http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/820531
As some of you may know, I am not a member of the progressive community. But I respect the judgments of dear friends like Dr. Dave Nicholas of Virginia who was a colleague of Dr. Berwick for many years. Dave was our Peace Corps doctor in Niger 50 years ago; he, too, is a person of enormous good will and like Don has devoted his career to improving the lives of all of us.
https://berwickforgovernor.ngpvanhost.com/contribute-nicholas
Please share widely!
That’s my question for him and his backers at the moment. It’s clear Coakley is still the front runner and Grossman seems best positioned to beat her and win a general. He is also the only candidate who seems to have a relationship with and a plan to work with the Legislature. He strikes me as the clear anti-Coakley and the most likely to actually implement his policies.
Unfortunately he has had little to say about transit, education or single payer and he supports casinos. I prefer Berwick on the issues but I need to know he can beat Coakley and get things done.
It’s February. The convention is June, the primary September. There’s tons of time to support Berwick and hope he moves up in the standings. If he doesn’t, there’ll be plenty of time to change horses. At this point in the race, it seems to me to be perfectly reasonable to back the guy who you want to be governor, not the guy who is the one you like the most of the ones you think could win the office.
Worrying about “electability” is a trap – always has been. At least in the primary, vote for the candidate you actually like the best.
I find it hard not to think about electability as one factor to consider in deciding on a primary vote. Can it be a trap, sure. But electability, while not necessarily easy to predict, is important. Of course, if you stick to the issues…. I thought Obama was going to close Gitmo, and here we are, 5 years in. So the issues don’t always work out either.
… “electability” all I hear is “I’m not sure what I think of a candidate but I’m pretty sure I know what everybody else thinks of the candidate.” I daresay that’s the trap that David mentioned prior.
I disagree, petr. That’s not what “electability” means to me. Electability isn’t who’s ahead in the polls, or who is most popular at a particular time. It’s an assessment of who will be the best candidate in a general election. Coakley’s ahead in the polls but I have serious doubts about her electability.
Though I appreciate your comments and they help clarify the pick, at least until the conventions, there are two big concerns it doesn’t address.
The first is, using your logic I should’ve stuck with Obama in the 08 primaries because he was the big ideas candidate and the one I agreed with on the issues. I now feel strongly that he ended up governing the way Clinton would’ve anyway in terms of the issues and governed more poorly than she would’ve since he was inexperienced. Patrick, whom I also supported, had a steep learning curve his first year dealing with the legislature. I want a Governor able to actually move legislation and policy on Beacon Hill and I wonder if-like Reich (who I also supported) the big ideas guy might not be the best executive administrator and legislative pusher. Grossman has a better record of running a large part of state government and getting the legislature on board, the issues he has talked about are issues where he is progressive.
I want to see Grossman engage Berwick’s ideas and talk about them and I want Berwick to talk about how he plans to govern. It’s too early to dismiss Berwick and back Grossman as a safer but less exciting choice. I didn’t meant to argue that’s what I was doing. It’s also too early to commit and I want to see more from both candidates before I can make a decision. I have concerns about both.
My top concerns about Berwick are electability and working with the Lege. No, it’s not too early to worry about electability. I don’t want to go out and work hard for someone who’s main impact on the race will be splitting the non-Martha vote and letting a dithering, ineffective candidate (sorry Kate D) into the final. Also, even if Berwick gets elected, I don’t want him to be another governor whose plans get shredded by an insular legislature to the point where it almost doesn’t matter who’s in the Corner Office.
Deval Patrick was obviously electable, and was (in my view) neither “dithering” nor “ineffective” (in contrast to Ms. Coakley). Yet he was effectively steamrolled by the Sal DiMasi.
With the current legislature in place, I’m not sure ANY governor will make much difference in the issues at the top of my list. Deval Patrick was forced to roll on tax increases, on sustainable public transportation, and on casino gambling. I don’t think ANY of the current candidates (including Charlie Baker) are likely to be more successful than Deval Patrick at dealing with the legislature in general and Mr. DiMasi in particular.
I think our political capital is best targeted towards changing the legislature. If “option a”, for example, was a new progressive Speaker and Governor Baker, and “option b” was Sal DiMasi as Speaker and ANY of the announced candidates, I’ll take “option a”.
Yes, I think it’s THAT bad. The worse of all worlds, of course, is “option c” — Sal DiMasi as Speaker and Charlie Baker as governor. That, in fact, is my biggest fear about this race as it seems to be shaping up.
Rather than Sal DiMasi?
(I tend to agree with you, unfortunately.)
We’ve been discussing Mr. DiMasi so much here I forgot the reason why. 🙂
Yes, I meant Bob DeLeo.
Grossman’s been around for a long time, and in my opinion has been a progressive non-entity. Berwick may be new on the scene, but he’s got big, powerful ideas. Now doesn’t feel like the time to play it safe and go with the middle ground, and anyway I usually go with the big ideas guy or gal any chance I get. I see it as a way to actually make waves, the same way I felt with Patrick and Warren. But the only way we’ll find out if he can back up his big ideas is by giving him that 15% chance to get on the map!
I didn’t mean to imply Berwick hasn’t earned his 15%. I’m not a participant at the caucus or convention level, but I am hoping to move
back to MA in time to participate in the primary as a voter and that’s the decision I was alluding. I’m still undecided between them.
I like Berwick’s ideas, I am just unconvinced thus far that he has the charisma like Patrick or the legislative genius of Warren to be the effective champion for those ideas. I want to be convinced and hope to be. Grossman has a lot of legislative/administrative experience but also lacks the passion and big picture needed. So I want them both to keep coming here and answering questions and I want their supporters to keep engaging them. Best way to make a decision.
I understand that you like Don Berwick, but I don’t like the link to your personal fundraising web-page. Just my opinion.
at the bottom is Berwick’s Issues. Economy/Jobs seem to be missing. That might be a big one to omit.
Listen, he seems like a decent guy, but if he wants to shed the image as a health care academic he needs to mix in some meat and potato issues.
None of them are punching the ticket on the core Governor issues, such as infrastructure, taxation, and local government.
No Democrat that I can remember has ever won the corner office without addressing those issues, at least the first two.
…afterall, it said “contribute” in the link, not like you should not have knows where it was going.