due to the medias insistence that its closer and that Markey isn’t sealing the deal. Ed is leading the progressive grassroots has to walk the walk, literally, and hit every door. We will not be caught off guard and flat footed again.
I was so emotionally and personally invested in Dan Winslow’s campaign, I thought my reaction to Gomez was just sour grapes. Then I started hearing from other moderate GOP’s who had the same reaction. Today, Gomez announced that he wanted to separate himself from the Republican Party, instead of having the guts to reform what he doesn’t like.
I can never get enthusiastic about a candidate who has a tag line of – ‘I’m entirely ignorant of the job! Vote for ME!’ but I had hoped that there were some ideas beneath the outsider stereotype. Mock Scott all you will, but he served at the local level, and as a Rep. and Senator before running for Congress.
I had hoped that Gomez had some ideas or qualities that would justify his running for the highest electoral office in the state without any prior experience in government. Mock Mitt all you will, but he shut down the hack-o-rama that was the MDC, streamlined state human service agences without losing services, etc., using his experience as an executive who made millions figuring out what paper clips actually cost.
Gomez isn’t even an empty suit – he’s an empty navy surplus jacket.
Scott had far better style and significantly more substance than Gomez, a lot of that substance and experience was pursuing policies I significantly disagreed with, but hard to argue Scott was not qualified to be a Senator.
I am curious, as a moderate Republican if you are so unenthusiastic about Gomez, and if the more social/neocon leaning RMG crowd is so unenthusiastic, who voted for this guy? Is voting against Ed and Obama by proxy enough to get y’all to the polls?
Also as a friend of Dan’s can you confirm the rumors he wants AG and can you confirm if he will ever come back to BMG, I honestly miss his contributions.
IMO, the Myopia Crowd. (It’s the hunt club, but also an attitide that contributes to their inability to see clearly).
The north shore GOP has a strong infrastructure – electoral and financial – and were comfortable with one of their own (like Romney, Healey, Tisei, Baker, Jones, Tarr, et al). They are not fond of South Shore GOPs’ who tend to have a strong TEA Party presence. Sullivan carried the non-Myopic vote, but organization counts in primaries.
That said, too many unenrolleds who lean conservative took Dem ballots to ‘reward’ Lynch for voting against Obamacare – which was stupid, they could never have prevailed in the Dem primary, but they could have had a real influence in the GOP one.
Thought the Myopia Crowd was behind Winslow though, or does he occupy the ‘unsweet’ spot of pissing off the moderate establishment clubby types while also being too socially moderate for the South Shore tea party types? I also wonder if Gomez’s ability to self-finance sealed the deal for some, if they’d lose the race at least the State GOP isn’t out a couple million. Winslow would be a real contender for AG, though the open Treasurer spot would be an easier climb.
Actually, when you think about it, Dan was first in and Gomez was recruited LATER, and Sullivan later than that when the Pro-Life people realized that neither candidate fit thier social requirements.
No, Kaufman and the same crowd that brought you Jim Ogonowski was also behind Gomez, by and large.
Currently MA primaries are semi-open — a Republican can only vote in a Republican primary, but an Unenrolled (often erroneously called “independent”) voter can vote in exactly one primary election for the office, be it GOP, Dem, Green-Rainbow, etc.
I’m of the opinion that we should have closed primaries, although I’m not sure how that would dovetail with same day registration. As a long-time GOP Mass participant, what do you think?
* porcupine: I know you know the different kind of primary systems; the intro was for the benefit of others…
I was terrified a lot of social conservatives would jump over to pick Lynch and stick it to Markey, fortunately Lynch reversed himself and kept those guys in the Sullivan fold. I wonder if we could close at the statewide level and keep it open for presidential races. Since you can only pick one primary ballot there, I feel it is less likely you’d waste your one vote in the wrong party. But some relatives voted for McCain in 2000 and I think that was within their right, even if they were Democrats. Similarly, I know some moderate Republicans who voted for Obama (partly because they like him, partly to block Clinton) in the 08 primary.
UNENROLLED is the majority party in the state.
Having closed promaries would force a little ownership onto political gadflies. Social/TEA Party people would actually REGISTER as Consitution or Libertarian which is what they really are. Progressivess would be Green, which is what THEY really are. I’d like to see a five party state – it would break the ruling oligarchy in the legislature, it would restore some vibrancy to the party system. And I see no reason to change it for Presidential primaries. My spouse used to be unenrolled and vote for Kucinich in primaries because he’d be ‘weakest’. Now, my spouse is a GOP and involved in the actual party.
…I’d like IRV to be part of the deal.
I don’t think we’ll ever have a proliferation of parties, regardless of primary voter eligibility.
If the Greens were smart they would target vulnerable DINOs in 5-10 leg seats and make them competitive, and target down ballot constitutional officers. There is plenty of room to Bumps left if she is unopposed, they could
run against Galvin again and they could cross endorse Democratic legislators, possibly working with Progressive MA. Not to mention contest city council and school committee seas. You’d assume a localist party would start locally,
but I guess it’s more fun and rebellious to give us Bush for 8 years or run against progressive candidates like Barack and Deval. Certainly does
nothing to build ther party.
of some importance.
1. The Greens did not “give us Bush for 8 years.” I will always believe that Gore won Florida. But, putting that aside, he couldn’t carry his home state or New Hampshire, either of which would have made him President without Florida. There was a very good reason people didn’t want to vote for Al Gore: the corporatist record of the Clinton Administration. Piss on your base and they don’t vote for you.
2. I can’t see how we can talk about Obama as a “progressive” at this point in time.
My broader point is they need to run locally to be relevant rather than run vanity candidates who have no chance of winning.
wrote their articles mentally on the evening of April 30. It’s Brown-Coakley redux. The grassroots aren’t engaged. Markey’s boring.
Meanwhile, it’s not 2010, the national GOP is mud in Massachusetts, Gomez has been a gaffe machine, we had well over 100 volunteers out knocking on doors in just my local area alone each of the past two weekends, with more coming as we get deeper into June. I’ve been out there every weekend since April 27.
Markey, I find, is charismatic in person but less so on TV or giving his stump speech. Gomez, I thought, seemed fairly telegenic on primary night, but he can be rattled. And he’s got no answers on policy questions. I’d like to see him called out on that during the debate.
It’s hard to say it’s “still close” because, frankly, I don’t know that it is. Cook said, “Hey, we don’t think Gomez really has a snowball’s chance, but we’re moving it to tossup due to our methodology, because Markey hasn’t “pulled away” from Gomez. Reason for that is simple: we haven’t seen a poll in over two weeks (which I find odd).
But we’ll do the work like it’s very, very close. Like they say in the NBA, play the game, not the score.
Which is why I love that we still have David Bernstein in a local publication, though he has been wrong on occasion, he avoids a lot of the standard cliches of the political pundit class. Among them are presuming the most centrist candidate is automatically the most electable, assuming that every election looks just like some other contest even if they are totally different, and declaring which candidates are charismatic and which ones are boring. To be honest, I’d agree with Fenway that Ed is terrible on tv and far more compelling in person, but Gomez isn’t all that charismatic to me. He seems really unsure of why he is running and what he wants to say and gets tripped up by easy questions. If anyone is like Gore and listening to way too many consultants at once, it’s him not Ed.
Now to make a cliche of my own, this debate will be like Biden-Ryan. Old school Dem pol everyone expects to be weak and boring versus the charismatic fresh GOP face, and it turns out he wasn’t ready for primetime. We will have to see though.
I like it.